SFF.Network Many 200-Series Motherboards Leaked ahead of CES

With Intel's Kaby Lake soon to be released, many motherboard manufacturers are gearing up for their Intel chipset 200-series lineup. Although new features over the 100-series are limited, this did not keep board manufacturers from innovating and trying to bring something unique to the table.

Read more here.

 

[Sean Crees]

Whats the downside of a PCIE-only M.2 slot?

PCI-e only means you need an NVMe M.2 SSD. So for instance you couldn't put a Samsung 850 Evo in that slot, since its a SATA M.2 drive. You'd have to use something like the Samsung 960 Evo which is NVMe.

 

[iFreilicht]

Landing page for the Z270i STRIX Mini-ITX is live https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/ROG-Strix-Z270I-Gaming/overview/

OH MY GOD.

1 x M.2 Socket 3 with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (SATA & PCIE 3.0 x 4 mode)
1 x M.2 Socket 3 with M key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (PCIE 3.0 x 4 mode)

And on the flashy advertisement material:

Dual PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 slots (type 2280) provide NVMe SSD RAID support for an incredible performance boost.

Holy shit they really outdid themselves.

BTW, the Strix Z270G (the mATX variant) is listed on geizhals 204-220€.

 

[Phuncz]

PCI-e only means you need an NVMe M.2 SSD. So for instance you couldn't put a Samsung 850 Evo in that slot, since its a SATA M.2 drive. You'd have to use something like the Samsung 960 Evo which is NVMe.

To be precise, PCIe stands seperate from NVMe, as there were a few OEM PCIe M.2 SSDs which had the AHCI protocol instead of NVMe. NVMe and AHCI are logical device protocols, whereas PCIe and SATA (for storage) are physical device protocols.

 

[Mackan]

The Impact is always late, but they've also skipped a chipset with the Gene before so they may do the same since Kaby Lake is such a minor update.

Asus rep confirmed there is no planned Impact board this time.

 

[jeshikat]

Disappointing but not unexpected given how high-end the Strix is.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

The MSI ITX is out for a lil over 200€. I expect the Strix to be closer to 300€

 

[jeshikat]

View of the bottom of the STRIX Z270I GAMING, from here: https://smallformfactor.net/news/asus-at-ces

 

[Phuncz]

I can't see, blinded by the lights

 

[ricochet]

Blinded by the Light

 

[Phuncz]

Blinded by the Light

21st century version:

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

I am very interested in those 2 Asrock motherboards. Glad to finally see an mATX one with 2x M.2 connectors. The ITX variant has 2x Intel GBe and M.2 on the front (not a huge fan of M.2 located on the back side).

 

[1461748123]

Best RAM for Strix?

Sadly they are too tall

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

Sadly they are too tall

Or those Crucial Ballistix Tactical ...

 

[1461748123]

Or those Crucial Ballistix Tactical ...

Sadly they don't have 32G kit

 

[alamilla]

21st century version:

RGB Generation Version:

 

[EdZ]

RGB Generation Version:

Unrelated videogame version:

 

[alamilla]

ASRock z270 Gaming-itx/ac hands on:


Still my first choice of the new Kaby Lake boards.
I wish they had scrapped the SATA express ports in favour of another m.2 or at least U.2 but you can't have it all!
Thus far the only ITX offering I've seen with native Thunderbolt 3.

 

[CubanLegend]

Why do people care about thunderbolt 3 so much? Isn't it a very new tech that is largely used by Apple anyway?

 

[alamilla]

Why do people care about thunderbolt 3 so much? Isn't it a very new tech that is largely used by Apple anyway?

For content creation and music production with external interfaces and storage devices it promises the lowest latency with minimal CPU overhead and one cable solutions.

 

[Kmpkt]

I prefer this to the ASUS Strix layout to be honest. While two M.2 at PCI 4x sounds really nice, I would have no practical use for it as with up to 2TB on one drive now I can't imagine why I would need more super fast storage than that. TB3 on the other hand opens up many possibilities for current and future devices.