News AMD X570 ITX Motherboards

So we have 1 confirmed so far:

The Crosshair VIII Impact is the ITX variant.

I'm hoping here that Asus think Zen 2 is amazing enough to revive Enthusiast class Impact boards and not offer us neutered versions like the Strix garbage they've been peddling for the last few years!

B550 boards are "speculated" to appear around 6 months after X570.
 
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Elerek

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jul 17, 2017
228
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I'm surprised no one's made/announced a chipsetless x5xx itx board. Ryzen is a SOC and doesn't need the chipset to run. You could make a cheap bare bones itx board with a pcie 4 slot, bifurcation support, a pcie 4 m2 slot, and some decent usb all without a chipset. That eliminate the need for a fan, makes more room for the beefy vrm for high core count cpus, and cuts down the price by not buying a $40 chipset.
 
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scatterforce

Master of Cramming
May 21, 2018
408
325
I'm surprised no one's made/announced a chipsetless x5xx itx board. Ryzen is a SOC and doesn't need the chipset to run. You could make a cheap bare bones itx board with a pcie 4 slot, bifurcation support, a pcie 4 m2 slot, and some decent usb all without a chipset. That eliminate the need for a fan, makes more room for the beefy vrm for high core count cpus, and cuts down the price by not buying a $40 chipset.
I want one so bad!

They could make a huge profit on it. Give it some good VRMs, use the extra 4x Lanes for a second nvme socket, and you're good to go.
 
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ermac318

King of Cable Management
Mar 10, 2019
655
510
I want one so bad!

They could make a huge profit on it. Give it some good VRMs, use the extra 4x Lanes for a second nvme socket, and you're good to go.
This was said in another thread, but....
You want Ethernet? That's extra...
You want sound? That's extra...
You want front USB? That's extra...
You want WiFi? That's extra...

It starts to add up.
 
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Elerek

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jul 17, 2017
228
165
This was said in another thread, but....
You want Ethernet? That's extra...
You want sound? That's extra...
You want front USB? That's extra...
You want WiFi? That's extra...

It starts to add up.

We're still talking about saving ~$45 on a chipset + heatsink + fan. That's a lot of money on a motherboard. Also usb is provided by the cpu directly.
 

ermac318

King of Cable Management
Mar 10, 2019
655
510
We're still talking about saving ~$45 on a chipset + heatsink + fan. That's a lot of money on a motherboard. Also usb is provided by the cpu directly.
How much would you end up spending on a USB Sound Card, USB Ethernet, USB Wifi, USB Hub, etc? At that price $45 doesn't seem so bad. Don't forget the built-in USB would be mostly for the rear IO Panel, and not the front. The Ryzen 3000 SoC has only 4 USB3.2gen2 (10Gbps) USB ports integrated, anything else would have to come from a USB hub or an additional controller which would consume PCIe lanes, and then you're right back to having a chipset.
 
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Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
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We're still talking about saving ~$45 on a chipset + heatsink + fan. That's a lot of money on a motherboard. Also usb is provided by the cpu directly.
The CPU provides four USB ports. Four. With two for the front panel, that's two for the rear I/O. With no Ethernet or WiFi, at least one of those gets eaten up by some sort of networking dongle. Then I suppose you add a hub to connect your keyboard and mouse? Of course you could ditch front panel USB, but then you wouldn't have any ports for whatever stuff you need to connect from time to time, or you could add an on-board USB hub - but that adds to the BOM, increasing costs. The best solution in a case like this is if they can re-use the chipset uplink PCIe lanes for other things (if they could be bifurcated you could get WiFi, Ethernet or an extra USB controller), but I have no idea if that's possible.
 

scatterforce

Master of Cramming
May 21, 2018
408
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This is the best summary I could find of the lane allocation of Ryzen:


Total PCIE lanesMy suggested use
16x PCIE (or 2x8 slots) for gpu
single x16 slot for gpu
4x PCIE for NVME drivesingle NVME drive, front mounted
4x PCIE for NVME or 2x NVME and 2x SATA1x PCIE for Wifi, 1x PCIE for sound, and 2 SATA
4x PCIE for the downlink to the X570 chipset1x PCIE for additional USB, 1x PCIE for LAN, and 2 SATA

I am assuming those PCIE lanes can be divided into single 1x lanes. For the CPU, it shouldn't make a difference. 4 SATA is minimum for a mass market board IMO, even on an ITX platform.

edit: total of only 24 PCIE lanes. I made another suggestions down below.
 
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ermac318

King of Cable Management
Mar 10, 2019
655
510
This is the best summary I could find of the lane allocation of Ryzen:


Total PCIE lanesMy suggested use
16x PCIE (or 2x8 slots) for gpu
single x16 slot for gpu
4x PCIE for NVME drivesingle NVME drive, front mounted
4x PCIE for NVME or 2x NVME and 2x SATA1x PCIE for Wifi, 1x PCIE for sound, and 2 SATA
4x PCIE for the downlink to the X570 chipset1x PCIE for additional USB, 1x PCIE for LAN, and 2 SATA

I am assuming those PCIE lanes can be divided into single 1x lanes. For the CPU, it shouldn't make a difference. 4 SATA is minimum for a mass market board IMO, even on an ITX platform.
Here's another diagram that illustrates this more clearly:


EDIT: So I originally said something, removed it because I was unsure, but after double checking it I think I was correct. The part on the Left that says Pick One does not seem to be in addition to the NVMe above. In other words, you have 24 PCIe lanes on the CPU. 4 is for NVMe, or you can do x2 NVMe + 2 SATA, not both. This is hard to figure out but if you look at the middle, where it states you have 12x flexible PCIe lanes, this makes sense. You could have 1x4 NVMe on the Ryzen SoC and then 8 SATA on the X570 chipset, or 3x4 NVMe (one SoC, two chipset), or in between. But note there's no 4x4 NVMe configuration, which means the two middle orange boxes on the left are not two separate things, but rather the same 4x lanes.

What I originally stated was I think you are including 4 extra lanes that do not exist on the Ryzen SoC. You have 28 when the chip only has 24 - 4 go to the chipset, 4 are NVMe or NVME+SATA, and 16 are for graphics.
 
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huddy

Caliper Novice
Aug 22, 2018
30
29
Perhaps instead of devoting a full 16 lanes to the GPU only use 8? How many new cards will saturate that for PCIe 4.0 in the next 2-4 years anyway? And let's say it does get saturated, how many folks building an STX or ITX machine really will care if you only lose 1-5% performance?
 
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Valantar

Shrink Ray Wielder
Jan 20, 2018
2,201
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This is the best summary I could find of the lane allocation of Ryzen:


Total PCIE lanesMy suggested use
16x PCIE (or 2x8 slots) for gpu
single x16 slot for gpu
4x PCIE for NVME drivesingle NVME drive, front mounted
4x PCIE for NVME or 2x NVME and 2x SATA1x PCIE for Wifi, 1x PCIE for sound, and 2 SATA
4x PCIE for the downlink to the X570 chipset1x PCIE for additional USB, 1x PCIE for LAN, and 2 SATA

I am assuming those PCIE lanes can be divided into single 1x lanes. For the CPU, it shouldn't make a difference. 4 SATA is minimum for a mass market board IMO, even on an ITX platform.
You've got one too many x4 links there - the one that can be split into x2+2x SATA is the only x4 NVMe there is. In addition to that there's the x16 and the chipset uplink.
 
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scatterforce

Master of Cramming
May 21, 2018
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You have 28 when the chip only has 24 - 4 go to the chipset, 4 are NVMe or NVME+SATA, and 16 are for graphics.
If that's truly the case, then you'd have to make use of the USB Lanes.

16x for gpu
4x for NVME
1x for Lan
1x for wifi
2 sata ports
2 USB 3.2 gen 2
6? USB 2.0 (using a USB 3.2 lane)
Audio (using a USB 3.2 lane)

Keeping the full x16 for gpu and x4 for NVME is the only way to keep enthusiasts happy I feel. If you cut the NVME to x2, then you can pick up 2 more sata ports, but I don't know if that's a good trade. ASROCK has made sata ports cut into M.2 Lanes only while in use..... Maybe something like that, so you can still have 4 sata ports.
 

Elerek

Cable-Tie Ninja
Jul 17, 2017
228
165
If that's truly the case, then you'd have to make use of the USB Lanes.

16x for gpu
4x for NVME
1x for Lan
1x for wifi
2 sata ports
2 USB 3.2 gen 2
6? USB 2.0 (using a USB 3.2 lane)
Audio (using a USB 3.2 lane)

Keeping the full x16 for gpu and x4 for NVME is the only way to keep enthusiasts happy I feel. If you cut the NVME to x2, then you can pick up 2 more sata ports, but I don't know if that's a good trade. ASROCK has made sata ports cut into M.2 Lanes only while in use..... Maybe something like that, so you can still have 4 sata ports.
You could set up the pcie slot to be x16 or bifurcated x8 with x4 for a second/third m.2. That way it's x16 with only one ssd, or x8 with two or three.
 

lawney

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Jun 28, 2018
104
68
This is the best summary I could find of the lane allocation of Ryzen:


Total PCIE lanesMy suggested use
16x PCIE (or 2x8 slots) for gpu
single x16 slot for gpu
4x PCIE for NVME drivesingle NVME drive, front mounted
4x PCIE for NVME or 2x NVME and 2x SATA1x PCIE for Wifi, 1x PCIE for sound, and 2 SATA
4x PCIE for the downlink to the X570 chipset1x PCIE for additional USB, 1x PCIE for LAN, and 2 SATA

I am assuming those PCIE lanes can be divided into single 1x lanes. For the CPU, it shouldn't make a difference. 4 SATA is minimum for a mass market board IMO, even on an ITX platform.

edit: total of only 24 PCIE lanes. I made another suggestions down below.

There are nearly 60 new boards being released. I see no reason why a couple ITX variants shouldn’t shirk sata lane allocation and prioritize something more useful.

———
And in response to someone else above who absolutlely needs to spend 2/4 usb ports on situational front I/O: we’re talking about bleeding edge enthusiast lane allocation in an itx forum. Compromise something trivial to get something amazing instead.
 
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Hifihedgehog

Editor-in-chief of SFFPC.review
May 3, 2016
459
408
www.sffpc.review
Has anyone gotten a more concrete release date for the Crosshair VIII Impact? Optimum Tech and a few others were told it would be a month after but weren't given anything more specific. Just wondering since that is the board I am planning on purchasing. Thanks!
 

Legion

Airflow Optimizer
Original poster
Nov 22, 2017
357
386
when that eteknix guy says

"I'd normally expect maybe a 6-pin connector"

i just knew i was done watching the video

Haha, I did wonder whether I should have warned you all about his ineptitude lol.
The main thing is we got a better look at the board than we have seen so far, that's all I cared about ;)
 
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