Motherboard SFF-Forum's Design a board thread

[confusis]

'Lo folks

Back in the day my old crew on another forum developed these designs;



Both are M-DTX with either x8/x8 or x16/x16. The top board would be either FM2+ or AM3+, the bottom board would be Z97 or another current Intel chipset (board was designed when Z77 was top dog)

What would your ideal board be like?

 

[EdZ]

Dream board:
X99 chipset
Top-edge PCI-E slot VIEW PAKER style
mDTX hole layout
Non-standard socket/DIMM orientation, allowing for 4X DIMMs where the PCI-E slots would normally go (aligned front-back)
Extra PCI-E lanes assigned to M/2 slots: 1x or 2x M.2 slots on the back to accept 2280 or possible 22110 M.2 cards. Top-side M.2 slot(s) of minimal 2230 or 2242 length for break-out to 4x flex risers.
SFF-8087 connector(s) for SATA breakout to save on board area

Could also work for Z170 if it turns out to have the rumoured 20 add-on PCI-E lanes.

 

[craigbru]

Ah John, that brings back some memories!

 

[iFreilicht]

Mine would be thin mITX with:

• top-edge PCIe slot
• support for 12V input instead of 19
• non-standard 8pin or 6pin connector with pinout described below
• angled USB3 front panel connector
• two full-length M.2 slots on the back for SATA and PCIe SSDs
• mPCIe and mSATA on the front for backwards compatibility and WLAN.
• Breakout pins for 5VSB
• I/O: 19mm high as thin mITX already is, 2 remappable Audio ports, 8 USB ports (as many USB3 as possible), no DC input, no second NIC connector, 1 mini DisplayPort
• Front Audio connector with support for play/pause commands from smartphone headsets
• 2 SATA6G ports, 1 SATA power port
• internal USB2.0 connectors where I can set whether power should be supplied if the board is off or not with jumpers

Pinout for power connector (I call it the FTX12V) Ignore the first column for 6pin:

12V 12V 5VSB #PS_ON
GND GND GND PWR_OK

This would allow connecting a regular FlexATX PSU with less cable clutter.
All connections should reside in areas defined by the thin mITX standard.
The position of the CPU socket and the low profile I/O would allow mounting one or two 2.5" HDDs above the I/O behind the CPU cooler. This whole setup would allow for a ~3.9L system with dedicated GPU and internal PSU.

 

[veryrarium]

I don't mind a double-sided NUC or nanoITX size board with a desktop CPU socket on one side and everything else on the flip side (PCIe x8 slot, PCH, 2 SO-DIMM slots, an M.2 or a U.2 slot, USB/Thunderbolt ports) even if there are no cases available to accommodate a board with such a layout. No clue if it's feasible, but one can dream.

 

[Phuncz]

Pinout for power connector (I call it the FTX12V) Ignore the first column for 6pin:

12V 12V 5VSB #PS_ON
GND GND GND PWR_OK

I would love this, I really hate the 24-pin cable. There aren't many things I hate, but that cable...

 

[iFreilicht]

I would love this, I really hate the 24-pin cable. There aren't many things I hate, but that cable...

As long as we have a single connector that can supply boards for Quad-SLI and Dual Socket on one side and mini ITX boards on the other side, it will be oversized for SFF systems. If only there was a standard for modular Mainboard power connectors.
I've got an idea! We could write a standard, call it STX12V and then crowdfund a reference board. Surely, that would work.

 

[confusis]

I'd love to crowdsource/fund a mobo

 

[iFreilicht]

I'd love to have it crowdfunded, I don't think I'd want to go through the process of designing one and making it ready for the market. Even if it had all-standard connectors and stuff.

 

[confusis]

I have physical designs at the top, however i have little experience designing PCBs

 

[PlayfulPhoenix]

I have physical designs at the top, however i have little experience designing PCBs

I know that there do exist a few OEM's that could take designs and feature sets, and turn around and do the PCB design, layout, etc. But it gets expensive.

 

[iFreilicht]

I know that there do exist a few OEM's that could take designs and feature sets, and turn around and do the PCB design, layout, etc. But it gets expensive.

Yeah. Even with modern software having features like auto-routing, it takes a lot of time designing a PCB. You really need experience for that part. You need to know what kind of things can be done with how many layers, what is feasible and what isn't. There's a good reason why that stuff is so expensive if you want it done for you.

 

[PlayfulPhoenix]

If someone wanted to do a crowdfunded board like this, I figure that the most logical way to do it would be to find a manufacturer that does OEM designs, and sells a bunch of their own boards (Gigabyte is one of these, I think). Then, you request a design with what you want, that is as identical to an existing board as possible, but with a few modifications. That keeps their engineering costs down, and probably makes it easier to produce as well.

Still, you'd need 1k+ units sold, I'd imagine. At a premium. And probably not with the highest-quality components.

 

[jeshikat]

Gigabyte was the partner for a crowdfunded motherboard:
From the comments it seems the project was mismanaged though and I'm not sure if anyone actually received any of the boards.

 

[confusis]

Hmm. I would head towards ECS or Asrock as OEM for such a project - they have more experience in smaller boards. When we did the original designs I forwarded them to ECS, ASUS, GIgabyte, Biostar.. the only response I recieved was Biostar saying they didn't like it and the tone was that they didn't really care.

 

[jeshikat]

ASRock has done some great stuff with SFF lately. If they're crazy enough to actually develop and release a Mini-ITX X99 board then a Mini-DTX Z170 isn't that far-fetched.

 

[iFreilicht]

Hmm. I would head towards ECS or Asrock as OEM for such a project - they have more experience in smaller boards. When we did the original designs I forwarded them to ECS, ASUS, GIgabyte, Biostar.. the only response I recieved was Biostar saying they didn't like it and the tone was that they didn't really care.

Well Gigabyte is one of the two manufacturers that make thin mITX 1150 boards, so they at least know how to cram a lot of stuff into a small boardspace.
I think that if you want to do something like that, you need to found a company first so the manufacturers take you more seriously.
It's astounding how much more feedback you get once there is a company footer below your request.

ASRock has done some great stuff with SFF lately. If they're crazy enough to actually develop and release a Mini-ITX X99 board then a Mini-DTX Z170 isn't that far-fetched.

Yeah and they have some great stuff in the server department as well. They have an mITX board with an LGA 2011-3 and 4 SO-DIMM slots, for example.

 

[PlayfulPhoenix]

It's astounding how much more feedback you get once there is a company footer below your request.

If only there were some among us, that had formalized businesses that could see this through...

 

[iFreilicht]

If only there were some among us, that had formalized businesses that could see this through...

Ah yeah, that would be awesome... wait!

 

[Phuncz]

If we, the SFF community in general, could ever get a good thing rolling with partners like ASRock and Silverstone, it would be a whole new world for SFF.
- motherboards with twin PCIe x16 ports (regular position and on top, sideways)
- 8-pin SFX12V plug instead of the 24-pin ATX12V (possible with modular plugs on PSU)
- SFF cases with trimmed power cables according to layout
- design and insight of all the wonderful case-designers here

I'm nerdy enough to say, that would be the dream.