ASRock X299E-ITX/ac Motherboard

[cadaveca]

ASRock's X299E-ITX/ac is that mini motherboard for Intel's X299 platform that takes all that is good and shoves it into a board smaller than a shoebox. With a triplet of M.2 ports and dual LAN chips, plus Wi-Fi, there's almost nothing missed, other than some PCIe slots, making this board an engineering feat only ASRock could accomplish.

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[Ferrum Master]

I wonder, does shorter traces in IMC route contribute to RAM OC? Or the sodimms are truly inferior to any decent dimm part?

 

[cadaveca]

I wonder, does shorter traces in IMC route contribute to RAM OC? Or the sodimms are truly inferior to any decent dimm part?

I think the SO-DIMMs have their impact, but it's specifically the PCB that is the problem as far as I understand it, and not anything else. Maybe they could design one that would work as well as a full-size DIMM, but at the same time, I am not sure that the R&D costs would be worth it, given the limited need for ultra-speed SO-DIMMs.

For the CPU itself, and how trace design for memory can affect OC, it is already well established that this is a factor. ASUS was one of the first to market this sort of thing with "T-Topology", but for X299, ASRock's X299 Formula is most definitely a testament to the truth behind this.

 

[xkm1948]

Now we just need a X399 Mini-ITX

 

[lukart]

We need a X399 OC Formula!
Seriously... I wonder if Asrock doesnt believe in the Ryzen potential for overclock?

 

[Woomack]

re memory prices, can get Ballistix Sport LT for ~$350/32GB and make something like this :

I was really surprised as these are Micron based sticks and Micron DDR4 was never good in OC. Even though main timings don't look so good ( secondary can be quite tight ) then overall performance is about as high as that of standard DIMM@4000 C17-19. Also on these settings my rig runs 24/7 since I made tests for review so about 3 weeks ( memory voltage is actually 1.35V and on the screenshot is 1.4V ).

I don't think I had any other motherboard that I liked so much ( including all ROGs, OCF and other series ).

 

[cadaveca]

re memory prices, can get Ballistix Sport LT for ~$350/32GB and make something like this :


I was really surprised as these are Micron based sticks and Micron DDR4 was never good in OC. Even though main timings don't look so good ( secondary can be quite tight ) then overall performance is about as high as that of standard DIMM@4000 C17-19. Also on these settings my rig runs 24/7 since I made tests for review so about 3 weeks ( memory voltage is actually 1.35V and on the screenshot is 1.4V ).

I don't think I had any other motherboard that I liked so much ( including all ROGs, OCF and other series ).

That bandwidth can be done on this platform with far less frequency with actual good sticks... @ like 3600 MHz. Unfortunately my SO-DIMM sticks will only do 3000. When it comes to memory pricing, generally speaking cheaper sticks are cheaper for a reason.

 

[Steven B]

Thanks for the shout out Dave! Great Review!