Motherboard Crosshair VIII Impact
- Thread starter w4e
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strongtan's ROG Crosshair VIII Impact build log at chiphell:
https://www.chiphell.com/thread-2075453-1-1.html
https://www.chiphell.com/thread-2075453-1-1.html
Paul reviews this motherboard.
TL;DW: Motherboard is Mini DTX, expected retail cost of $400.
Specs:
TL;DW: Motherboard is Mini DTX, expected retail cost of $400.
Specs:
ROG Crosshair VIII Impact | ROG Crosshair | Gaming Motherboards｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG USA
The first Impact in the longstanding Crosshair lineup and designed for 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen CPUs. Comes with dual M.2, next-gen networking with Wi-Fi 6, onboard SupremeFX audio, plus an active finned heatsink, all packed in for your next SFF gaming rig!
www.asus.com
i can't remember where i read this, but apparently it sticks up about 70mm. i will try to find the source.
sounds about right. maybe the module is about 7Xmm? i can't find where i got the 70mm size from. maybe a dream
Thanks for the reminder on that Boil! I too had a vague memory of it being 70mm+ but failed to think about the inserted height ?
Computex 2019 - ASUS - SFF Network 0:29
Ah, ok!
Am I right to assume that you then would need a case that supports 75mm+ CPU cooler heights?
Asus didn't quite think those dimensions through properly, unfortunately.
I believe ASUS is aiming the C8I more at the AIO & Custom Loop crowd, rather than Air Heads...
This is not a board built for ultra-thin cases, even sandwich-style is (pretty much) a no-go due to the card extending down past the PCIe slot. There's very little reason to go for this board unless it's for a completely balls-to-the-wall build, in which case you'd struggle to cool the CPU in a case like that anyhow. The Strix or any other X570 board should be suitable for pretty much any other build.
... or any case with a normally mounted GPU, such as the Ncase M1? Last I checked, normal height GPUs are much more than 82mm tall.
I am building my C8I rig in a Cerberus chassis, which is about 18 liters or so (definately under 20 liters), so that will be a SFF build...
This board should work in the Sugo SG05 / SG05-Lite, which is around 10.5 liters. Doubt you can get much lower than that. Like I said earlier, it's a dud for sandwich cases and console-style cases, but cubes work quite well if you can accomodate the 75mm cooler height requirement.
On the plus side, this board does have enough m.2 slots to not need any external drives, making it sorta ideal for a high performing NAS or SFF workstation with 8 TB of storage. I support the idea but think they could've executed it better (the riser card could have used both sides for m.2 and a U-shaped heatsink on top of those), but whatever.
I see the market but current price points keep it from truly competing. At $250 this would be a no brainer.
On the plus side, this board does have enough m.2 slots to not need any external drives, making it sorta ideal for a high performing NAS or SFF workstation with 8 TB of storage. I support the idea but think they could've executed it better (the riser card could have used both sides for m.2 and a U-shaped heatsink on top of those), but whatever.
I see the market but current price points keep it from truly competing. At $250 this would be a no brainer.
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The C8I has a total of two M.2 slots, both on the SO-DIMM2 module, which has a single M.2 slot on each side...
One has 4x PCI channels straight to the CPU, and the other routes its 4x PCI channels thru the X570 chipset...
US$250 would be awesome, but I would not hold my breath, I am hoping for a maximum of US$350...
Wait... Was under the impression it also had an m.2 on the backside and one at the bottom next to the PCIe 16x slot?
Might have confused this board with another, I think Asus has other boards that use the same SO-DIMM m.2 board then.
Still, a bit surprised it takes an 80 mm board to fit a single 25mm wide m.2 slot, but oh well.
Indeed, at $400 it is pricey, especially as ITX competitors exist at the $250 range with the same chipset. Also, those ITX boards also have two m.2 slots, so why even bother with the C8I then?
The two m.2 slots on the riser aren't directly behind each other, but staggered. Likely has to do with PCIe signal integrity or something, but possibly something as simple as mounting screws/standoffs needing to clear the traces/slot on the opposite end. There are also fan headers and some other stuff on the riser card, but those aren't big enough to need much space. Also, remember that an m.2 2280 is noticeably longer than a SODIMM slot, so the card becomes taller simly due to m.2 slots needing to be above the SODIMM latches. So it's more like 1.5x 25mm wide m.2 slot + however tall SODIMM latches are + any clearance for the other ports on the card + height added by the heatsink.
I don't think it's known yet whether the audio board lives in a standard m.2 slot or if they're just using the physical interface for something entirely different.
I agree that $400 is pricy, but this is an ultra-high-end board, with VRM and chipset cooling way beyond the competition. Also, it has one of the best X570 VRMs, period. And a bunch of high-end features like thermal sensor inputs, LN2 mode, and so on. This is not a $250 board, and featuresets like this aren't seen on $250 boards pretty much ever and regardless of form factor. Given that the price floor for X570 is just barely below $200 for now, this is relatively "reasonable" in terms of how large a premium you're paying - normally ITX starts out at around $50 beyond the cheapest ATX boards, with ultra-high-end boards normally being $200+ beyond that again. This is just the confluence of an expensive platform (mainly due to the reportedly $40-ish chipset (compared to something like $5 for a traditional one) and this platform being attractive enough for motherboard makers to truly go bonkers on designing high-end boards. There's nothing comparable to the C8I on Z390, for example.
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