Is X399 ITX impossible?

[Fasauceome]

I always love to scan for SFF stuff (as you can probably tell by my sig) and of course there's yet to be an announced product for ITX Threadripper. Now I know cooling the eventual 64 core behemoth (that is due from Zen 2 or maybe Zen 2+) which we can all feel is coming is an immense challenge for the ITX fom factor, but that aside, is the package size of TR not just difficult, but prohibitive for that size? The socket being huge is one thing, but X299 has got around this with sodimms and clever board layouts, but is it flat out impossible on the AMD side? The 16 core options coming for AM4 are neat, I just crave more.

[Jurrunio]

Didn't Asrock make X299 ITX work with DIMM as well? They cut away Kaby-Lake-X support... which is sad imo because that setup could well be a very good LN2 OC competitor. Oh well.

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

They cut away Kaby-Lake-X support... which is sad imo because that setup could well be a very good LN2 OC competitor. Oh well.

Why not just disable cores, and have the same package size and thermal output?

[BobVonBob]

The Threadripper socket alone is more than a quarter of a Mini-ITX motherboard (78x105mm vs 170x170mm). I don't think it's happening.

 

Edit:

Bigger even, that's just the dimensions center to center on the cooler mounting holes, not even the socket clearance. Or 250+ watts worth of VRM.

[Fasauceome]

6 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

The Threadripper socket alone is more than a quarter of a Mini-ITX motherboard

Damn, didn't think about that before, this picture does put that into perspective

Where the distance between mounting holes gives a super clear perspective.

6 minutes ago, campy said:

who's going to make it

Probably asrock, they make fun weird stuff

 

6 minutes ago, campy said:

who is the market.

Me hopefully, and the clients I brainwash into the ITX master race.

[Jurrunio]

13 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

Why not just disable cores, and have the same package size and thermal output?

because Skylake-X has weaker memory controller even when both are running dual channel. It could have been better if KabyLake-X keeps the ring bus architecture rather than the mesh architecture

[Jurrunio]

3 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

Probably asrock, they make fun weird stuff

and then only sell them in Asia where land supply is tight... only.

[XR6]

I doubt it'll happen since it isn't practical to have a board that small.

Thermals would be quite bad in an ITX case, as well as DIMM slots and PCI/PCIe slots being scarce (due to the lack of space).

There's a reason why there are no ITX X399 boards.

 

[Stefan Payne]

38 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

but is it flat out impossible on the AMD side?

Yes, the Socket is just too huge.

Just take a random X399 Board at random and look at the Size of the Socket:

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/PRIME-X399-A/

 

The Socket is almost as long as a DIMM Socket.

 

Now look at a random ITX Board, chosen at random:

https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/B450I-GAMING-PLUS-AC

 

That Socket would take like 75% of the Area of the Board. So you have to do some sandwitch things and other stuff.

 

In short: 
The Socket is just too large for ITX.

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, 1kv said:

as well as DIMM slots and PCI/PCIe slots being scarce (due to the lack of space)

I wondered about that because the same issue presents itself on X99/X299, so the tradeoff seems reasonable. Otherwise yeah it's largely impractical, but ITX tends to be that way,

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, Stefan Payne said:

So you have to do some sandwitch things and other stuff.

I really would love a crazy 2 sided beard design, maybe ram and M.2 and some VRM on the bottom, something crazy to leave just enough space for PCIe X16 and the socket. 

[XR6]

3 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

I wondered about that because the same issue presents itself on X99/X299, so the tradeoff seems reasonable. Otherwise yeah it's largely impractical, but ITX tends to be that way,

Yeah, practicality is one of the main reasons (apart from the size of the TR4 socket) why I don't think X399 will have ITX boards.

Not to mention production costs would be sky high. X399 boards are already expensive, imagine how much it'd cost to stuff all that into an ITX form factor.

[Stefan Payne]

The TR4 CPU is about as big as the Backplate for AM2-AM3/FM1/2:

Here an ITX Board.
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1292417-REG/msi_a68hi_ac_fm2_fm2_mini_itx.html

 

But with all those traces and so on you might have to do something like a 12 Layer Board.

That would be really expensive...

[Fasauceome]

2 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

That would be really expensive...

and fun

Trust me, I didn't expect X399 ITX to come cheap (actually figured it might set some kind of record for motherboard pricing). I was rather hoping I could convince someone to buy a build that uses one.