Consensus on best mini-itx Z170 board?

[YBS1]

I'm away from my desktop and don't really feel like sifting through tons of articles on a phone. Is there any good reason to pay the additional ~$90 dollars for the ASUS ROG over say the ASRock Fatality? I remember liking those two boards when briefly looking over them previously, I'll be trying to squeeze a pretty good overclock out of a 6700K. Is there a better board than those two? Mini-ITX only in case you skimmed the title.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'll be trying to squeeze a pretty good overclock out of a 6700K. Is there a better board than those two? Mini-ITX only in case you skimmed the title.

I don't know that I would be aiming for anything other than a mild overclock on an ITX board. They just aren't built for hardcore overclocking, due to physical space limitations, unlike an ATX board.

 

[YBS1]

You would be surprised..... My ASRock FM2+ mini-itx board was good enough to take my 7850K all the way to 4.7GHz. I think both boards I listed above have pretty beefed up VRMs.

 

[Burpo]

You know you have to go with the Asus AnandTech recommended!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...kRW8VqZmRNTtqH7YiOWLAhoCYw_w_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[YBS1]

Well that would be my first instinct, as well as when in doubt usually more expensive = better, but we know that's not always the case. Plus my current ASRock mini-itx board had been absolutely top notch.

 

[lukart]

Well I always think Asrock as top 1 for overclock.
They got almost perfect 10, (9,9 out of 10) in TPU review of their OC Formula Z170M.

Asus is great, but you pay for it.

 

[YBS1]

Well, with a little more digging I've found both EK and Bitspower have full board monoblocks available for the ROG Impact but not for the Fatality. This could be seen as a plus or minus, it's nice to have that capability but would put the real world cost of the Impact at $210 (90 for the board and 120 for the block) more than the ASRock since I already have a spare Swiftech Apogee XL sitting around. Another big difference is the ASRock has an m2 slot, the Impact doesn't.

 

[mxnerd]

6700K TDP is 91W, do you really want to put a light bulb in a tiny mini-itx box?

 

[YBS1]

Heat won't be an issue, it may be later if I choose to add an RX480 to the loop when they arrive. I don't know how well a 2x120 radiator will deal with an overclocked 6700k and a gpu.

 

[mxnerd]

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/74...ng-itx-ac-intel-motherboard-review/index.html

6700K was overclocked to 5G on ASROCK Fatal1ty Z170

It's been tested in a huge Corsair Obsidian 900D case though.

====================

Didi not read that it's water cooled by Corsair H110i GT and you already have a Swiftech Apogee XL

 

[YBS1]

Well I went with the ASRock, but I'm not picking it up from Microcenter until Saturday. So if anyone has a good reason to sway me to the ROG or something else, speak now or forever hold your peace. Since I'm going to be evacuating the 7850K and FM2+ board from the nCase M1, I may try to find a nice, inexpensive mini-ITX "server style" case there as well to migrate the AMD equipment to and switch my WHS over to that. Should make for a decent little upgrade from the Q8400.

 

[YBS1]

Picked up my gear from Microcenter, along with with a Samsung 950 Pro m.2 NVMe drive. I came a hair from just replacing my 3930K system too with another 6700K and the white pcb version of the Z170 Sabertooth. I do like Microcenter CPU/Mobo combo deals.

 

[mxnerd]

Micro Center always has very good CPU price.

 

[YBS1]

Well.....that was uh, easy. 4.6GHz without touching a thing except the multiplier. Then proceeded to 4.8GHz setting only vcore up to 1.35v. Just running the Corsair H100i I had on the 7850K at the moment, I need to order some parts for the actual loop it will be running. I didn't bother to install a GPU yet, going to replace the GTX760 I was running in the case with an RX480 probably in a few days. Using the 2666 sticks I previously used on my 5960X, I may end up ordering some hyper-fast 3600-4000 kit since Skylake seems to crave them.