ASRock officially announced the Fatal1ty X370 Gaming-ITX/ac Mini ITXmotherboard at Computex. With the AMD AM4 socket and X370 chipset, the motherboard is ready for a Ryzen processor or Bristol Ridge APU (though at this point, it might be prudent to wait for Raven Ridge).
The new motherboard is powered by a 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connector that drives a digital eight phase VRM setup. The AM4 CPU socket is surrounded by two DDR4 DIMM slots, a single PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot, and four SATA 6Gbps ports. There is also one Ultra M.2 (PCI-E 3.0 x4) slot for solid state drives. ASRock includes 7.1 channel (Realtek ALC 1220) audio along with Intel-powered Gigabit Ethernet. There is also support for 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.3 with two external antenna connectors on the back panel.
Speaking of rear I/O, the Fatal1ty X370 Gaming-ITX/ac includes:
- 1 x PS/2
- 2 x USB 2.0
- 2 x HDMI
- 3 x USB 3.0 Type-A
- 1 x USB 3.0 Type-C
- 5 x Analog audio
- 1 x S/PDIF
- 2 x Wi-Fi antennas
Small form factor enthusiasts have been waiting for this board for awhile since it was first teased. Fortunately, they will not have long to wait with several websites reporting from Computex that the new Mini ITX motherboard will be available within the month for around $160 MSRP. (There is reportedly also going to be a B350-based variant which may come in a bit cheaper.)
I am looking forward to the reviews on this one! Are you planning a SFF Ryzen build?
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I am looking forward to
I am looking forward to competition in this space. It is unbelievable that even a couple of months after launch they still didn’t really have any Mini-ITX options, with the only option being Biostar. Where is X300? X370 is pointless for ITX. X300 would save on board space and cost, and still have almost all the features of X370 or B350.
I think the ‘SFF’ designation
I think the ‘SFF’ designation for X300 is being misinterpreted as being for ITX – judging by the size of the chipset heatsink on the Biostar, the X370 is plenty small enough to fit. The logical thing seems to be that X300 is for actual SFF such as embedded systems, laptops and so on. Possibly STX? But there is no real reason to not use a regular chipset on ITX, unless X300 would noticeably lower prices.
I do like the irony(?) of me (finally!) receiving my Biostar X370GTN on the same day that this was first shown. Not that I’m unhappy with the Biostar, but I would probably have preferred this if it was available. Considering how much the Biostar cost here in Norway, pricing would probably have been similar too, despite the difference in MSRP. Still, more competition in the ITX space is good for everyone. SFF to the people!