Best ITX Build For Gaming

Dirk Diggler

Dirk Diggler

Dirk Diggler

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I'm in the middle of a project right now and I'm considering selling one of my systems and dusting down my Parvum ITX case (Veer 1.0). It'll be a full custom water build and GPU will be my existing 1080ti running 3440*1440 @ 100Hz.

Disregarding budget, what would be the #1 choice for an ITX motherboard right now?

I'm seeing various choices in X299 and X370 which would mean a new CPU purchase too, or I could go X270 and drop my 6700k straight in. Is there something worth waiting for?

Any mini ITX fans who've purchased recently?

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £786.07 (includes shipping: £11.10)
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I have the Strix Z370 and Asrock Z370 ITX gaming.
In term of overclocking, both do well on core and cache > 5Ghz easily.
Asus on latest bios 0403 bios has these problems:
1. Can't run memory on 1T
2. Won't do anything higher than 4.9Ghz for cache

Asrock on latest beta bios and official bios has these:
1. Won't allow you set VCCIO and VSA higher than 1.2v
2. Will not run at 0 AVX offset. It must be >0 or auto, meaning that your AVX clock will always be lower than non avx clock.

Overall, I think both are fixable with new bioses (hopefully). Atm, the Asus is slightly better in term of core/cache overclocking, Asrock leads the memory overclocking with 1T giving less latency than 2T.
 
I've got a Z370-I and I'm tempted to go for the Fatal1ty, seems to have better VRM, and handy things like clear CMOS button on the i/o. Infact for a little while now Asrock seem to be the kings of ITX performance.

Honestly it seems as though Asus ITX boards are lower tier now, they're nothing like the Maximus Impact that was madly over engineered.

I also don't like how hot the m.2 get's on the front. I've tried heatsink and without heatsink and even idle temps are ridiculous.

The only thing I'm curious about with the Z370 itx Fatal1ty is that it has less Power phases than the Z270 itx version, I'd love to know why they've done that. It bugs me...

@String Honestly if you're mainly gaming I wouldn't bother with X299, stick with Z370. I certainly wouldn't pay 400 quid for that Asrock ITX one. You'd be looking at around £700 for that motherboard and a 7800x. You'd save money going Z370 Asrock and 8700k and arguably have better gaming performance. The only benefit you'd get going X299 is quad channel, which unless you need it for other usage is pointless for gaming right now.

@BTVA Out of curiosity do you run an NVMe on the Strix, if so what temps, also do you have a jumper cap on the clear rtc? I found it odd that I didn't get one. I'm sure I had one on my Z170 Gene.....
 
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For pure gaming now I think you'd be fine just buying the motherboard.

Despite what some people say about needing more than 4 cores, I don't think they're essential now, especially as you're gaming at a high resolution with a 1080ti. A 6700k and 7700k are still more than good enough for gaming. They beat Ryzen in most games.

The only thing X370 would offer you in my opinion is a more future proof platform, and better performance for streaming and other usage.

If it was me personally I'd save the money and buy a motherboard as a stop gap. I wouldn't buy the Z270 itx strix though. You can still find the Z170 maximus impact and it's a better motherboard. Feel free to look at reviews to see how good that motherboard was, seriously over engineered.

As an example do a comparison with your gene and the M-ATX strix, Asus have cut serious corners.

Going Z270 would give you the option of throwing a 7700k in, but to be honest by the time 6700k isn't enough for you a 7700k wouldn't provide much more, you could jump in z390 or whatever chipset is out at that point.

The most sensible decision is probably to just buy the Z170-i Impact used, you could probably find it for around 100 quid if not cheaper.

I had a 6700k with a Maximus Gene and 980ti, I sold it all to go back to console gaming (big mistake), if I still had that rig I'd have stuck with it to be honest, and jump in with the next intel chipset.

edit: I appreciate it seems like I'm anti-asus and people on forums can lie, but honestly my experience has been that bad I thought my motherboard was faulty so bought another lol I just don't rate their recent small form factor boards.

IMG_0306.jpg
 
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@Jay343434 I run a Samsung 960 evo, I never monitor the temp as I just load the system up for benchmarking stress testing and not actually using it daily so the drive never got stressed. No jumper cap on mine. M.2 might get hotter on Asrock due to having it in the back side without any cooler and very limited airflow.
About the Asrock, Z370 version uses a better mosfet with built-in metal piece for heat dispassion similar to the one found in Kingpin 1080ti, I am not sure about the overall performance by going from 8 to 7 but with a slightly better component choice, but I think it shouldn't be too much, they are all over-engineered anyway.
I haven't got time to tweak the asrock for memory overclocking, but it runs memory 1T easily. Asus got problem with 1T setting.
 
BTVA said:
@Jay343434 I run a Samsung 960 evo, I never monitor the temp as I just load the system up for benchmarking stress testing and not actually using it daily so the drive never got stressed. No jumper cap on mine. M.2 might get hotter on Asrock due to having it in the back side without any cooler and very limited airflow.
About the Asrock, Z370 version uses a better mosfet with built-in metal piece for heat dispassion similar to the one found in Kingpin 1080ti, I am not sure about the overall performance by going from 8 to 7 but with a slightly better component choice, but I think it shouldn't be too much, they are all over-engineered anyway.
I haven't got time to tweak the asrock for memory overclocking, but it runs memory 1T easily. Asus got problem with 1T setting.
Click to expand...

Ah so they've lowered the phases but are using better quality components? That might explain the difference then.

I've not tested the rear m.2 slot as installing it would mean removing the motherboard from the case as the cutout is too small, but I'm wondering whether it might be cooler as the m.2 sits on the PCH heatsink.

I guess I'll find out how it performs on the Asrock.

One thing I do like on the Asus is that I'm able to run my G.Skill at it's xmp of 4266Hz on the latest bios. I hope I can on the Fatal1ty.
 
Jay343434 said:
Ah so they've lowered the phases but are using better quality components? That might explain the difference then.

I've not tested the rear m.2 slot as installing it would mean removing the motherboard from the case as the cutout is too small, but I'm wondering whether it might be cooler as the m.2 sits on the PCH heatsink.

I guess I'll find out how it performs on the Asrock.
Click to expand...
You can get rig of the stock Asus m.2 "cooler" and attach an EK m.2 cooler instead.
 
Jay343434 said:
Ah cheers, I didn't know that, that might be an option then. Do you know what model it is, is it generic, or specific to the strix?
Click to expand...
EK only has 1 model of M.2 cooler. I was just thinking not really sure it could work. Give me 5 mins and I will check it for you
 
@BTVA Thanks a lot for that, I think I'll look for one and see if there's much difference.

It's going to be interesting for me to see how the Asrock compares, I've never owned an ASrock board but read good things.

You listed pro's and con's of both boards earlier, but if you could only keep one which would you keep out of interest?
 
Jay343434 said:
@BTVA Thanks a lot for that, I think I'll look for one and see if there's much difference.

It's going to be interesting for me to see how the Asrock compares, I've never owned an ASrock board but read good things.

You listed pro's and con's of both boards earlier, but if you could only keep one which would you keep out of interest?
Click to expand...
Interesting question, I honestly don't know. Asus has better resell value but Asrock has the sheer overclocking potential.
 
I run 2 M.2 on my Asus 270i front runs at 58c rear at 54c in a watercooled NCASE M1, tbh I have no idea if that's hot or ok, but it never gives me issues.
 
@Jay343434 update, I will take the Asus. :D
Asrock apart from cache overclocking and memory at 1T, it locks most of its voltage options (1.5v max for ram, 1.2v max for vccio and vsa, 1.5v max for cpu).
 
How do you mean locks it's voltage options, do you mean the max, or locks adjustment in general?

If it's just the max voltage then I think I could live with it, but if there's no voltage adjustment in certain parameters that's going to annoy me.
 
BTVA said:
@Jay343434 update, I will take the Asus. :D
Asrock apart from cache overclocking and memory at 1T, it locks most of its voltage options (1.5v max for ram, 1.2v max for vccio and vsa, 1.5v max for cpu).
Click to expand...

why would you want to go over 1.5 vcore? why would you want to go over 1.5v on ddr4, also 1.2v for vccio and vsa would be ampule for 5gb overclock
if you need to push passed the volts you have listed you need phase change cooling. the number you listed are well over the day to day volts any user should run.
 
Jay343434 said:
How do you mean locks it's voltage options, do you mean the max, or locks adjustment in general?

If it's just the max voltage then I think I could live with it, but if there's no voltage adjustment in certain parameters that's going to annoy me.
Click to expand...
Anything above the voltages I listed the board will automatically lower them. It should be fine for daily.
And somehow my board always drop the clock to 4.7-4.8 when doing cinebench. Speedstep and all that have been disable. AVX = 1.
 
P4Clock said:
why would you want to go over 1.5 vcore? why would you want to go over 1.5v on ddr4, also 1.2v for vccio and vsa would be ampule for 5gb overclock
if you need to push passed the volts you have listed you need phase change cooling. the number you listed are well over the day to day volts any user should run.
Click to expand...
Sometimes I need 1.8-1.9 vram for 4000 12-11-11
 
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