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Motherboard ASRock X370 Gaming-ITX/ac and AB350 Gaming-ITX/ac

Cycle Guy

Efficiency Noob
Jun 19, 2017
5
3
I hope you're right! I am definitely not excited about $205 for a B350 board...
I've been waiting for the B350 for my Hoojum case but won't be jumping on any $200 B350 boards. I too hope that's just a place holder. I was expecting B350 boards to come in around $100. Here's hoping!
 

Jonny727272

Airflow Optimizer
Feb 26, 2017
275
218
Not to suggest that $70 is an insignificant amount of dough to save, but you're building two tremendously different systems here.
Different in what way? Both CPUs seem to benchmark about the same in most games I've looked at.
 

zovc

King of Cable Management
Jan 5, 2017
852
603
Different in what way? Both CPUs seem to benchmark about the same in most games I've looked at.

Double the number of cores, four times the processing threads. Depending on your personal usage (just gaming) it might not be too different in the end, but for a lot of tasks (or multitasking) there will be big differences. I definitely think the platforms will age differently.
 

Jonny727272

Airflow Optimizer
Feb 26, 2017
275
218
Oh yeah, I just haven't considered the benefit of extra cores since I really only game. Although, the more time I spend on here and seeing people's case designs, the more I want to get into 3D design and make my own!
 

freshislandcoconuts

Minimal Tinkerer
Jun 13, 2017
3
1
I just preordered the B350 board from NCIX and the total to have it shipped to California was $173 USD. I've been waiting since.. basically March so at this point I don't mind the price. I expected these boards to be at about $150 and I already decided I'd be going with Asrock over Biostar and Gigabyte (because of the design for my Corsair 380T), so $23 wasn't that big of a deal when deciding.
 
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TheHig

King of Cable Management
Oct 13, 2016
951
1,171
Wow, that's really tempting to go ahead an preorder now if they are taking them. I am holding out for the 370 though. I hope to see your build/impressions here when you get some time with it.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
4,969
4,783
It's probably a miscommunication since they likely don't have final pricing yet, but just a heads up for anyone thinking of pre-ordering from NCIXUS:

Just a heads up to anyone who wants specifics on this.. I pre-ordered yesterday morning and contacted NCIX regarding the price. The person I talked to wouldn't budge on giving me a partial refund as I couldn't give them proof that the price was an error. I was charged this morning and the payment went through for $235 USD. From what I understand this has been discussed on other forums. Can anyone provide a link where an NCIX representative directly states that the price is a placeholder? If so I can contact them again and report back with my findings.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sffpc/comments/6i5nix/x370_asrock_itx_up_for_preorder/dj5e4n6/
 

TheHig

King of Cable Management
Oct 13, 2016
951
1,171
Really brings home the Suggested part of that while MSRP doesn't it.

Good lesson. If you click buy with whatever price is listed, you are probably paying it.
 

HeroXLazer

King of Cable Management
Sep 11, 2016
707
476
Which M.2 Key does this support? Does it support M.2 B+M?

I'm looking to use the Kingston SSDNowG2, I don't know why, but I am...
 

freshislandcoconuts

Minimal Tinkerer
Jun 13, 2017
3
1
Wow, that's really tempting to go ahead an preorder now if they are taking them. I am holding out for the 370 though. I hope to see your build/impressions here when you get some time with it.
Seriously! I haven't build a new PC in a long time and I'm glad to get to try out AMD again. So far the only thing I have yet to get are the case fans and this Asrock board..

It's probably a miscommunication since they likely don't have final pricing yet, but just a heads up for anyone thinking of pre-ordering from NCIXUS:
That definitely has to be the wrong pricing. I'd be really disappointed in NCIX if they charged MORE in USD than the under-performing CAD. Not getting any solid confirmation from customer support is a little sketchy as well. NCIX (CAD) can hold your preorder for the correct price if anyone from America is interested. Now my only concern is if I'll actually even be able to get the board or not before they go to backorder.
 

carbonitetoast

Caliper Novice
Jun 16, 2017
29
36
Why the hell are these ITX MBOs better than any mATX MBO??

Like, you can't find a single mATX with that audio features and latest codec, among other things.

Good question! I would have seriously considered mATX again if there were any top of the line options...
 

Tilltech

Caliper Novice
Jun 30, 2017
33
9
Good question! I would have seriously considered mATX again if there were any top of the line options...

In the worst case scenario you can put Fatal1ty AB350 Gaming-ITX inside Define Mini C, instead of Define Nano S.
You lose nothing except 2 DIMM slots which is irrelevant if you get 2x8 or 2x16GB RAM, both would be overkill for many years to come.

If there are no quiet SFX PSU, maybe that's the only way to go - mATX case like Mini C with a high quality ITX motherboard.
 

Kmpkt

Innovation through Miniaturization
KMPKT
Feb 1, 2016
3,382
5,936
Why the hell are these ITX MBOs better than any mATX MBO??

In all fairness most of the feature rich mATX boards are 9.6" x 9.6" while a standard ATX board is 12" x 9.6" which means it's only 20% smaller. This doesn't drastically change your enclosure size and functionally there's not a huge difference between the two boards. ITX at 6.7 x 6.7 is less than half the area of a mATX board and about 40% the size of an ITX board which is in a completely different ballpark for enclosure size and functionality. Considering that most users are only going to use their PCIe slots for GPUs, the only real question with respect to board requirements is do you want one or two of them (don't think that many people crossfire 2+ cards anymore). If you're going for a multi GPU setup, then you're basically going to be shoehorned into a huge enclosure anyways. At this point it looks like mATX is just the old solution for what ITX does now and is dying a slow death as a result.
 

Boil

SFF Guru
Nov 11, 2015
1,253
1,094
I can see mATX as a proper platform for a SFF Threadripper build...

I would want the extra horsepower of dual GPUs to complement such a high core/thread CPU...?
 
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Pelican

Average Stuffer
May 23, 2017
66
65
Looks like the ASRock AB350 might end up being cheaper than the Gigabyte board. Not sure what the point of the X370 board is for, given it doesn't make use of USB 3.1 and has one PCIe slot.