X99 on mITX: ASRock X99E-itx/ac

[SaperPL]

they could have went with DDR4 SODIMMS and maybe they could have fitted quad channel.

http://www.crucial.com/wcsstore/CrucialSAS/pdf/product-flyer/ram/crucial-ddr4-sodimm-en.pdf

The LGA2011-3 is 7mm tall and twin stacked sodimms are 8mm tall so that could be possible if the coolers have at least 1mm distance between the surface touching the core and the outer parts with sodimms lying flat and the four flat 4mm single slots at the back.



With vertical slots it looks a lot better because it could fit all of them on top:


Hope that some motherboard manufacturers are lurking here ^_^

 

[Black5Lion]

The LGA2011-3 is 7mm tall and twin stacked sodimms are 8mm tall so that could be possible if the coolers have at least 1mm distance between the surface touching the core and the outer parts with sodimms lying flat and the four flat 4mm single slots at the back.



With vertical slots it looks a lot better because it could fit all of them on top:


Hope that some motherboard manufacturers are lurking here ^_^

Someone please make the second motherboard
I would LOVE to have 8x8GB of ram
Edit: Actually either one would work, I just want 64GB minimum

 

[Aibohphobia]

I've might been wrong. The dimm itself is 3.8mm max while the atx clearance is 6.35mm. flat mount slots look to me like 7mm but maybe there are some thin ones that could be mounted.

That's 6.35mm clearance for the standoffs, the motherboard itself has these height limitations on the secondary side according to the ATX spec:

3.4.2 Secondary (Bottom/Solder) Side Height Constraints
Required secondary (bottom) side motherboard height constraints for all areas (A-C, as shown in Figure 7)
are defined as follows (measured from the bottom planar surface of the motherboard PCB):

• ≤0.010” – Mounting hole standoff areas – no components. Restriction applies within 0.400” square
area centered on each required mounting hole location defined in Section 3.2. Nominal allowance is
provided only to accommodate slight reflow solder excess.

• ≤0.098” – All board circuit components (including leads) that are electrically conductive and intolerant
of direct connection to chassis ground (e.g., through-hole leads, surface mount resistors).

• ≤0.120” – Board components that are non-conductive or otherwise tolerant of direct connection to
chassis ground (e.g., connector guide/stake pins).

• ≤0.200” – Devices attached to the motherboard for the sole purpose of structural retention or stiffening.

A chassis and its related elements (e.g., stiffening ribs, base pan, structural supports fasteners, etc.) must
allow ≥ 0.250” clearance to the bottom planar surface of the motherboard PCB. This does not including
mounting hole standoffs, which may extend to and contact the PCB at the mounting holes within the
prescribed 0.400”-square areas.

http://www.formfactors.org/developer%5Cspecs%5Catx2_2.PDF

 

[SaperPL]

According to this it wouldn't be possible because the flat sodimm slot is 4mm thick and 0.120" is 3mm. What about backside mSATA/M.2 drives? I think those sockets are around 5mm off the surface.

 

[Necere]

So IANAMD (motherboard designer) either, but it at least seems not outside the realm of possibility to have quad channel memory and the standard square ILM 2011 socket by using SO-DIMMs:



Saper, I borrowed your mockup image to make my own, hope you don't mind. I replaced your SO-DIMM sockets with a type that seems to be standard for mounting perpendicular to the board, but they're wider (8.4mm), so only four will fit. And again, this is with the square ILM with 80x80mm mount instead of the narrow ILM with 56x94mm mount.

This layout seems closest to what you typically see on motherboards - memory on either side of the CPU, chipset centrally located between and with short runs to the major components - so it at least seems feasible to this layman. There's probably not a ton of space for power circuitry, but a daughterboard like ASUS uses could address that.

And just because, here's a mini-DTX version:

 

[Wizzard]

DTX is dandy, but it's kinda dead.

And I think soDIMM placement would have to be along the top and bottom edges, or side-by-side along the top and bottom - Between the CPU socket and opposite really restricts potential airflow, if somebody tried to squeeze that into anything without a watercooler.

But I do think 4 soDIMMs would be the way to go, IFF 8GB DDR4-2666+ become a thing.

 

[Necere]

DTX is dandy, but it's kinda dead.

It never really lived, but there's a contingent of us that still thinks it should. The point is not the status of AMD's "DTX" form-factor; the point is mini-ITX with two expansion slots, which is all that mini-DTX is, in essence. Mini-DTX is just a convenient name for it.

And I think soDIMM placement would have to be along the top and bottom edges, or side-by-side along the top and bottom - Between the CPU socket and opposite really restricts potential airflow, if somebody tried to squeeze that into anything without a watercooler.

True, though that comes with the territory - packing a lot of power onto a tiny board is going to result in some airflow restriction. Look at the ASUS boards, and then consider that LGA2011 has a larger socket, requires more power, and the memory takes up just as much space (since four SO-DIMM slots take up roughly the same space as 2 DIMM slots).

And regarding the DIMM placement, again, I don't know anything about motherboard design, but there's probably a reason you never see DIMM slots right next to the PCIe slot. I'm not sure they could be in a line at the top - they're about 80mm long, and with mini-ITX at just 170mm, it doesn't really leave room to unlatch the clips that hold the modules. But swapping the VRM location and one DIMM set in the above mockup might work. Though again, that might not actually gain you anything, since the VRMs + heatsink (or daughterboard, if used), might be just as tall.

But I do think 4 soDIMMs would be the way to go, IFF 8GB DDR4-2666+ become a thing.

Micron has listed on their site 8 and even 16GB DDR4 modules, so it's only a matter of time before they become available.

 

[SaperPL]

And regarding the DIMM placement, again, I don't know anything about motherboard design, but there's probably a reason you never see DIMM slots right next to the PCIe slot.

Maybe because of the heat at the back of the card. The same reason why I don't want to put an SSD over the GPU in my case.

It is possible to put full dimms but as I said before - it's just matter of manufacturing price - you just need more layers for your multilayer PCB to route the stuff around.

I'm not sure how much more expensive is that and this Asrock Avoton board is quite expensive but it has few additional raid controllers to support multiple drives.

Doesn't look impossible to me to make it with this smaller version of LGA2011-3 asrock used in that X99 board and place full dimm slots on it. The only problem is to somehow fit the chipset and its cooler without obstructing PCI-E mounting and leaving some space for required connectors.

 

[Siba]

Mini-DeadTX

 

[Necere]

It is possible to put full dimms but as I said before - it's just matter of manufacturing price - you just need more layers for your multilayer PCB to route the stuff around.

I'm not sure how much more expensive is that and this Asrock Avoton board is quite expensive but it has few additional raid controllers to support multiple drives.

Doesn't look impossible to me to make it with this smaller version of LGA2011-3 asrock used in that X99 board and place full dimm slots on it. The only problem is to somehow fit the chipset and its cooler without obstructing PCI-E mounting and leaving some space for required connectors.

That Avoton board isn't a great example, since it has less of pretty much everything else besides memory slots and SATA connectors: smaller CPU footprint, smaller chipset, fewer VRMs, shorter PCIe slot, fewer rear ports. Look again at the X99 board in the OP - the chipset is between the CPU and PCIe slot, with no room to spare. There's no way you're getting another pair of full-size DIMM slots in that space. The problem is a lack of board real estate, which isn't something you can solve with more PCB layers.

An image is worth a thousand words, so here's my best attempt at a mockup with narrow ILM + quad channel DIMM slots:



Just the key components take up the vast majority of the available space. Add in SATA ports, motherboard headers, and all the other surface-mount components and it just doesn't seem viable to me at all. Quad channel with SO-DIMMs could work, regular DIMMs... not so much.

I'd love to be proven wrong btw - IMO the mockup above looks awesome. I just doubt it's at all realistic.

 

[Black5Lion]

This might be wild to suggest, but maybe ASRock or someone else could make a board with soldered on RAM?
It might not be upgradeable, but if you have 64GB of ram built in, what would you upgrade to?
They could stack RAM chips and save lots of space too.

 

[Necere]

This might be wild to suggest, but maybe ASRock or someone else could make a board with soldered on RAM?
It might not be upgradeable, but if you have 64GB of ram built in, what would you upgrade to?
They could stack RAM chips and save lots of space too.

I'm guessing there's probably not a big market for a $1,000 mini-ITX board

 

[SaperPL]

Yeah - go on and overclock that ram - good luck with soldering out for warranty

 

[Wizzard]

Brain fart, here - Why not 4 soDIMMs on the *bottom* of the board?

And regarding previous DTX posts - I loved DTX not as a product, but as an urge to have ITX cases with 2 slots, for "DTX" compatibility.

 

[SaperPL]

There's always a way

EDIT: fixed
EDIT2: updated again

 

[Phuncz]

So IANAMD (motherboard designer) either, but it at least seems not outside the realm of possibility to have quad channel memory and the standard square ILM 2011 socket by using SO-DIMMs:

Spoiler: Image

Now that's a board that could change the face of workstations. 8-core 64GB RAM beast with multiple M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 slots for massive overkill. Just what I want !

 

[jb1]

Agreed! Sadly I think that these designs are unlikely to come to market, but the asrock offering here has me hopeful that there will be more interest in ITX X99 designs from motherboard manufacturers! I think that the latest Mac Pro is unchallenged on the CPU computational power per unit volume front, but a board like this could change that.

 

[SaperPL]

Yeah, it would be nice having a proper itx X99 board. Also standard 1150 with 4 slots would be great. It sucks that there's no 1150 itx boards with 4 dimms on the market.

I think we should design those boards visually for different manufactuers, make high quality lifelike renders/mockups and troll the media during next big exhibition

BTW I've updated the last concept in my prev post

 

[Siba]

Saper, is it possible to take all components to the right of the PCIE and rotate counter clockwise 90 degrees? Otherwise, I see a lot of complaints about power connector and usb header locations. Also, you might be forgetting some components like audio codec, vrms, and any other northbridge/southbridge/accessory chips

 

[Urelure]

Saper, is it possible to take all components to the right of the PCIE and rotate counter clockwise 90 degrees? Otherwise, I see a lot of complaints about power connector and usb header locations. Also, you might be forgetting some components like audio codec, vrms, and any other northbridge/southbridge/accessory chips

I think reality is stretched to a point where, if this ever came to be, good board layout would be too much to ask.
mini-DTX could be a solusion as well. Not for the extra PCIe, but for PCB realestate.

 

[SaperPL]

The usb header and power connectors may be moved but rotation will end up in same thing as I did earlier or Necere did which places chipset in a bad spot.

Also note that pci-e is taking less space from the edge of the board than backpanel IO connectors so after rotation it gets tighter around cpu.

EDIT: I think this is the best you can get considering what's usually connected to what

 

[smc805]

The usb header and power connectors may be moved but rotation will end up in same thing as I did earlier or Necere did which places chipset in a bad spot.

Also note that pci-e is taking less space from the edge of the board than backpanel IO connectors so after rotation it gets tighter around cpu.

EDIT: I think this is the best you can get considering what's usually connected to what

Please, for the love of God, please will a MoBo manufacturer make this! I want so badly an X99 M-ITX w/ at least 32GB of ram! And those SATA ports!!

 

[SaperPL]

I'm not sure if I didn't go overboard with four sata express (eight total standard sata) ports on this. Anyone knows if that's possible?

 

[Siba]

Remove sata express entirely and stick a pair of 2280 m.2 slots instead

 

[SaperPL]

Those can be mounted on the backside easily

 

[wrangler]

Asrock is the new Epox.

 

[Aibohphobia]

How does the keep-out area around the socket work with the narrow ILM?

Because the ASRock has stuff right up against the socket. I mocked up a Asus X99 ITX board a few months ago but allowing for the keep-out area left very little space for anything:

 

[Hanakuso]

It would be cool to see if they could fit laptop ram on the backside of the mobo but I'm guessing that would make compatibility slimmer

 

[SaperPL]

How does the keep-out area around the socket work with the narrow ILM?

Because the ASRock has stuff right up against the socket. I mocked up a Asus X99 ITX board a few months ago but allowing for the keep-out area left very little space for anything:

According to this: xeon-e5-1600-2600-4600-thermal-guide.pdf

Narrow ILM keepout area is a bit smaller than the default square one:

The [8] noted finger access is determined by designer so might not be required if there's a tool for it.

It would be cool to see if they could fit laptop ram on the backside of the mobo but I'm guessing that would make compatibility slimmer

I guess the problem with placing dimms on the backside of X99 board is that you have a seriously big keepout zone for the cpu backplate.

 

[EdZ]

All these mockup boards are nice from a component placement perspective, but the real driver of motherboard design is routing. You have many, many lanes of high bandwidth signals to route, with lots of different tolerances you need to keep within for the whole thing to even work (noise, impedance, distant-matching, maximum length, minimum turn radius, maximum number of vias, keep-out areas, grounding shields, etc).
You may be able to physically fit all the required parts for adding extra DIMMS and shifting bits around, but you may end up with a 10mm thick nigh-impossible-to-manufacture multi-layer PCB by the time you've satisfied all the constrains for linking those components.
DDR4, PCI-E 3.0 (40 lanes! Even the ones you aren't using need to be terminated properly), USB 3.1, 802.11AC, all these newer faster connection standards have tighter requirements for signal routing due to the increased data rates & bandwidth making them more susceptible to noise and interference.

 

[SaperPL]

You're right - at the end of the day all is decided by the routing but I don't think it would get as thicks as 10mm. I'd rather say that you'd have to go for additional two layers to make it and if the boards usually have 5 or 6 layers then making it 8 would mean going from 1.65mm to something like 2.05mm thick. Getting additional layer means you can use shorter routes by crossing the ones on other layers and I don't think there's any problem in distance with this approach.

The other thing is properly shielding signal lanes on different layers to not interfere with each other and that might be some sort of a problem here.

Anyway those mockups and stuff ain't too serious, you know

As for the clearance on narrow ILM - I've drawn it on the board..

In this configuration you can easily fit 115mm diameter round cooler without obstructing connectors.

 

[Titansfan]

This motherboard is actually really appealing to me. Does anybody know of any AIO liquid CPU cooler that would be compatible with the narrow ILM on the board? Or any sort of adapter that can be bought, etc.?

Thanks in advance for any ideas or suggestions.

 

[D4rkn3ss]

This motherboard is actually really appealing to me. Does anybody know of any AIO liquid CPU cooler that would be compatible with the narrow ILM on the board? Or any sort of adapter that can be bought, etc.?

Thanks in advance for any ideas or suggestions.

appealing is an understatement, im pretty much doomed.

 

[Titansfan]

appealing is an understatement, im pretty much doomed.

It's pretty neat for sure.

This website refers to rumors of another manufacturer working on the same x99 mini concept, so perhaps we'll even get a standard square ILM mini board from a different manufacturer? Or 4 RAM slots?

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, which of the Noctua narrow ILM's (assuming no space concerns) is best for cooling with 2 fans installed on each as push/pull?

NH-U12DX i4
NH-U9DX i4
NH-D9DX i4 3U

The U12 seems to have a smaller heatsink but can hold 2 140mm fans in push/pull.
The U9 has a larger heatsink but has 2 92mm fans in push/pull.
The D9 has a 92mm between the 2 heatsinks and can hold another fan on either side it looks like. This one seems a bit weird to me design-wise but I'm not too knowledgeable on the subject.

Anybody have any insight as to which of these given 0 space concerns is most effective? Thanks again

 

[Blk]

Am I the only one who thinks asrock missed a golden opportunity here?
They should have made it mDTX instead with a normal socket and 2 x16, and lead the way for the other manufactures to go down that path.

mITX is pretty pointless as a form factor, either you want a faster machine and mDTX fits almost all mITX chassis and offers more for the user and should be easier to engineer.
If your going for a htpc or some other lighter system thin mini-ITX has everything you need as a form factor.
This just falls in the middle and forces them to use less than optimal solutions.

 

[SaperPL]

What would mini DTX give us except for two pci-e slots.This would be mostly useless unless going for a dual water cooled VGA's. And in general game developers don't really care about performance in multi-gpu configurations.

 

[Blk]

What would mini DTX give us except for two pci-e slots.This would be mostly useless unless going for a dual water cooled VGA's. And in general game developers don't really care about performance in multi-gpu configurations.

If you have a 3 slot case you could use the upper one for a sound card, nic, capture card.....
If you have a 2 slot case, it's the same as mitx.
= either the same or better, no reason not to do it.

And they've clearly have problems with fitting everything, mDTX would give them a bit of extra room. Maybe could have fit a normal socket, which potentially is a deal breaker if there aren't a lot of cooling companies jumping on this ship.

Would give some people some things and others nothing, but there aren't any negative points.
Why should you do it, because there aren't any reasons not to do it.

 

[Siba]

While I like the idea for going with mDTX simply because I'd like a dedicated sound card, I'm not sure how going with mDTX would allow for any extra room... the only way that would happen is if they went with the mDTX layout and omitted a PCIE slot. It's not like you're going to be trying to fit a sodimm slot in the space between the PCIE slots, it doesn't really buy you room for many components except maybe moving some of the FPIO connectors and SATA ports. Also, there has to be some additional room to route the PCIE lanes for the second slot.

But who knows, maybe that actually has some merit in terms of even those few square inches of saved space being the difference between 2 or 4 sodimm slots.

 

[Blk]

While I like the idea for going with mDTX simply because I'd like a dedicated sound card, I'm not sure how going with mDTX would allow for any extra room... the only way that would happen is if they went with the mDTX layout and omitted a PCIE slot. It's not like you're going to be trying to fit a sodimm slot in the space between the PCIE slots, it doesn't really buy you room for many components except maybe moving some of the FPIO connectors and SATA ports. Also, there has to be some additional room to route the PCIE lanes for the second slot.

But who knows, maybe that actually has some merit in terms of even those few square inches of saved space being the difference between 2 or 4 sodimm slots.

A larger card has more room for stuff, simple physics.
Will it make room for the things you want or I want, who knows.. but you can be sure someone will get something they want. And since there aren't any downside, the community in large will benefit from it.

 

[D4rkn3ss]

It's pretty neat for sure.

This website refers to rumors of another manufacturer working on the same x99 mini concept, so perhaps we'll even get a standard square ILM mini board from a different manufacturer? Or 4 RAM slots?

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, which of the Noctua narrow ILM's (assuming no space concerns) is best for cooling with 2 fans installed on each as push/pull?

NH-U12DX i4
NH-U9DX i4
NH-D9DX i4 3U

The U12 seems to have a smaller heatsink but can hold 2 140mm fans in push/pull.
The U9 has a larger heatsink but has 2 92mm fans in push/pull.
The D9 has a 92mm between the 2 heatsinks and can hold another fan on either side it looks like. This one seems a bit weird to me design-wise but I'm not too knowledgeable on the subject.

Anybody have any insight as to which of these given 0 space concerns is most effective? Thanks again

my insight would be to wait, mobo could be all buggy for all we know. what i do know is those 92mm noctua fans are extremely effective and dead silent at 350~650 rpm if you have any concerns about their size.