Motherboard Z490 ITX Sticker Shock.

[ChinStrap]

I know ITX is pay to play, but WOW.

ASUS ROG STRIX Z490-I @ $300
ASRock Z490 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 @ $280
GIGABYTE Z490I @ $270
MSI MEG Z490I @ $270

Asrock does have it's "lower end" @ only $170.
ASRock Z490M-ITX/ac @ $170

I don't know what I was thinking. I guess my B450s have me spoiled. thoughts?

 

[JSItems]

I have a 9900K in my M1. This thing is borderline too hot/power hungry for my tastes. In the face of an even hungrier-for-power-and-heat CPU lineup and ridiculous costs for essentially a re-re-re-refinement of an old process, my thoughts are that Zen 3 sounds very exciting.

I wouldn't even consider the CML-S lineup personally, especially for ITX. Not unless it were heavily discounted. The 10900K has a 360 mm rad as the recommended minimum cooler.

 

[Phuncz]

The problem is that that i9-10900K is pulling 300W easily when it's allowed to run unlocked, so it requires not only a beefy VRM situation, these also requires beefy cooling (sometimes a fan) and I believe one or more of these boards also use a 10-layer PCB which is assumingly costly. The premium Z390 boards were also in the 250$ range looking in my region. These are also probably PCIe 4.0 compatible.

 

[ermac318]

One of the reasons I went Intel 9700K instead of 3700X or 3800X last year was because of the price of X570 motherboards. I was able to get the best Z390 ITX board (Phantom Gaming ITX) for $50 less than the cheapest X570 board. That blew any cost savings of going AMD out of the water. I didn't want to go B450 (a year+ old chipset at that point) with a new CPU, and I'm glad I didn't in hindsight what with all the BIOS issues, and with how much better the B550 boards are than their X570 predecessors.

Z490 is a huge cost uplift but it's for the same reasons X570 was pricier: PCIe Gen 4 (which you can't even use today!) and massive VRMs.

 

[Desertf0x9]

I don’t see any reason not to go for 9700k if all anyone cares about gaming. Better thermals, power consumption and a much cheaper mobo.

 

[blacklagann]

Ermac I think ITX prices are just going up, B550 is EXPENSIVE too. Asus b550i strix is 230$ only 20$ cheaper than the x570i leading me to believe others will be hardly cheaper than their x570 counterparts

 

[She loved E]

Ermac I think ITX prices are just going up, B550 is EXPENSIVE too. Asus b550i strix is 230$ only 20$ cheaper than the x570i leading me to believe others will be hardly cheaper than their x570 counterparts

Completely agree. Once manufacturers figure it out they'll phase out lower pricing on ITX gear completely. Smaller is better and its becoming more common for first-time PC builders to start with an ITX build.

I decided on a B450 build once Z490 prices were leaked. I spent the $150 saved on a better CPU, no regrets here.

 

[tinyitx]

Smaller is better and its becoming more common for first-time PC builders to start with an ITX build.

I do not have the same impression. Overall majority (first time builders or not) still prefers ATX. It would take many many years before ITX can substitute ATX, if this ever happens.
I think, if more and more people shift to ITX from ATX, manufacturers will make various models to offer a wider choice to the consumers. But, I do not really see this in the past 2-3 years. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

 

[ermac318]

Ermac I think ITX prices are just going up, B550 is EXPENSIVE too. Asus b550i strix is 230$ only 20$ cheaper than the x570i leading me to believe others will be hardly cheaper than their x570 counterparts

B550 is expensive for the same reasons Z490 and X570 are expensive, PCIe 4.0 and overbuilt VRMs. MSI's B550 ITX board is launching at $199 MSRP, so as per usual Asus is charging a premium for their motherboards.

If you compare Z390 to Z490, or even B450 to B550, the quality and components of the motherboards really don't compare. It makes sense they are more expensive. A legitimate question is - do they need to be overbuilt like they are? The fact that B550 ITX motherboards have better VRMs than their X570 predecessors is nuts.

AsRock is making both Z490 and B550 ITX options that are "budget" options. AsRocks' Z490M-ITX is $160 and I suspect the B550M-ITX will be even cheaper.

 

[murderbymodem]

B550 is expensive for the same reasons Z490 and X570 are expensive, PCIe 4.0 and overbuilt VRMs. MSI's B550 ITX board is launching at $199 MSRP, so as per usual Asus is charging a premium for their motherboards.

If you compare Z390 to Z490, or even B450 to B550, the quality and components of the motherboards really don't compare. It makes sense they are more expensive. A legitimate question is - do they need to be overbuilt like they are? The fact that B550 ITX motherboards have better VRMs than their X570 predecessors is nuts.

AsRock is making both Z490 and B550 ITX options that are "budget" options. AsRocks' Z490M-ITX is $160 and I suspect the B550M-ITX will be even cheaper.

I own a Z390M-ITX from ASrock and have had a great experience with it so far. Aside from the fact that it only has a single M.2 slot for SSDs (most boards have one front and one rear), I haven't had any issues or complaints to speak of. Then again, I am running it with a locked i5-9400 and only DDR4-2666, so I'm not doing anything special with it. At the time I got it for only $120 or so, which was a bargain compared to the rest of the ITX boards on the market.

I imagine not many of us are doing crazy overclocking in our SFF builds, so I second your question of if beefy VRMs are really neccesary. If anything, many of us actually undervolt our hardware. I personally will likely opt for a budget ASrock board again if/when I upgrade. Anything over $200 for a motherboard is excessive in my opinion.

 

[duq]

I just built an i5-10400F with the Asrock Z490M-ITX/ac and I'm very satisfied. I had a Ryzen 3600 in the same case/cooler and I couldn't make the build silent enough for me.
My RAM is G.Skill Ripjaws B-Die 3600MHz with CL16 (XMP), works perfectly on the ASRock board. I bought the RAM for Ryzen, I wouldn't bother buying so expensive RAM for Intel.
After BIOS-Update the ASRock board is clocking the 10400F at 4000MHz all cores continuously, 4100MHz short boosts on 1-2 cores, as far I have seen during benchmarking. They call it Base Frequency Boost, kind of automatic overclocking. You can't tweak it (like voltages or frequencies) at all, at least I couldn't find anything in the current BIOS. If Intel ever prevent this, I'll just go for the 10600KF if I will need it.
The board has two empty M.2 PCIe Gen3 x4 sockets on the top side (beside the WiFi socket!) and 2,5G LAN, you don't get all that on B450 boards for that money.
More here: Afterwards sanity check Ryzen 3600 vs. i5 10400F temps

Please don't call me Intel-fanboy I just wanted my first SFF-build to be air cooled, silent and gaming-capable. I have started with AMD and ended at Intel. I'm sure with more capable cooling and more capable CPUs, Ryzen would very probably be the more silent and more efficient choice. But in my case, 10400F really behaved thermally much friendlier than Ryzen 3600. Underclocking/undervolting Ryzen could also be a way, however, this is not very straightforward way, as I found out googling.

 

[Valantar]

I just built an i5-10400F with the Asrock Z490M-ITX/ac and I'm very satisfied. I had a Ryzen 3600 in the same case/cooler and I couldn't make the build silent enough for me.
My RAM is G.Skill Ripjaws B-Die 3600MHz with CL16 (XMP), works perfectly on the ASRock board. I bought the RAM for Ryzen, I wouldn't bother buying so expensive RAM for Intel.
After BIOS-Update the ASRock board is clocking the 10400F at 4000MHz all cores continuously, 4100MHz short boosts on 1-2 cores, as far I have seen during benchmarking. They call it Base Frequency Boost, kind of automatic overclocking. You can't tweak it (like voltages or frequencies) at all, at least I couldn't find anything in the current BIOS. If Intel ever prevent this, I'll just go for the 10600KF if I will need it.
The board has two empty M.2 PCIe Gen3 x4 sockets on the top side (beside the WiFi socket!) and 2,5G LAN, you don't get all that on B450 boards for that money.
More here: Afterwards sanity check Ryzen 3600 vs. i5 10400F temps

Please don't call me Intel-fanboy I just wanted my first SFF-build to be air cooled, silent and gaming-capable. I have started with AMD and ended at Intel. I'm sure with more capable cooling and more capable CPUs, Ryzen would very probably be the more silent and more efficient choice. But in my case, 10400F really behaved thermally much friendlier than Ryzen 3600. Underclocking/undervolting Ryzen could also be a way, however, this is not very straightforward way, as I found out googling.

I have to ask: for a non-overclockable lower midrange CPU, why did you go Z490? Seems like a waste of money, with the only tangible gain over B460 being faster RAM, which doesn't make much of a difference in most workloads. I get that there likely aren't any B460 ITX boards yet, but that pairing is still downright silly.

 

[rfarmer]

I have to ask: for a non-overclockable lower midrange CPU, why did you go Z490? Seems like a waste of money, with the only tangible gain over B460 being faster RAM, which doesn't make much of a difference in most workloads. I get that there likely aren't any B460 ITX boards yet, but that pairing is still downright silly.

That Asrock board he got is only $159.99, B460 will probably be as much.

 

[Valantar]

That Asrock board he got is only $159.99, B460 will probably be as much.

Ah, that's not too bad then.

 

[ikjadoon]

You aren't spoiled by B550 pricing. This is genuinely a larger mark-up than in previous generations.

Not to necro an old post, but I'm shopping around lately and have also been stunned. My 2018 ASRock Z370 Gaming-ITX/ac (the highest-end variant of the Z370 cycle) had a $179.99 MSRP. Intel did move from six-core-max to ten-core-max, so perhaps VRM costs have gone up. But $100 more? That's crazy.

Mini-ITX motherboards have skyrocketed in pricing, it looks like. You're quoting MSRPs, which is insane.

Do not think I can stomach a $260+ motherboard. Features have increased (more NVMe slots, 2.5 GBe LAN, 802.11ax, USB 3.2, etc.), but perhaps it's a Z490 phenomenon even outside of mini-ITX. Hell, I got my board on sale for $150 at Microcenter.

 

[ermacnsteez]

One of the reasons I went Intel 9700K instead of 3700X or 3800X last year was because of the price of X570 motherboards. I was able to get the best Z390 ITX board (Phantom Gaming ITX) for $50 less than the cheapest X570 board. That blew any cost savings of going AMD out of the water. I didn't want to go B450 (a year+ old chipset at that point) with a new CPU, and I'm glad I didn't in hindsight what with all the BIOS issues, and with how much better the B550 boards are than their X570 predecessors.

Z490 is a huge cost uplift but it's for the same reasons X570 was pricier: PCIe Gen 4 (which you can't even use today!) and massive VRMs.

hi Ermac brother