Question Mini-itx build: ASRock Z490M vs ASUS ROG STRIX B460-I/H470-I Gaming

[Coyle]

It's for a 10th gen intel build, nothing fancy, just wondering which of these is the better buy as they are all priced within $10 of each other. Thanks.

 

[NobleX13]

I would go with the Z490 board since it allows overclocking. B460 and H470 don't allow overclocking.

 

[Coyle]

Thanks, but I won't be overclocking; is just an i3-10100 that I may add a gpu later on.

 

[piokos]

Well, Asus gives you WiFi 6 and 1GbE LAN. ASRock offers WiFi 5 but 2.5GbE LAN. That's probably the most significant difference.
Other than that, very similar boards. You either overpay for Z490 (since you won't OC) or for the "ROG" label.

ASRock already launched the full M-ITX/ac lineup. Asus non-ROG boards are coming as well. Check them.

You're probably able to save $40-50 on the mobo that could be put towards something more sensible.

 

[Coyle]

Ok, so hold off for a while longer, any idea when the rest of the budget boards will be available? (The only optional feature I need is wifi.)

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would get whatever board has 2.5GbE, followed by a preference for Z490, because of RAM OC ability, and the ability to drop in some DDR4-3200 and set XMP and get that memory speed. B/H boards are probably limited to 2667. If you're gaming, you'll want the extra RAM speed. To a point, I guess. If you're going really low-end GPU, and will be GPU-bottlenecked regardless, then I guess it won't matter much overall. HardwareUnboxed touched on that.

 

[Engr62]

Sent you a PM.

 

[Coyle]

AsRock's H470M is available now, but the price difference between it and the Asus Rog Strix B460-I Gaming is $25 ($35 for the B470-I)
I don't need any of the Rog's premium features but for the price difference is it worth paying $150 for it compared to $125 for the AsRock H470M? Oh, and Asrock has a Z490M for the same price as the Asus B470-I $160.

 

[blckgrffn]

AsRock's H470M is available now, but the price difference between it and the Asus Rog Strix B460-I Gaming is $25 ($35 for the B470-I)
I don't need any of the Rog's premium features but for the price difference is it worth paying $150 for it compared to $125 for the AsRock H470M? Oh, and Asrock has a Z490M for the same price as the Asus B470-I $160.

I'd take the Asrock board and put the extra money into a faster CPU, a nice cooler or a nicer NVME drive. My Asrock experiences have been fine, probably used over a 100 of them and can't really say I've ever had a nightmare scenario with any of them.

That's almost what it would cost to get to an i5...

 

[Coyle]

Yep, and today they came out with a H460 for even less, only concern there is the audio; it'll be connected to my surround sound system--pc does double duty as my entertainment htpc for streaming, and as living room computer. I see the 460 just has the basics, a Realtek ALC887, while the h470 moves up to ALC1200, Nahimic; which seems like it'd be noticeable; and then back up to $150 again with the Asus B460 having S1220A along with a lot of extras dedicated to audio, it's like either stick to the budget $100 Asrock board, because if I am going to go to $125 for the H470 for $25 more I could have the Asus B460 Rog. I wonder just how noticeable the audio will be going into an analog sound system anyways.

 

[Coyle]

Digging a bit deeper into this I realize I need to have optical out and in mini-itx it's looking like either the Asus Rog Strix B460 which has an spdif header and I can put an asus bracket to give optical out--and it's in stock; saving a few bucks has taken a back seat to getting my audio setup right. Would be $150 for the asus + $15 for the optical bracket. There's also the AsRock Fatal1ty B450 which has the optical out onboard but is not in stock right now and is looking like when it comes back is going to be higher priced. So, which do you think is the better motherboard? (Am wondering if I should start new thread as title is about different subject.)