Motherboard Asus high end ITX line

[tinyitx]

Does anyone know why Asus stopped releasing higher end ITX motherboard (ie Maximus Impact line) after the Z170 chipset (Maximus VIII Impact)?

Were they thinking the ITX market was shrinking and sales decreasing from Z87->Z97->Z170?

 

[Arboreal]

No idea, but there are no mATX Maximus Gene boards beyond Z170 either... Maybe they thought that the Strix brand would be a better way to go.
Although they're well specified, (I really like the way the Strix B250i/H270i/Z270i all have 2 M.2 slots for example), Strix Z boards have 'lost' onboard power and reset buttons, PS2 port for last resort access and LED POST code readouts.
It would be interesting to know if high end ITX is as buoyant as it was or not.

 

[smitty2k1]

I don't know either, but I'm a happy Asus Impact VI with 4770k owner here

 

[TheHig]

Would have jumped all over a Maximus Gene AM4 mATX board if it was a thing.

The Strix itx boards are as good as we are going to get it seems.

 

[Duality92]

I'm an mATX enthusiast and TBH, there's ONE single X399 mATX board (It's ASRock, so possibly understandable that others have not made one), TWO or THREE X299 mATX boards and Z370/X470 mATX boards are mediocre compared to their ATX counterparts.

X99 had epic boards like the ASUS X99M-WS and (almost) every company had at least one model in mATX format.

Even the Gigabyte Z270M Gaming 5 (which IMO is the best looking mATX Z270 board) is a stripped "Ultra Gaming" which is a low tier Z270 board.

I wouldn't say ITX is dying, I'd say that the overkill provided in the past by manufacturers is not as necessary today for overclocking CPUs. The market is changing and it's requiring more bells and whistle that we, the SFF community, do not require.

Overclocking a 4790K required a good VRM, but at the end of the day, a medium grade VRM would get the same results as a good VRM, so manufacturers cut costs here and charge more for added bells and whistles.

What I'd want is ASUS X299M-WS or Gigabyte X299 Aorus M. I even went as far as selling my precious and unique Case Labs SM5 in Matte White because of this very reason.

 

[Arboreal]

I don't know either, but I'm a happy Asus Impact VI with 4770k owner here

Nice board, I had one until it popped a VRM a few months back, and I thought all was lost. My 4670K is now running in a Maximus Impact VII, (courtesy of a fine fella on Bit-Tech), with all the other stuff that thankfully didn't get fried when the board went pop.

Would have jumped all over a Maximus Gene AM4 mATX board if it was a thing.
The Strix itx boards are as good as we are going to get it seems.

What a thought! A luvverly board indeed if it was made

@Duality92 - mATX seems to have gone a bit haywire the last couple of years, the Strix models aren't quite what the Genes were and a lot fewer decent choices.
My backup rig is running an unlikely board; Asus B250M Plus, which is pretty well specced if you don't need on board WiFi or a full spec 2nd PCIe slot. I picked it up on evilbay, and it was one of those sleepers that didn't get bid on much, and came to me pretty affordably.
Good points:
Although not full width (22cm) it has 4 RAM slots
2 M.2 slots on top of the board (Strix Z270G has one underneath ITX style... and onboard WiFi)
No wasted PCIe 1x slot in position 2 that usually gets lost under a GPU - M.2 slot is sensibly there
PCIe slot 4 is full length albeit 4x electrically - good for another PCIe adapted NVME drive
2x USB 2 + 1x PS2 for kbd / mouse
3x USB 3.1 (blue) + 1x Type C faster (USB 3.1 G2?)

I'll probably put an i5 6500 in it, (cheap G4500 in there now) ,and if I get fed up and need ITX, move it all to a H/Z270 Strix

Never tried an Asrock board, but they seem to have some unusual ideas with board design, and brave with outlandish ideas (X99/X299 ITX)

 

[CC Ricers]

It appears that they converged their ROG and Strix product line after a certain point. Same with their GPU product lines. GTX 780 and 980 had seen separate ROG and Strix GPUs, then they changed that with Pascal.

With Gigabyte they also had a million different boards for Ivy Bridge and Haswell. As well as lot of color options, Gigabyte was probably the best in that regard.

I was not too keen on the black and red of the typical gaming brands however. The Z97-I Plus is still my most favorite mini ITX board that I owned. That is in the same premium product line as the X99M-WS and was packed with a lot of features and connections for its time and ITX size. The board I mentioned had 8 rear USB parts. Other high end ITX boards that came in later generations had embarrassingly fewer USB ports, even if some of them were better designs/speeds.

 

[Duality92]

It appears that they converged their ROG and Strix product line after a certain point. Same with their GPU product lines. GTX 780 and 980 had seen separate ROG and Strix GPUs, then they changed that with Pascal.

With Gigabyte they also had a million different boards for Ivy Bridge and Haswell. As well as lot of color options, Gigabyte was probably the best in that regard.

I was not too keen on the black and red of the typical gaming brands however. The Z97-I Plus is still my most favorite mini ITX board that I owned. That is in the same premium product line as the X99M-WS and was packed with a lot of features and connections for its time and ITX size. The board I mentioned had 8 rear USB parts. Other high end ITX boards that came in later generations had embarrassingly fewer USB ports, even if some of them were better designs/speeds.

I sold one of traded one of these boards on OCN with a 4690K for a 4790K that I then sold with a MSI Z97M Gaming and 4*4GB 2400/10 Trident X. Loved that board. I used the Z97-I Plus in my ISK600 watercooled build!

 

[Midiamp]

I wouldn't worry about Asus high end ITX offerings, especially with the Strix line.

Youtuber Buildzoid cast a light on VRM and general component of motherboards and I was surprised at how much marketing went into the component side of things. I'm in the market to upgrade my AM4 motherboard to Zen+(X470/B450) spec, since I'm quite disappointed with my Asrock B350-I, I decided to take a look at other brand offerings. While looking for reviews, I stumbled upon gamersnexus youtube channel where the host always mentions about Buildzoid, so I checked his channel, where... I got this handy VRM count list. Out of all the brands, only MSI and Asus offers true 6 phases VRM on their ITX offerings. So I settled for Asus Strix B450-I.

Now I have issue with my Asrock AB350-I paired with 2700X, where I experience jumping voltages and temp on idle. Some easily points out to the VRM not optimal to the power demand of the 2700X since I updated the bios and chipset driver on OS side religiously. Some just said it's incompatibility between first and second gen processor.

Still waiting though, ITX motherboard supply in my country is very few. Latest info I got yesterday was "availability this week", don't know when exactly.

 

[Phuncz]

I'm an mATX enthusiast and TBH, there's ONE single X399 mATX board (It's ASRock, so possibly understandable that others have not made one), TWO or THREE X299 mATX boards and Z370/X470 mATX boards are mediocre compared to their ATX counterparts.

This is why ATX boards for SFF should really be considered: board manufacturers threw in the towel on quality mATX boards. Even though SFF is becoming a thing more and more, most enthusiast builders aren't caught up to the "size does matter, but not in the direction you think" moniker we've come to expect.

A few cases have used an ATX board with the graphics card parallel to the board, because there are so few viable mATX options. It's why I went with the Cerberus X over the regular one.

 

[Arboreal]

I can see the logic in using an ATX board, particularly as there is SO much more choice, and you don't pay 'SFF Tax' on cramming all those good features onto an ITX board.
The Cerberus -X makes a lot of sense with only an additional 1.5L over the mATX version, and that's from the 60mm additional height to take the longer board. If it was 7 slot and not set up for EATX, It'd be even smaller.

Space wise, I personally see ATX as as a waste of space, as I cannot think of what I'd fit in more than 3 of the slots, making mATX the perfect choice for me when ITX is too limiting.
Maybe if it was littered with M.2 slots like the underside of a Micro STX board, that would be more useful...

Height for storage is an issue for me, so a tall case is a pain to find a home for. That said, the Cerberus-X is no taller than my Silverstone
TJ-08E, (380mm) which is fairly small @ 28L.
If you reduce the volume by mounting the GPU parallel to the board, you lose the benefit of those additional slots, as they cannot be used.
Slim & tall and under 20L is good, but the shape doesn't work for me.
My cobbled together mATX case that my dev PC lives in is only 270mm tall, so barely taller than the motherboard is long; and that is fine to stash away when not in use or being worked on.

Every time I see my LAN buddy struggling with a full ATX case to LAN nights, I do chuckle and thank my lucky starts that I have discovered SFF!

I still agree that well specified mATX boards are lacking, and there are plenty of cases that would take them; it's odd that's its been passed over, with (still) too many ATX boards per manufacturer and chipset, and a measly mATX offering.
Precious few are high end and top spec for that matter.

Going back to the OP, it's interesting that the much heralded discrete (daughter) sound card on the Maximus VI/VII/VIII Impact boards has disappeared, and the new boards are conventional with a small metal shield on the codec. Only the Strix B350i and 450 in AM4 have retained a discrete card, maybe they can control noise better on Intel boards these days??

 

[chyll2]

ATX SFF make sense to me and there is actually less wasted space if one is using riser for GPU. What I don't get is the few people in the custom section asking why bother creating ATX enclosure with one GPU.

 

[tinyitx]

This is why ATX boards for SFF should really be considered: board manufacturers threw in the towel on quality mATX boards. Even though SFF is becoming a thing more and more, most enthusiast builders aren't caught up to the "size does matter, but not in the direction you think" moniker we've come to expect.

A few cases have used an ATX board with the graphics card parallel to the board, because there are so few viable mATX options. It's why I went with the Cerberus X over the regular one.

On one hand, there are certainly much more choices of ATX boards over mATX and ITX boards. On the other hand, ATX is just larger by nature, wasting space as well as features (ie those unused PCIE slots).

Another concern is the availability of SFF cases accommodating ATX board. I mean, the lack of ITX/mATX boards could be matched by the lack of choices of these SFF cases. Am I correct? Besides Cerberus X, what other good cases are there? Would you recommend a few good alternatives please?

 

[Phuncz]

@tinyitx I know there are a few designs in the forum that are in concept stage that want to go this way, but they get pretty harsh comments because of the afformentioned lack of multiple GPU support. I was even in that camp in the past, but that was also in a time when there were good mATX offerings, not the forgotten wasteland that is 2018.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

I wish Asus still had an equivalent to the Z87/97 Gryphon mATX boards. Those where rock solid and great overclockers.

 

[VegetableStu]

have you guys seen EVGA's X299 Micro 2 o_o (might be a slight tangent here)

 

[Phuncz]

It's a nice board, that EVGA mATX X299 one. But the X299 platform at this point is generally a hard sell, now that Intel will bring out a soldered IHS 8-core soon on the Z370 platform, along with the viable options that AMD offers. The use case where the Intel X299 CPUs are worth their money today is limited to very specific use-cases like the need for AVX or Intel-optimized workloads.