News ASRock Unveils the X299E-ITX/ac: Mini ITX + X299 + Quad-channel Memory

Mod edit:

Detailed overview of what we know about the X299E-ITX/ac thus far here: https://smallformfactor.net/news/asrock-x299e-itxac-little-monster-detailed

Original:

ASRock did it! Finally, there's an Intel HEDT platform motherboard with full quad-channel DDR4 memory. The new X299E-ITX/ac is for those who need up to 18 CPU cores and up to 64 GB of quad-channel DDR4 memory in their SFF machines for reasons. The board manages its limited PCB real-estate by going vertical. It features two riser cards, one with a few onboard controllers, and a pair of 32 Gb/s M.2 slots), and the other riser with SATA 6 Gb/s ports, a third M.2 slot, and the headers such as USB 3.1. The board draws power from 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors, conditioning it for the LGA2066 CPU using a 7-phase VRM. The lone expansion slot is a PCI-Express 3.0 x16, memory is handled by four DDR4 SO-DIMM slots. Connectivity includes two Intel I219-V driven gigabit Ethernet interfaces, 802.11ac WLAN, and Bluetooth 4.1.

Source

 

[SeñorDonut]

@Boil Linus mentioned the RAID dongle prices in a video on i9 & X299...$99 for RAID 1 and RAID 10; $300 for RAID 5

Intel is becoming Apple...

 

[royalba94]

Intel is becoming Apple...

sadly, yes :/

 

[Phuncz]

I'm pretty sure Apple wouldn't make it so convoluted to know what features you'd enable with what CPU and what configuration. As it stands now, this is the dark and icky side of enterprise computing that's being shown with X299, where you'd need to look at spec sheets and small print to figure out how many PCIe lanes, DDR channels, RAID array configurations is enabled by what product or add-on and what you'd have to pay extra for seemingly standard technology.

It's frustrating to see Intel make the HEDT platform such a mess in so little time. I wish they'd just continued like they were doing. Even if they didn't have a 16-core or better this year, they would have still been able to recuperate next year. It's not like they lost the war by losing one battle.

 

[jeshikat]

From what Gigabyte told us, there is lots of enthusiast interest in Threadripper despite it not really being a "gaming" platform so hopefully Intel learns a hard lesson on this when HEDT sales dip from people going AMD.

 

[BirdofPrey]

I keep wondering what people expect to use that many cores/threads for.

 

[jeshikat]

Whatever they want!

But even the Gigabyte guys admitted Threadripper isn't really that useful for gamers and most enthusiasts, but people want it just because it's so crazy.

 

[royalba94]

I keep wondering what people expect to use that many cores/threads for.

Uses like virtual machines, rendering (Video and 3D), audio production (in multi-threaded applications), etc. It'd also be nice to have all the PCIe lanes for lots of high bandwidth connectivity at once.

Those are a few things that come to mind

 

[Phuncz]

I can already enjoy eight cores on a Ryzen CPU with multitasking: running a game, a web app music streaming, editing a 8K x 8K 130MB image, all at the same time. Without ever giving me the notion I'm stressing the system. Since I switched from my i5-4670K to a R7-1800X I've had a total lack of anything slowing my machine down.

 

[BirdofPrey]

Uses like virtual machines, rendering (Video and 3D), audio production (in multi-threaded applications), etc. It'd also be nice to have all the PCIe lanes for lots of high bandwidth connectivity at once.

Those are a few things that come to mind

I know what that many cores IS useful for (and note HEDT chips are usually cut down variants of server chips), I just doubt most people who want them are going to be doing those things.

As Phuncz mentioned, Ryzen r7s are plenty for most people. Intel's platform made a bit more sense with their mainstream platform only having 4 cores and HEDT having 6 to 8, but these core wars are excessive.

 

[SeñorDonut]

these core wars are excessive.

Competition nonetheless

 

[royalba94]

I know what that many cores IS useful, I just doubt most people who want them are going to be doing those things.

As Phuncz mentioned, Ryzen r7s are plenty for most people. Intel's platform made a bit more sense with their mainstream platform only having 4 cores and HEDT having 6 to 8, but these core wars are excessive.

Very good points.

I'd probably even say that their platform made even more sense when they didn't have so many CPUs with only 28 or less PCIe lanes. Not to mention the whole stupid mess that Kaby Lake-X makes it.

Needless to say I'll definitely be waiting for either Threadripper or just get better X99 parts unless prices drop or something crazy makes me go with it for my next upgrade.

I feel bad for all the motherboard vendors right now though, so many great looking X299 boards but I don't want to bother getting into that platform (right now anyway) and not to mention they kinda had to rush :/

 

[Kmpkt]

I've never owned anything with more than four cores, but do tasks like rendering video and content production scale linearly with cores or is there a practical limit on how many cores software can utilize before you're just chasing e-peen?

 

[jeshikat]

It really depends on the software.

But the right programs can definitely make use of as many cores as you throw at it, for example it's pretty common to batch out 3D rendering jobs not to a machine with an expensive high core count Xeon, but to render farms composed of dozens or hundreds of servers with lots of high core count Xeons.

So if someone needed a portable 3D rendering workstation and money isn't a problem then chucking a 18-core in the ASRock board here would make perfect sense.

 

[royalba94]

I've never owned anything with more than four cores, but do tasks like rendering video and content production scale linearly with cores or is there a practical limit on how many cores software can utilize before you're just chasing e-peen?

As @Aibohphobia said it really depends on the software. There are precious few programs that scale linearly with more cores. Puget Systems has done many useful and informative articles about the sweet spot of core count vs. clock speed (esp. for Adobe programs and Solidworks) that are all based on their own actual testing so if you're interested they'd be worth a look.

 

[SeñorDonut]

e-peen

I think I've found my new favorite word

 

[tjh1989]

Do you guys think the Apogee Drive II will fit (assuming they release a LGA 2066 version) on this board?

 

[jeshikat]

The swivel barbs interfering would be a concern, but 2066 is the same mounting as 2011.

 

[TinyHH]

It looks like the "USB 3.1 10Gb/s" have been crossed out on the spec sheet like the SLI stuff, and an attempt has been made to write "USB 3.0" instead.

I really hope the USB 3.1 gen 2 ports are staying on this board as is already lacks Thunderbolt 3's fast I/O to be the perfect high performance mini motherboard.

 

[jeshikat]

Oh, I would hope it has USB 3.1 since the X99 has it, but I'll ask to be sure.

 

[QuantumBraced]

So all 6 SATA 3.0 + a double USB 3.0 header connect through a single PCIe x4 link? I think at max throughput that's about 800MB/s more than PCIe x4 can handle, but I guess that's an insane scenario.

I would love to know how many/where all the fan headers are and where the audio header is. I see a whole lot of headers on this board and can't figure out what all of them are for. I know the white header immediately to the right of the chipset is sadly a dedicated RGB header.

And yes, the board has 1 USB 3.1 Type-A and 1 USB 3.1 Type-C. Same as before, except now one is Type-C. They should have made both Type-C IMO.