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ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac: Mini-ITX Motherboard With Dual NICs, WiFi, Triple Display For ~$130 USD

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  • ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac: Mini-ITX Motherboard With Dual NICs, WiFi, Triple Display For ~$130 USD

    Phoronix: ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac: Mini-ITX Motherboard With Dual NICs, WiFi, Triple Display For ~$130 USD

    If you are looking to build a small HTPC system, NAS / network device, or other petite system, the ASRock Z370M-ITX/ac is a bargain motherboard for Intel's new Coffee Lake LGA-1151 processors. This brand new motherboard retails for around $130 USD while offers dual Gigabit NICs, dual HDMI + DisplayPort, 820.11ac WiFI, 6 x SATA 3.0 ports, and a M.2 slot all within a mini-ITX form factor.

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Dual NIC on a cheap motherboard.
    Dual NIC on a mini-ITX board.
    Dual NIC on a boad that is not a expensive, high-end workstation motherboard.

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    • #3
      Michael:
      As a suggestion, since you have so much spare room in the chassis for these ITX builds, maybe you could use the remaining space to fit one of your ARM test platforms too? The ARM board could also share the same PSU; the only downside to that is the ITX board would require to be powered on too, unless you tap into the 5vSB wire (the purple one, IIRC). Doing this ought to save you a lot of space, and some cash too.


      I'm a bit surprised how much they managed to fit on the top of this motherboard. Most ITX boards don't offer a full x16 slot, 6x SATA ports, a M.2 slot, 3+ USB headers, and an 8-pin power connector all on the same face of the board. But, the VRM layout and heatsink looks pretty anemic for a Z series board, so, that may have helped save some space. Seems like a pretty solid product.

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      • #4
        Yeah, I also noticed that AsRock can build some pretty interesting and usually cheap boards. My Z170 Extreme 6+ cost an arm and a leg though.

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        • #5
          I only skimmed the article, but what about power consumption? My #2 concern when building an HTPC. (#1 being hardware video decode)

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          • #6
            Well, unfortunately no ECC support, which makes me uneasy about using something like this for a NAS box... I'll probably have to wait for RavenRidge, or use a Ryzen R3.

            I second Serafean- what about power use on this thing?

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            • #7
              Originally posted by coder111 View Post
              Well, unfortunately no ECC support, which makes me uneasy about using something like this for a NAS box... I'll probably have to wait for RavenRidge, or use a Ryzen R3.

              I second Serafean- what about power use on this thing?
              Do not expect ECC support on consumer-targeted Intel chipsets... they stopped offering that functionality around Skylake, I think, when LGA1151 Xeon support was restricted to the C-chipsets. Which can only be found on much more expensive boards, of course. (Or at least I have not seen any good value C-chipset boards)
              Last edited by OneBitUser; 12 October 2017, 10:59 AM. Reason: typos

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              • #8
                ASRock makes nice ITX motherboards.

                I've got H170M-ITX/DL for my router (Alpine Linux + pfSense&LEDE under KVM). Works wonderfully, IOMMU grouping is great (was able to passthrough mini PCIe Wi-Fi card into VM). And I've paid for a used one around $75 USD. Very happy with it.

                Also they are the only manufacturer who did ITX mobo for x99 platform if I'm not mistaken.

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                • #9
                  Does anyone know if USB-C port costs extra compared to a usb 3.1 port? I mean the physical socket, does it have extra royalties? None on this motherboard, And on the motherboards I've seen that had it, it was at most a single one. I'm not sure why. I'd expect at least two or more if I was going to buy a new motherboard. Otherwise this board has a very nice layout, and I like the display port.

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                  • #10
                    @michel

                    Your benchmark are biased. Asus decided to turn MCO on by default automatically, meaning : Your 8100 is running with all the core at max TURBO frequency while normally, the maximum would be available on one core. So you did in fact compare an overclocked 8100 with a Asus board and a non overclocked 8100 on an Asrock board.

                    Edit : MCO is also not by Intel spec. I wonder if they did not get paid by Intel to do that (for when higher 8700 are benched again Ryzen CPU... to assure more win to Intel... Hard to know who the fault is. Some reviewer did contact ASUS to know about and Asus did think that it was disabled by default... So Even them, don't know what is happening on the BIOS side..)

                    Redo the tests but DISABLE multi core optimization or overclock the 8100 on the asrock to the same speed as the turbo frequency.
                    Last edited by RavFX; 12 October 2017, 02:02 PM.

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