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X99 mini or micro atx

Retired
Not applicable
Hey guys. I recently got the ideea of building a computer. I am kinda new to this. I want my first computer to be a small one, and I will prefer going with a x99 motherboard. Does anyone know any mini or micro atx motherboard with the x99 socket?
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12 REPLIES 12

Nate152
Moderator

Myk_SilentShado
Level 15
For some odd reason, they are taking their sweet time with X99 ROG boards. There is so far only one Manufacturer that has released a mini itx motherboard for X99. You'll have to Google to find out who.

Raja
Level 13
We will have a mATX board but not an ROG.

Nate152
Moderator

Antronman
Level 10
X99 mATX mobo from ASUS confirmed.

Say hi to the next generation.

Peace is a lie, there is only Passion

Through passion, I gain strength

Through strength, I gain victory

Through victory, my chains are broken

The Republic of Gamers shall free me

Korth
Level 14
I'm a proponent of X99. But it's not for everyone.

The most compelling feature of X99 is more PCIe 3.0 lanes, enough to support x16/x16/x8 or x8/x8/x8/x8 multi-GPU configurations. Z97 has enough PCIe 3.0 lanes to support x16, x8/x8, or x8/x4/x4. But regardless of chipset, mATX has 2 slots (x16/x16), uATX has only one slot (x16).
A Z97 uATX can run the same x16 GPU slot as an (hypothetical) X99 uATX, at lower cost.

Incidentally, very few GPUs can currently saturate x8 lanes of PCIe 2.0 (half the speed of PCIe 3.0), performance of a x8/x8 vs a x16/x16 benchmarks almost identically either way. So there's little real-world and gaming advantage to be had in X99.

DDR4 is currently no better than high-speed DDR3. DDR4 will not reach it's real potential for a few years and in the meantime DDR3 is being made with the same chips, same speeds, same capacities, and lower cost. Nobody will stop making or selling DDR3 as long as everybody keeps buying DDR3.
A Z97/DDR3 system has basically the same memory speeds and capacities as a X99/DDR4, at lower cost.

X99/LGA2011-3 supports a few i7 and Xeon processors with 4 to 8 or more cores, at modest speeds. Z97/LGA1150 supports 2 to 6 cores, at extreme speeds. If you can actually leverage mega-multithreading madness then cores matter (but lack of multi-GPU parallel processing power will be a huge productivity bottleneck). If you want a general-purpose or leet extreme gaming rig then 4-6 cores (and HyperThreading) is already overkill and the real performance bottleneck is raw processor speed. Most games lean on the GPU(s) and make use of, at most, 2-4 (maybe 6) main processor cores - not just the games which are newest and heaviest today, but also for the next several years.
A Z97/i7-4790K system is faster gaming than any X99 system, at lower cost.

Another compelling option many enthusiasts forget about - AMD.
An AMD RD990FX+SB950/DDR3/FX-9590 system compares favourably vs an Intel Z97/DDR3/i7-4790K, at generally lower cost.
A higher-end AMD APU system (such as an A88X/DDR3/A10-7850K) would be disdained by extreme gamers but is nonetheless overkill enough for general use and moderate gaming (or even heavy gaming, with a mighty GPU card), at much lower costs.

Things will likely change in future years, when newer generations of LGA2011-3 processors and DDR4 become available. For now, you could almost build two complete top-tier Z97 platforms at the same price as a single top-tier X99 platform, and still the X99 would be outperformed by either one.
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

Myk_SilentShado
Level 15
Not all 2011-3(X99) CPU's can handle that many PCIe lanes, the 5820K can only support 28 PCIe lanes. oh and mATX and uATX is the same thing, the u is the symbol for micro. It's only Mini ITX that supports a X16 VGA. Oh and Z97 only supports up to 4 cores(Non Xeon CPU's). Most games still don't utilize multiple cores.

Antronman
Level 10
There's a surprisingly large market for mATX X99.

People with enough money to spend want really impressive LAN machines 😛

And there's demand for mobile workstations that are more powerful than laptop workstations. So you can do work on-site and take home your computer and keep working.

More form factors for more platforms also offers modders more capability for some really creative ideas.
Say hi to the next generation.

Peace is a lie, there is only Passion

Through passion, I gain strength

Through strength, I gain victory

Through victory, my chains are broken

The Republic of Gamers shall free me

Antronman wrote:
There's a surprisingly large market for mATX X99.

People with enough money to spend want really impressive LAN machines 😛

And there's demand for mobile workstations that are more powerful than laptop workstations. So you can do work on-site and take home your computer and keep working.

More form factors for more platforms also offers modders more capability for some really creative ideas.



"Surprisingly large" would probably equate to no more than 10K boards (thats being exceedingly generous) sold worldwide. What makes the market seem surprisingly large is how vocal the users can be on forums which creates a false perception of reality. Such figures are't even hitting the 10% mark of the total X99 market.


Its the same when issue threads appear on forums - even threads with a seemingly high number of replies and views equate to no more than 50 individual users when you log each name in a list. Most threads fall around the 10~20 user mark.