A few days ago we previewed the newest mini-ITX motherboard from ASUS, the P8H67-I, for the new “Sandy Bride” line of Intel CPU’s. It will make an excellent platform for an ITX gaming system, but it looks like we’ll have other boards to choose from as well. ASRock, Gigabyte and ECS have all indicated that they will have mini-ITX variants coming to market early in the New Year.
It’s no surprise that Gigabyte and ECS are getting a jump on the LGA1155 mini-ITX platform. Gigabyte will be following up on its successful GA-H55N-USB3 mini-ITX board that was released early this year for the Intel LGA1156 platform. It was the first mini-ITX board that offered serious overclocking options. It also had the distinction of being the first mini-ITX motherboard to include USB 3.0.
ECS has large shoes to fill as well. Their LGA1156 offering, the H55H-I, was named “Best for Mini-ITX Gaming” by Tom’s Hardware. It found a winning combination with solid features and bargain pricing. It’s a sure bet that the new offering from ECS will benefit from the same.
ASRock is making their first entry into the mini-ITX gaming capable field. Their mini-ITX motherboard already has a model number attached to it, H67M-ITX/HT. Few official specs have surfaced, but from the photos we can tell that this board uses DIMM memory modules and has a mini-PCIe slot outfitted with a WiFi card. The photo also shows two each of SATA 3Gbps and 6Gbps connectors. It also appears to support headers for both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. We’ll have to wait until closer to launch day for the full details, but from what we have seen so far, ASRock is on the right track.
Check back often as we’ll update the details on these new boards as they become available.