Analyzing B450 for AMD Ryzen: A Quick Look at 25+ Motherboards
by Gavin Bonshor on July 31, 2018 8:00 AM ESTASRock B450 Gaming ITX/ac
The B450 Gaming K4 uses similar gunmetal grey heatsinks designs as the B450 Gaming K4, which feature fins to help direct airflow through the channels. The board features support for ASRock’s Polychrome RGB technology, however the B450 Gaming-ITX/ac has no onboard LEDs with the RGB capabilities coming through the same pairing of available headers.
Buy ASRock B450 Gaming ITX/ac on Newegg
The B450 Gaming ITX/ac has a single full-length PCIe 3.0 x16 slot featuring ASRock Steel Slot protection, and has a total of four SATA 6 Gbps ports with all of them featuring straight angled connectors. For M.2, the Gaming ITX/ac model features a single PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA slot located on the rear of the PCB.
As is usually the case with Mini-ITX form factor motherboards, the ASRock B450 Gaming ITX/ac has a total of two RAM slots giving a maximum supported capacity of up to 32 GB of DDR4. One of the advantages to Mini-ITX is the length of the tracks between the RAM slots and the CPU socket meaning better memory capabilities is possible, which in this case is shown through DDR4-3466 support, compared to DDR4-3200 for the Gaming K4.
On the smaller form factor Fatal1ty B450 Gaming ITX/ac rear panel is two USB 3.1 10 Gbps ports (Type-A and Type-C), two USB 3.1 5 Gbps ports, two USB 2.0 ports, a HDMI output, a DisplayPort 1.2 output, two antenna ports for the integrated Intel 802.11ac Wi-Fi module and a PS/2 combo port. The five 3.5mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output are governed by a high-quality Realtek ALC1220 audio codec, while the LAN port is driven by an Intel I211AT Gigabit networking controller.
Overall, the smaller B450 Gaming ITX/ac compared to the K4 has higher quality integrated controllers and omits any form of built-in RGB. The new ASRock Fatal1ty B450 models directly replace the currently available B350 offerings and as it stands currently, with the B450 Gaming ITX/ac is set to cost $129.99.
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Ian Cutress - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
10GbE has nothing to do with StoreMI. I was using it as an example of something that the system supports if you buy it. Like StoreMI.jtd871 - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
It might have been more clear what point you were making if you had replied "The systems also support ...".The way it's presented in the table, though, it appears as if you are saying the older chipsets themselves do not support StoreMI, which is not true.
Death666Angel - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Seemed perfectly understandable to me. And if you know one thing about StoreMi, you know what the chart refers to. It's just software after all.jtd871 - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Less-savvy readers might get an incorrect impression and come away with the sense that they need to "buy up" to use StoreMI at all.dante01 - Tuesday, August 7, 2018 - link
Hey guys, whats the best option between the asrock b450 itx and the msi b450i ? The msi seems to be missing one fan header and usb 3.1 gen 2 compared to the asrock but the msi may have better VRMs...It also supports 3000mhz ram. I don't know what to choose, some have said that asrock b450 itx is not good (VRMs wise), i intend to OC my ryzen 2600 so VRMs are importantThanks !
asmian - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
compliment (be nice to) != complement (be a good partner to)"Not much hasn't changed" - strange double negative
If there's no in-house editor, then more careful proofreading before posting, please.
Ian Cutress - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
15000 words with a couple of hours to edit. Always going to be the odd one or two typos.jordanclock - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
then be more careful**FTFY.
msroadkill612 - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Its still there. Pity. Others may think it is correct.jtd871 - Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - link
Your summary table based on features does not currently list the ASUS mITX board under those with 2 M.2 slots.