News ASRock reveals world's first X99 Mini-ITX motherboard

I wonder why they didn't use SODIMM's? Losing out on double the memory bandwith would put me off tbh. But kudos for pulling it off though! That couldnt have been easy for the design team.

 

First thing that went through my head as well...

 

The reason is the list of DDR4 SODIMM modules on market, which follows in this list :

• none exists on the market (being actually sold, not just announced)

Is that a good explanation why they didn't use DDR4 SODIMM ?

 

Maybe the board is too small to route all the required traces to support 4 DIMM / SO-DIMM slots. They did it with their Avoton offering, but the Avoton is a SOC so doesn't need a chipset. Plus, the PCIe slot is limited to 8x, so less traces

 

I don't think it's a traces issue as EVGA has a Micro ATX X99 board with all four ram slots and 3 PCIe slots, unless I'm getting my sizes mixed up.

 

I hope you realize how much bigger mATX is compared to mITX.

 

So what your saying is i did get my sizes mixed up.

 

What i am saying that you have more space above/bellow the CPU, and not just on sides; so doing traces for RAM which don't overlap with traces for PCI-E is doable on mATX, but not in mITX. That is also the reason you see the DDR4 modules on the other side than the PCI-E is on the current board.

 

Makes me wonder how many people would be willing to sacrifice quad channel RAM and two PCI-E slots for a board that's only 3 inches shorter/thinner.

 

Ok smart ass, but the board isn't released yet either! DDR4 SODIMM's are only just around the corner so I don't see why not.

 

i need to see the reviews first but i could be tempted by this. The key thing for me is the cooling. If that custom heatsink/fan is as nosiy as a 747 then i won't be buying it.

 

OMG, DO WANT for a fileserver! Afraid to ask how much though...

 

@Cthippo: this is the cheaper one
http://www.amazon.co.uk/C2550D4I-ASROCK-MOTHERBOARD-MINI-ITX-FCBGA1283/dp/B00GG94YDS

 

The one picture is the 8-cores C2750 Avoton, retailing around £300

http://www.amazon.co.uk/C2750D4I-In...8&qid=1426704412&sr=1-1&keywords=asrock+c2750

 

OK, Thanks guys

 

Keep in mind the new Xeon D lineup (8 Haswell cores, integrated PCH like a SoC, ECC support) should be in retail channels around April-May as well, and are a fair bit faster than the Avoton platform based on preliminary results.

Performance preview: http://www.servethehome.com/intel-xeon-d-1540-performance-comparison/
Power consumption preview: http://www.servethehome.com/intel-xeon-d-1540-power-performance-preview/

Supermicro should also be making some microATX variants with more physical PCIe slots as well for more flexible scenarios like high-density NAS.

 

incredible stuff