AM4 boards roundup: Micro-ATX (µATX)
As with the previous form factor, there are three possible chipsets.
A320 boards
The most basic of the presently used chipsets, see the table with the iTX roundup.
There are four boards that make the cut. The cut I've made is that I think a board should be upgradeable, so more RAM should be a possibility.
All four major mobo maker have a board here: Asrock's A320M Pro4, ASUS' PRIME A320M-A, Gigabyte's GA-A320MA-M.2 and MSI's A320M Bazooka.
All four are not expensive (between 68 and75 Euro here)
- The Asrock board stands out for having two M.2 slots, Crossfire capability and having a heatsink for its VRMs.
- The ASUS board has no heatsinks and only one case fan header. ASUS wants you to have a 35 Watt TDP APU or at most a 45 Watt Zen APU in her A320 board and no more it seems. It does have two M.2 slots and two PCIe 3.0x16 slots though, and one can buy a fan controller -one might even need one with this board.
- The Gigabyte board is the only one with a USB 3.1 Gen2 port here, but has no VRM heatsink, no 2nd PCIe x16 slot and no 2nd M.2 slot either.
- The MSI board is the only one of the four that includes light on the mobo (white), but offers no other redeeming capabilities.
Based on the above I think the Asrock A320M Pro4 board would be my favorite A320 board, especially when I do not want to overclock -reportedly impossible on a A320 board.
B350 boards
A more elaborate version of the presently used chipsets, again: see the table with the iTX roundup.
Here ten boards make the cut, amongst them now also a Biostar. Furthermore one Asrock board, four (!) MSI ones, two Gigabyte and two ASUS.
The Asrock board, that is almost a twin of the A320 edition, again leaves the strongest impression with having the only full VRM heatsink of the bunch, its two M.2 slots and two PCIe x16 slots -be warned though that you can't use them all at once! The Asrock board is also much cheaper (75 euro) than the e.g. the Asus TUF B350M-PLUS GAMING (106 Euro), the Gigabyte GA-AB350M-D3H (97 Euro) or the MSI B350M Mortar Arctic (94 Euro).
X370 boards
There's a quick one: there's only the Biostar Racing X370GT3, and it costs some 120 Euro's.
Biostar has another odd one out: the sole A320 ATX board, the Biostar TA320 BTC, where BTC stands for Bitcoin, as it is aimed at Bitcoin miners.
AM4 mini-ITX roundup 2019 Q1 - Asrock, Asus, Biostar, Gigabyte, MSI
The Asrock AM4 iTX-boards
Model |
SATA
600 |
M.2
S600/
Pcie3.0x4 |
USB 3.1
Gen2 |
USB 3.1
Gen1 |
USB 2.0 |
NIC |
WiFi |
Bluetooth |
Video out |
Sound |
Power
design
phases |
ASRock Fatal1ty
X470 Gaming-ITX/ac |
4x |
1x |
Rear,
1x Type-A
1x Type-C |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
Intel
I211AT |
Intel®2T2R
Dual Band
1733 Mbit/s |
5.0 |
2x HDMI |
Realtek
ALC1220 |
3 CPU VCC (x2)
+2 SoC VCC |
Fatal1ty B450
Gaming-ITX/ac |
4x |
1x |
Rear,
1x Type-A
1x Type-C |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
Intel
I211AT |
Intel Dual Band
Wireless-AC 3168
433 Mbit/s |
4.2 |
2x HDMI |
Realtek
ALC1220 |
3 CPU VCC (x2)
+2 SoC VCC |
ASRock Fatal1ty
X370 Gaming-ITX/ac |
4x |
1x |
- |
2 Front,
3 Rear
1x Type-C |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
Intel
I211AT |
Intel Dual Band
Wireless-AC 7265
867 Mbit/s |
4.2 |
2x HDMI |
Realtek
ALC1220 |
3 CPU VCC (x2)
+2 SoC VCC |
ASRock Fatal1ty
B350 Gaming-ITX/ac |
4x |
1x |
- |
2 Front,
3 Rear
1x Type-C |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
Intel
I211AT |
Intel Dual Band
Wireless-AC 3168
433 Mbit/s |
4.2 |
2x HDMI |
Realtek
ALC1220 |
3 CPU VCC (x2)
+2 SoC VCC |
ASRock A320M-ITX |
4x |
1x |
- |
2 Front,
3 Rear
1x Type-C |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
Intel
I211AT |
- |
- |
2x HDMI |
Realtek
ALC1220 |
3 CPU VCC (x2)
+2 SoC VCC |
No doubt a X570 model will soon come out, offering PCIe 4.0 and other performance tweaks. The top model for now, the X470, goes for around 170 Euro's here,
the B450, X370 and B350 boards do some 110 Euro and the A320 board is nowhere to be found, except on the Asrock website. No vendor dares to sell it here.
The X370 has gone from Asrocks website, so seems to be discontinued. I already wrote earlier that I think the X370 is total overkill in the iTX setup anyway.
My advise would be to take the B450 board, based upon chipset capabilities and better CPU VRM cooling (but bear in mind that it will not support Excavator-based AM4 APUs and CPUs).
If you want an Asrock AM4 iTX, the X470 isn't worth the extra money -or you would have to have a desperate need for the greater WiFi speed.
Asus
Model |
SATA
600 |
M.2
S600/
Pcie3.0x4 |
USB 3.1
Gen2 |
USB 3.1
Gen1 |
USB 2.0 |
NIC |
WiFi |
Bluetooth |
Video out |
Sound |
Power
design
phases |
Asus RoG Strix
X470-I Gaming |
4x |
2x
(1x M.2 PCIe3.0x4) |
2x Type-A |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
2 Front |
Intel
I211AT |
Intel Dual Band
Wireless-AC
867 Mbit/s |
4.2 |
HDMI |
ROG SupremeFX
S1220A |
6 CPU VCC +
1 SoC VCC |
Asus RoG Strix
B450-I Gaming |
4x |
2x
(1x M.2 PCIe3.0x4) |
2x Type-A |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
2 Front |
Intel
I211AT |
Intel Dual Band
Wireless-AC
867 Mbit/s |
4.2 |
HDMI |
ROG SupremeFX
S1220A |
6 CPU VCC +
1 SoC VCC |
Asus ROG Strix
X370-I Gaming |
4x |
2x
(1x M.2 PCIe2.0 x4) |
2x Type-A |
2 Front,
4 Rear |
2 Front |
Intel
I211AT |
Dual Band
Wireless-AC
867 Mbit/s
|
4.2 |
- |
ROG SupremeFX
S1220A |
6 CPU VCC +
1 SoC VCC |
Asus RoG Strix
B350-I Gaming |
4x |
2x
(1x M.2 PCIe2.0x4) |
2x Type-A |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
2 Front |
Intel
I211AT |
Intel Dual Band
Wireless-AC
867 Mbit/s |
4.2 |
- |
ROG SupremeFX
S1220A |
6 CPU VCC +
1 SoC VCC |
It seems that adding 'ROG' to an ASUS product warrants an extra amount of money to be asked for it. The X470 board goes for just short of 200 Euro's here, the B450 board does 150 Euro's,
the two 300-series board go at the moment for 140 Euro's, making ASUS by far the most expensive choice when choosing the mini-iTX format. And just as Biostar seems to think "WiFi? Why? No WiFI!"
ASUS seemed to have thought "APUs? Why? No APUs, no video-out!" with the 300-series of boards, only to have come back to their senses with the 400-series.
Biostar
Model |
SATA
600 |
M.2
S600/
Pcie3.0x4 |
USB 3.1
Gen2 |
USB 3.1
Gen1 |
USB 2.0 |
NIC |
WiFi |
Bluetooth |
Video out |
Sound |
Power
design
phases |
Biostar Racing
X470GTN |
4x |
1x |
1x Type-A
1x Type-C |
2 Front,
4 Rear |
2 Front |
Realtek
RTL8118AS |
- |
- |
DVI-D,
HDMI |
Realtek
ALC892 |
4 CPU VCC +
3 SoC VCC |
Biostar Racing
X370GTN |
4x |
1x |
1x Type-A
1x Type-C |
2 Front,
4 Rear |
2 Front |
Realtek
RTL8118AS |
- |
- |
DVI-D,
HDMI |
Realtek
ALC892 |
4 CPU VCC +
3 SoC VCC |
Biostar Racing
B350GTN |
4x |
1x |
1x Type-A
1x Type-C |
2 Front,
4 Rear |
2 Front |
Realtek
RTL8118AS |
- |
- |
DVI-D,
HDMI |
Realtek
ALC892 |
4 CPU VCC +
3 SoC VCC |
All three models still feature on the Biostar website, but the B350 board has has fallen off the price lists here. The remaining two board lack WiFi as compared to their competitors and have the over-the-top (for iTX) X370 and X470 chipsets.
Why? You can't do crossfire or SLI on an iTX board, and there's no room for the other extra's that might be given chipset-wise too.
Gigabyte
Model |
SATA
600 |
M.2
S600/
Pcie3.0x4 |
USB 3.1
Gen2 |
USB 3.1
Gen1 |
USB 2.0 |
NIC |
WiFi |
Bluetooth |
Video out |
Sound |
Power
design
phases |
Gigabyte Aorus
B450 I Pro WiFi |
4x |
1x |
2x Type-A |
2 Front,
4 Rear |
2 Front |
Intel®GbE LAN |
Intel® 2x2 Wave2
Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
1733 Mbit/s |
5.0 |
Display Port,
2x HDMI |
Realtek
ALC1220 |
4 CPU VCC +
2 SoC VCC |
Gigabyte AB350N
Gaming WiFi |
4x |
1x |
2x Type-A |
2 Front,
4 Rear |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
Realtek |
Intel Dual Band
Wireless-AC 3165
433 Mbit/s |
4.2 |
Display Port,
HDMI |
Realtek
ALC1220 |
4 CPU VCC +
2 SoC VCC |
A total redesign for the Aorus B450 I Pro WiFi by Gigabyte here. A far bigger CPU VRM heatsink and a complete relocation of components.
On top of that they actually dropped the price of the B450 board here (116 Euro's), as compared to the B350 board (125 Euro)
MSI
Model |
SATA
600 |
M.2
S600/
Pcie3.0x4 |
USB 3.1
Gen2 |
USB 3.1
Gen1 |
USB 2.0 |
NIC |
WiFi |
Bluetooth |
Video out |
Sound |
Power
design
phases |
MSI B450I
Gaming Plus AC |
4x |
1x |
- |
2 Front,
4 Rear |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
Realtek
RTL8111H |
Intel Dual Band
Wireless-AC 3168
433 Mbit/s |
4.2 |
Display Port,
HDMI |
Realtek
ALC887 |
6 CPU VCC +
2 SoC VCC |
MSI B350I
Pro AC |
4x |
1x |
2x Type-A |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
2 Front,
2 Rear |
Realtek
RTL8111H |
Intel Dual Band
Wireless-AC 3168
433 Mbit/s |
4.2 |
Display Port,
HDMI |
Realtek
ALC887 |
6 CPU VCC +
2 SoC VCC |
The better-looking 120 Euro's B450 model lost the heatsink on the SoC VCC VRMs and the Gen2 USB ports, as compared to the B350 model while that can be bought for 112 Euro's.
What matters more to you?