So is future proofing the reason you want M.2 over MPCIe for the wifi card then? I was a bit confused, I didn't think WiFi could saturate a PCIe lane quite yet. I don't see why the slot wouldn't be routed for 2 PCIe lanes, though, since 2 lanes is a requirement.
If you're worried about how lanes are routed, though. Is there a chance the mini-SAS connector on the board might only be routed for 2 lanes since that's all SATA Express uses?
Yep, futureproofing is pretty much it. While 802.11ac cannot saturate 1 PCI-e lane, currently, 802.11ad (60GHz) and 802.11ax (next generation ac currently testing at >10GHz in lab and >4GHz outside, expected in 2017/2018 timeframe) will get over the bandwidth a single lane can provide.
The Mini-SAS port will most likely have 4 lanes going to it. I'd be very surprised if they reduced it to 2.
It's best to refer to it as U.2, because although it is a SFF-8643 connector, it doesn't quite work the same way. You couldn't actually use it as a mini-SAS to connect multiple sata/sas drives - at least not based on my understanding.
Right, there is no SAS controller on the board, so it doesn't support SAS or SCSI Express drives.
-Why do you want USB 2.0? EHCI was dropped in Skylake/Sunrise Point, there will be no true USB 2.0 compatibility for devices, and there are workarounds for installing Win7 through USB drives on 3.0 - primarily injecting 3.0 drivers into the WIM.
xHCI is taking over for EHCI. The only things truly affected by this are Windows 7, earlier Linux releases, and USB devices that explicitly use the EHCI driver to negotiate power, timing, and other features like DAC's (you have the NuPrime uDSD and I have the Centrance DACport that are affected by this). But USB 2.0 has a very long life ahead of it. DisplayPort 1.2 implements it and the new USB Type-C connectors have pins dedicated for USB 2.0. USB 3.1 (Gen 1 & 2), DisplayPort, HDMI, MHL, Thunderbolt, and any other protocol will run on the high speed data path on the outside while the center pins will still be USB 2.0 irregardless. They will just be supported by the xHCI driver, instead.
-True, but you can use fan splitters unless you need to fine tune every single fan you are connecting to a different curve.
I like to tune the fans to minimize the noise. Also, if you recall, the Maximus VII Impact had a daughter card mounted on the board which had two fan headers on it...now they are making you buy a separate card for this.
-This isn't a reasonable expectation. On a mini-ITX board where space is at a premium, a dedicated pump header makes no sense, especially since it's really just another PWM fan header with another name.
I agree you don't need MORE fan ports, due to splitters, but it's not a bad idea to have one of the two able to carry more current for pumps.
Yes...okay let me rephase what I said. It'd be nice to see functionality for headers dedicated for waterpumps. It could be a BIOS option, for all I care. And again, lack of fan headers to begin with...
It's an awkward situation: the drive-side connector is the u.2 connector. The board-side connector is not defined as part of the u.2 standard. SFF-8643 is being used by everyone so far because it works, but theoretically someone could terminate a cable unto an m.2 card, or some custom plug, and it would still be 'u.2'. If/when OCuLink becomes part of the PCIe standard, that will probably end up as either the end terminator for u.2, or replace u.2 entirely (depending on the expense of the connector, it may be cheaper to keep using u.2 on the drive side in it's encapsulated-card-edge version).
Everything I see on OCuLink is that it is another external connector. What would be slick is if they replaced all of these internal cables to USB Type-C connectors (and do the same for the external I/O, too).
Hopefully there is an m.2 slot on the back, but having the screwhole under the audio card would place the m.2 card perilously close to the CPU backplate keepout area (if not impinging into it altogether).
Actually, that's right around where it is on my Z97I-Plus.
My understanding was that U.2 referred to the device end plug (SFF_8639).
As for being able to use it as a mini-SAS, I think that depends on implementation. It's certainly possible to connect it to both PCIe and SATA/SAS ports, at least per the SAS standard, and choose to connect either 4 standard drives or 1 PCIe drive, though not a requirement to have both options. I do agree it's likely they didn't include 4 SATA ports on that plug.
That is for the SAS arrangement only.
If they are going with the full 4 PCIe lane rather than just using it because STA express takes up entirely too much room, that is good.
Personally, I don't see a huge reason for that host side SATA Express plug to have ever existed, it's bulky and only carries 2 lanes, and since you need new connectors and cables anyways there's no reason not to switch to something else, in the space boards have 2 SATA-Express and a few more standard connectors, you could easily put a pair of mini-SAS connectors and still have the 2 PCIe ports but with 4 lanes each and 8 SATA ports. The only downside is you'd have to use a Mini-SAS to 4x SAS/SATA rather than standard SATA cables, but those are easy to find, and they tend to stick drive cables in the motherboard box anyways.
SATA Express was DOA. The only widely available consumer devices I've seen use the SATA Express connector are the USB 3.1 Gen. 2 front panel connectors that have a lot of protocol overhead on them.
A lack of more USB headers might still be disappointing, though I agree you might as well have USB3 instead of 2 for external ports. For internal devices, though, USB2 is still good to have, because there are some things that connect to a USB header.
Yes, many things use the USB 2.0 header and, as I stated above, it's not dead, just supported by a different driver.
WiFi is a good OPTION to have at least. Small PCs are more likely to be used as portable machines which makes wireless stuff more useful.
Soft Access Points are another feature useful for WiFi. The WiFi cards may also support BlueTooth (and hopefully they'll start supporting other protocols like Zigbee, Z-Wave, and 802.11ae) to support peripherals, IoT devices, phones, etc.
If anything's in the way, I'd say it's the Mini-SAS connector. If that were elsewhere, they could have moved the USB3.0 and LAN connector to that spot and been able to do what they did with the VII Impact where there was a riser for an M.2 drive and the WiFi module.
With the amount of I/O Z170 supports, it can easily fill up the rear I/O panel.
Absolutely packed boards like this, though make me start wishing the industry might start moving to SO-DIMMs and that the ATX power connector came in a smaller package
Intel, and probably only Intel, could lead a change like this. With the direction they are pushing the get smaller motherboards, it wouldn't be surprising to see something like this in the future. But there is a lot built up around the ATX connectors. Perhaps someone will do an intermediary that has a small connector on the board and flexible connector go to the standard ATX connector (which obviously could be modded to go directly to a modular PSU).
I believe the use of SFF-8643 is also specifically called for by SCSI Express, though that may mostly be for backwards compatibility reasons to run SAS/SATA over the cable as an option since the drive side connector can also carry PCIe, SAS (and Multilink SAS), and SATA. The SATA Express is working under similar principles given the host side connector containing 2 SATA ports.
SFF-8643 is only the connector. SCSI Express may specify the connector type as being SFF-8643, but it also has the electrical specifications as well.
Hmm, interesting clarification that it's just the drive side/SFF8639 portion being called U.2.
Asus has already taken to referring to it as a U.2 port boardside, regardless -
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/MAXIMUS-VIII-EXTREME/
I suspect others will, too, rather than SFF 8643 or mini-SAS. If this is only a temporary measure until another port is devised such as oculink, perhaps waiting until Kaby Lake to see if things are fleshed out is a good idea...
Well the whole reason the name U.2 came about was to make it more relatable for consumers. SFF-8639 is a mouthful for consumers, so they gave it a name that relates to the M.2 interface for SSDs. I'm sure calling the host side Mini-SAS or SFF-8643 would confuse buyers giving them the wrong impression about the capabilities with the former, and the latter not meaning anything to most.
I guess it will become standard parlance to refer to it as a U.2 connector. Definitely easier to refer to it as that. But it will become confusing if they decide to change up any of the connectors where we then have to start referring to it as a U.2-XXXXXXX connection.
