CPU [SFF Network] AMD’s AM4 on the M-ITX Platform – Round-up and VRM Temperature Investigation

[maktama]

Ah, I thought the only mention of that was in the spec table.. fixed. again!
...

Are you sure?
look at the "The IO" title, between Asrock and Gigabyte pics.

 

[Josh | NFC]

Hey John!

I really have found your motherboard reviews helpful--particularly the UEFI screens.

Something I am confused about is you mention the AB350 supporting bifurcation, but I am wondering if the chipset would support two GPUs? Just curious if you or anyone has looked into this, or if I should be considering the X370 variant for a project I'm working on. Cost I guess isn't a big deal, but like you I can't find the value add for mini itx anyway between x370 and b350 if b350 supports 8x 8x bifurcated GPUs.

Thanks again!

 

[confusis]

@Josh | NFC Thanks!

Regarding the dual GPU, that's a good question. I, alas, don't have two matching GPUs on hand to test with! I will do some bargain hunting and see if I can sort out a pair of GPUs to test

 

[Josh | NFC]

@Josh | NFC Thanks!

Regarding the dual GPU, that's a good question. I, alas, don't have two matching GPUs on hand to test with! I will do some bargain hunting and see if I can sort out a pair of GPUs to test

If you are searching, might as well look for AMD cards, as on the low end they would still support crossfire in a crossfire supported board. I have serious doubts about crossfire operating on bifurcated pcie but hey, FOR SCIENCE

Maybe a HD 5450? I see those going for as low as 8 bucks. I have one I can send you if you are in teh USA.

*edit* ah man it is a 6350

 

[confusis]

I have a pair of HD5450's, problem is that one of them is in the Minecraft server! Will see if i can pick up a third cheaply

 

[Josh | NFC]

I have a pair of HD5450's, problem is that one of them is in the Minecraft server! Will see if i can pick up a third cheaply

Do you need a GPU for your minecraft server? Can you have 30 mins of downtime for planned maintenance?

I have 5 and 7 series nvidia cards you could choose from.

 

[confusis]

I have a spare GT210 i can throw in Will schedule the swap at the weekend

 

[parlinone]

@confusis thanks for the round-up. I was really surprised you mentioned the tight clearance of the Asrock Fatal1ty since the Biostar seems to be a LOT worse in this department. The distance between the CPU socket and the RAM sockets is the least with the Biostar, which would be the main culprit for CPU clearance. I'm not seeing any difference between the Gigabyte and Asrock board, can you expand on that perhaps?

Also regarding the Gigabyte poor layout: let me explain why it's poor for my situation. In my passive cooling system setup with the board mounted horizontally, and perforations top and bottom (modified Nexus Psile), I would want maximum airflow from both left and right sides. The front has no perforations for airflow, this is the ideal place for all power and SATA I/O. The back has some perforations above the I/O shield, which is basically identical for all boards and provides some airflow. But the left and right side is were airflow from the bottom will move into the cooler. Having one side nearly completely blocked will reduce your passive airflow significantly.

 

[Woothie]

@confusis Very good overview of the offerings we have for AM4 on mITX, thank you for this Will you be covering the ASUS board(s)? I see they decided to drop the display out for whatever reason, so that's quite an obvious con. I am curious about the VRM temperature though, as I have the Gigabyte one currently and it's a problem, even with the stock flower-style cooler blowing a little air over it (although it's hot air). I also see they're taking a big premium for them, so I hope they have the feature-set and build quality to back that up. Not that I'm super dissapointed with the Gigabyte offering or anything, it's served me well enough, although I wish they had dual BIOS chips, since I was foolish enough to update the BIOS via their windows utility and promptly bricked the board. Waiting for my replacement now.

Would be nice if manufacturers offered us a no-compromises type board at some point, even the ASUS one seems to lack in features (most notably the lack of display out), I'd be more than willing to pay a premium for a premium board. Perhaps with the release of X470. I hope.

 

[confusis]

@Woothie Asus has decided not to respond to our requests so thus we won't be testing their offering.

 

[kms108]

Thanks, and probably the most detailed comparision review.
I have the Gigabyteand I do like the layout, using it a N case, just couldn't wait for asus's offerring, although I do want the asus's one more, but got the gigabyte.
I have a few question about the gigabyte MB, in their site they do say that it has intergrated display process GPU, but many has said you need a seperate GPU or APU, so what is the problem here, even the shop I purchased it say it does, but it can't be used, so is gigabyte misleading people on this. At present i'm using the AMD Radeon Pro WX3100 for GPU.

Another question is about the temp on the wholes MB, mainly the CPU, Chipset, system, VSOC MOS, VRM MOS. as I mainly just use the PC, and don't really take note on the temp, just want to know are these temp normal for my setup.

average

CPU 35-37c
system/case 35c
Chipset 50-55c
VSOC MOS 45c
VRM MOS 45c

For the above, what are the usual maximum temp they can reach. For me it's browsing, watching films and BT downloading, no games what so ever.

Thanks

 

[kms108]

@confusis Very good overview of the offerings we have for AM4 on mITX, thank you for this Will you be covering the ASUS board(s)? I see they decided to drop the display out for whatever reason, so that's quite an obvious con. I am curious about the VRM temperature though, as I have the Gigabyte one currently and it's a problem, even with the stock flower-style cooler blowing a little air over it (although it's hot air). I also see they're taking a big premium for them, so I hope they have the feature-set and build quality to back that up. Not that I'm super dissapointed with the Gigabyte offering or anything, it's served me well enough, although I wish they had dual BIOS chips, since I was foolish enough to update the BIOS via their windows utility and promptly bricked the board. Waiting for my replacement now.

Would be nice if manufacturers offered us a no-compromises type board at some point, even the ASUS one seems to lack in features (most notably the lack of display out), I'd be more than willing to pay a premium for a premium board. Perhaps with the release of X470. I hope.

With the lack of the disply, so people are really forced to used a CPU without the built-in GPU, I also have the Gigabyte, and I like it alot, but was thinking of pickup the Asus's one, but heard that AMD are to be releasing a X470 chipset, so i'll probably wait for Asus to upgrade to the new X470 first.

 

[Soul_Est]

Thanks, and probably the most detailed comparision review.
I have the Gigabyteand I do like the layout, using it a N case, just couldn't wait for asus's offerring, although I do want the asus's one more, but got the gigabyte.
I have a few question about the gigabyte MB, in their site they do say that it has intergrated display process GPU, but many has said you need a seperate GPU or APU, so what is the problem here, even the shop I purchased it say it does, but it can't be used, so is gigabyte misleading people on this. At present i'm using the AMD Radeon Pro WX3100 for GPU.

Another question is about the temp on the wholes MB, mainly the CPU, Chipset, system, VSOC MOS, VRM MOS. as I mainly just use the PC, and don't really take note on the temp, just want to know are these temp normal for my setup.

average

CPU 35-37c
system/case 35c
Chipset 50-55c
VSOC MOS 45c
VRM MOS 45c

For the above, what are the usual maximum temp they can reach. For me it's browsing, watching films and BT downloading, no games what so ever.

Thanks

With the lack of the disply, so people are really forced to used a CPU without the built-in GPU, I also have the Gigabyte, and I like it alot, but was thinking of pickup the Asus's one, but heard that AMD are to be releasing a X470 chipset, so i'll probably wait for Asus to upgrade to the new X470 first.

Use of the ports on the board depends on the CPU which is stated on the page for the board. That said, you must have a Bristol Ridge (Axx-9xxx) or Raven Ridge ( Ryzen [3,5] 2x00G) APU as they have built-in graphics.

I don't know about having an APU and a dedicated graphics card installed though.

 

[ImaRyzen]

Hello! This is my first post here! I Have been reading everything I can and can say there is a lot of great information here. But alas, I need help.

A brief background, I would consider myself a mid range experienced builder. Having built approx 20 systems in the last 12 months for work. And have completed several custom builds including a few mATX and mITX.

Ok, my problem is system instability on my most recent build.

Lian Li PC05SX
Gigabyte Ab350n
Ryzen 5 1600x
Geil 2666 16GB
Corsair MP500 NvMe
Gigabyte Vega 56 Gaming OC (2 fan)
Corsair SF600
EVGA CLC 240

I have the 140mm spot on case occupied to pull air out. Have 240mm AIO pulling in from top (trying to get some air over VRM). My problem is this-- After some heavy loads (average ~10 mins), screen goes black, and GPU fans go to 100%. I've modified fan curves to keep idle CPU 23C, Idle GPU 41C, full load CPU 41C, full load GPU 67C. This is with current BIOS, all drivers updated, fresh window install, front glass on or off. Ram running at factory 2133. I get the exact same results with an Aorus RX580 and corsair vengeance 16gb ram. So, I have ruled out the GPU and RAM. I'm leaning towards mobo.

I'm out of ideas, please help!!!!

 

[jmarin]

Hello! This is my first post here! I Have been reading everything I can and can say there is a lot of great information here. But alas, I need help.

A brief background, I would consider myself a mid range experienced builder. Having built approx 20 systems in the last 12 months for work. And have completed several custom builds including a few mATX and mITX.

Ok, my problem is system instability on my most recent build.

Lian Li PC05SX
Gigabyte Ab350n
Ryzen 5 1600x
Geil 2666 16GB
Corsair MP500 NvMe
Gigabyte Vega 56 Gaming OC (2 fan)
Corsair SF600
EVGA CLC 240

I have the 140mm spot on case occupied to pull air out. Have 240mm AIO pulling in from top (trying to get some air over VRM). My problem is this-- After some heavy loads (average ~10 mins), screen goes black, and GPU fans go to 100%. I've modified fan curves to keep idle CPU 23C, Idle GPU 41C, full load CPU 41C, full load GPU 67C. This is with current BIOS, all drivers updated, fresh window install, front glass on or off. Ram running at factory 2133. I get the exact same results with an Aorus RX580 and corsair vengeance 16gb ram. So, I have ruled out the GPU and RAM. I'm leaning towards mobo.

I'm out of ideas, please help!!!!

What version BIOS do you have?

 

[ImaRyzen]

What version BIOS do you have?

F22

 

[jmarin]

F22

Sorry, must have glossed over that part. It does seem like it may be motherboard related. Maybe try a previous version of the BIOS? See if that clears it up?