ASRock X299E-ITX/ac mini-ITX Motherboard Review

ASRock X299E-ITX/ac

Extreme motherboards are plentiful these days, but they’re often quite large. With an ATX, E-ATX, or XL-ATX form factor, cramming in a lot of hardware is pretty easy, relatively speaking. However, there are few motherboards on the market that can be called extreme in the mini-ITX form factor. ASRock is the masters of their craft, and I’ve heard the saying “ASRock really know how to make a great motherboard” thrown around many times. They’re packed an X299 socket into a mini-ITX motherboard, and they certainly didn’t stop there either. With Intel Optane support, triple M.2, dual-band AC WiFi, dual Gigabit Intel LAN, dual USB 3.1 Gen2, Super Alloy Components, four SODIMM slots, and more… yes, all that on a mini-ITX board with a huge CPU socket. It’s beyond belief, but they did it, so let’s get testing!

Features

• Supports Intel^® Core™ X-Series Processor
• Digital PWM, Dr. MOS
• Supports 4 SO-DIMMs Quad Channel, DDR4 4000+(OC)
• 7.1 CH HD Audio (Realtek ALC1220 Audio Codec)
  Supports Purity Sound™ 4 & DTS Connect
• 6 SATA3, 1 Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4 & SATA3), 2 Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4)
• 2 USB 3.1 Gen2 10Gb/s (1 Type-A + 1 Type-C), 6 USB 3.1 Gen1 (2 Front, 4 Rear)
• Dual Intel^® Gigabit LAN
• Intel^® 2T2R Dual Band 802.11ac WiFi + BT v4.2 Module, 1 ASRock WiFi 2.4/5 GHz Antenna
• ASRock RGB LED Header

Specifications

For in-depth specifications, please visit the official product page here.

Water Cooling

That’s right, this motherboard can be purchased with an optional Monoblock, which covers the VRM, CPU and other major components. That means that despite the compact size, you’ll be less restricted by any thermal throttling issues. This board handles a lot of high-end hardware, and that means extra heat. For today’s review, we’ll only be focusing on the stock performance, but we’ll be back to dive into the water cooling in a future feature.

“Specially designed for ASRock X299E-ITX/ac motherboard, Bitspower monoblock is a high-performance water cooling solution that also includes RGB LED lighting, thus players can select the color and lighting effect they like. The kit is able to cool Intel^® LGA 2066 socket CPU and power regulation (VRM / MOSFETs) module.” – ASrock