ASRock Unveils World's First Mini-ITX Socket LGA2011v3 Motherboard

[btarunr]

ASRock achieved the impossible, by innovating the world's first socket LGA2011v3 motherboard in the mini-ITX form-factor, letting you give your mini-ITX build the muscle of an eight-core Intel Core i7-5960X processor, with DDR4 memory. The new X99E-ITX/ac from ASRock is a standard mini-ITX motherboard, with a bulk of its precious PCB real-estate occupied by the large LGA2011v3 CPU socket. This socket features an unconventional cooler mount, which is comparable to the 2088-pin socket found on "Haswell-EP" system boards. ASRock has included an copper heat pipe-fed aluminium fin heatsink with this board, although its ability to cool a 140W TDP chip looks suspect.

A major sacrifice ASRock had to make, to achieve this contraption, is halve the memory bandwidth. Due to space limitations, the board features only two DDR4 DIMM slots, and will support only dual-channel memory, even as the platform supports quad-channel memory. Storage connectivity includes one Ultra M.2 (PCIe gen 3.0 x4 physical layer), one 10 Gb/s SATA-Express, an eSATA 6 Gb/s on the rear panel, and four other SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Expansion slots include one PCI-Express 3.0 x16, and one mPCIe 3.0 x1, holding the board's included 802.11 ac WLAN + Bluetooth 4.0 card. Two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, both driven by Intel-made controllers, a 2-port USB 3.1 controller (type-A ports), four other USB 3.0 ports, and an 8-channel HD audio make for the rest of it. ASRock didn't announce pricing or availability.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[micropage7]

very interesting how asrock can squeeze it into mini itx board

 

[Fiery]

I like this, but IMHO it would be much better to use four DDR4 SO-DIMM sockets to enable quad-channel mode, or at least offer it as an alternative product to this one.

 

[Parn]

While it's amazing they can squeeze so much into such a small package, it bears the question whether it is practically useful.

Mini-ITX is meant for system with small foot print. But LGA2011v3 CPUs are all energy hogs, so I can't imagine anyone running this board in those regular compact cases without overheating. Maybe this will force the case manufacturers to come up with some more innovative solutions like a ITX case with built-in closed loop liquid cooling.

 

[RCoon]

I'd like to see the underside of the board. A lot of manufacturers squeeze an awful lot of chips on the underside, meaning custom coolers often don't fit properly.

 

[btarunr]

I like this, but IMHO it would be much better to use four DDR4 SO-DIMM sockets to enable quad-channel mode, or at least offer it as an alternative product to this one.

Kinda hard/impossible to find DDR4 SO-DIMM modules these days.

 

[Caring1]

The CPU cooler looks like something out of a Server.

 

[Caring1]

Kinda hard/impossible to find DDR4 SO-DIMM modules these days.

Google says there are the usual major manufacturers making it.

 

[btarunr]

Google says there are the usual major manufacturers making it.

Can't find any on Newegg.

 

[Fiery]

Kinda hard/impossible to find DDR4 SO-DIMM modules these days.

Yeah, I know, but the more sort of mainstream motherboards out there with such sockets, the more memory modules manufacuterers would stamp out. But I guess maybe the modules would have to come first, and only after then ASRock and other motherboard vendors would roll out DDR4 SO-DIMM based products.

 

[Caring1]

You're right, they aren't widely available yet.
http://www.techpowerup.com/196797/crucial-shows-off-its-ddr4-dimms-and-so-dimms.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/208642/crucial-launches-ddr4-so-dimm-memory.html
With all the newly released laptops taking up new tech it is only a matter of time.

 

[Aquinus]

So why would someone get this instead of a skt1150 machine in an ITX form factor? For how much more skt2011-3 CPUs cost and the fact that a mini-ITX board can't take advantage of next to any of it (sans the 6 core CPU), it seems like a waste of money to me. For a CPU with 28-40 PCI-E lanes, you have one slot, so you're always wasting almost half of your PCI-E lanes or more. Two DIMM slots means half of the memory controller will go unused. Additionally, half of those pins for the CPU are for PCI-E and DRAM, so to me that seems to be throwing a lot of features and board space out the window just to get a mini-itx board with skt2011-3.

 

[Animalpak]

Wow ! Spectacular ! I wonder if R.O.G will do something like this !

 

[ensabrenoir]

..........makes no sense at all........I SO GOTTA HAVE ONE!!!!!!

 

[Ja.KooLit]

very interesting how asus can squeeze it into mini itx board

its Asrock not asus


on the side note, could see only 2 memory slots. and 2011-3 is quad channel. its no point to put a dual channel memory pair it with eight-core processor in it if you cant maximize the memory channel. not visible for games of course but for memory intensive task like video and photo editing task, there will be huge impact.

 

[PLAfiller]

..........makes no sense at all........I SO GOTTA HAVE ONE!!!!!!

My thoughts exactly

 

[iO]

The deal breaker is the Narrow ILM which limits the choice of coolers to server type ones, like the 7000rpm turbine they bundle the board with...

 

[Jorge]

To answer some questions...

NO Asrock is NOT Asus.

Quad channel for most desktop opps currently offers no tangible performance gains over dual channel.

Dual DIMMs vs. quad DIMMs is not significant for the intended use of this mobo which is a mini platform. This is a niche product.

 

[Caring1]

The deal breaker is the Narrow ILM which limits the choice of coolers to server type ones, like the 7000rpm turbine they bundle the board with...

I reckon an AIO will fit nicely if you put it in the right itx case.

 

[Caring1]

I'd like to see the underside of the board. A lot of manufacturers squeeze an awful lot of chips on the underside, meaning custom coolers often don't fit properly.

bet it's got balls

 

[GhostRyder]

Wow, I was wondering when this would become a thing and now it finally has.

So why would someone get this instead of a skt1150 machine in an ITX form factor? For how much more skt2011-3 CPUs cost and the fact that a mini-ITX board can't take advantage of next to any of it (sans the 6 core CPU), it seems like a waste of money to me. For a CPU with 28-40 PCI-E lanes, you have one slot, so you're always wasting almost half of your PCI-E lanes or more. Two DIMM slots means half of the memory controller will go unused. Additionally, half of those pins for the CPU are for PCI-E and DRAM, so to me that seems to be throwing a lot of features and board space out the window just to get a mini-itx board with skt2011-3.

I agree, its practicality is questionable mostly due to the fact that like you said most of the points of the X99 platform is the PCIE lanes and the quad channel memory controller that people look at and not just the extra cores. But for those wanting to do something small and still have those extra cores available to them for whatever reason will finally have that available.

I am actually interested in it as I do like the idea, would love to try one with an 5820K as that is probably the most practical chip to equip with that motherboard overall. I also would love to see that cooler in action mostly because I am curious at how well it can actually cool even the lower 5820K.

 

[EarthDog]

While it's amazing they can squeeze so much into such a small package, it bears the question whether it is practically useful.

Mini-ITX is meant for system with small foot print. But LGA2011v3 CPUs are all energy hogs, so I can't imagine anyone running this board in those regular compact cases without overheating. Maybe this will force the case manufacturers to come up with some more innovative solutions like a ITX case with built-in closed loop liquid cooling.

People run octo AMD chips in one.. This uses less power... so... Im sure it will be fine.

Most people find that these chips run cooler temperature wise (not heat mind you) than Haswell/Devil's Canyon CPUs... 'dat solder and all.

 

[THE_EGG]

This + 5960X + Titan Z/R9 295X would be an absolute mini monster. And you could theoretically fit this into a case the size of a shoebox. POWAHHHH

 

[Disparia]

This is a first-time product. If successful we'll see a X99E-ITX Extreme or Professional or Killer or Fatal1ty which may come with a 4-DIMM riser. In the future we'll probably see more 16GB DDR4, but right now the easiest way to 32GB is 4 x 8GB. From time to time I see 12-14GB usage and can feel it as it nears my capacity of 16GB.

Aside from the memory configuration, I like this board because while I wouldn't use all the lanes I would be certainly using 16 for the GPU and 4 for the M.2 slot (at PCIe 3.0). We don't have a huge selection of M.2 products at the moment but that market picking up.

Moving on to very interesting upcoming products, Mushkin showed off the Hyperion PCIe SSD. It's based on Phison's E7 controller, which is a PCIe 3.0 x4 design with NVMe support. Performance is up to 2.8GB/s for reads and 1.2GB/s for writes and random performance is also very competitive at over 300K IOPS

Perhaps with the speed and latency improvements of an NVMe SSD over my older gen SATA SSD I wouldn't mind having 16GB as swapping may be unnoticeable.

 

[micropage7]

its Asrock not asus


on the side note, could see only 2 memory slots. and 2011-3 is quad channel. its no point to put a dual channel memory pair it with eight-core processor in it if you cant maximize the memory channel. not visible for games of course but for memory intensive task like video and photo editing task, there will be huge impact.

hahaha... edited then

its interesting where it has no daughter board or separated board, all standard

agree, dual channel is limited if compared to quad channel but if you dont do heavy multi tasking or running heavy task or oc-ing it wont give you huge difference