13th gen ITX motherboards - What do i pick?

Xafer · January 8, 2023

Hey,

I'm currently looking at a platform upgrade coming from Z170 with a 6600K.
However, it seems that the market for ITX motherboards are getting a bit limited.

As far as i can tell, these are my options for a Z790 board (Intel).

- ASRock Z790M-ITX WiFi
- ASUS ROG STRIX Z790-I
- MSI MPG Z790I EDGE WIFI
- ASRock Z790 PG-ITX/TB4

I realise i could go with a 12th gen board, and update bios, but prices aren't that different.

A lot of the features seem overkill for my usage, and i feel that i would be paying a premium for features i wont use.

I do light video/photo editing and 1440p gaming (165hz monitor).

The games are everything from AAA games, to esports titles and a lot of Cities Skylines - A good mix of everything.

Questions

Am i blind, or have the ITX market shrunk this much?

If these 4 boards are my only options (For Intel 13th gen), which one do i pick?

Should i look at other options? (AMD, 12th gen, H/B series)

svmlegacy · January 8, 2023

Any specific reason you are going for Z790? I'm sure there's good ITX B760 / H770 boards out there.

RONOTHAN## · January 8, 2023

4 minutes ago, Xafer said:

Am i blind, or have the ITX market shrunk this much?

Z690 boards work as well, and there are a few bit more of those, but yeah those are the only Z790 ITX boards. To be fair, 13th gen, while running relatively cool, pulls an insane amount of power so realistically most ITX builds will struggle to be able to power and fit a large enough cooler in them to keep the chips from overheating.

7 minutes ago, Xafer said:

I realise i could go with a 12th gen board, and update bios, but prices aren't that different.

I'd fight you on the prices not being that different, the Z690I Aorus Ultra is roughly half the price of the cheapest of those boards and is still a very solid board. To be clear, there are still reasons to go for the Z790 boards, mainly if you want super high speed DDR5 as most of the manufacturers haven't really put the effort into tuning the memory topologies for 13th gen and Hynix A die on their Z690 boards, but if all of what I just said sounds like gibberish a Z690 board is more than fine for what you're doing.

11 minutes ago, Xafer said:

If these 4 boards are my only options (For Intel 13th gen), which one do i pick?

Depends on what CPU you're planning on going with. If you're going for a 13600K, the Z790M ITX WiFi from ASRock is good enough and most certainly the cheapest option there. If you're going to be going for an i7/i9 though the Z790 Edge is a lot better built and has an insanely good memory topology, and since it's the next cheapest of those options it would be my pick. That said, unless you're planning on doing memory overclocking my vote is still for the Z690I Aorus Ultra, it's really cheap and really solid, a better board than the Z790M ITX.

19 minutes ago, Xafer said:

Should i look at other options? (AMD, 12th gen, H/B series)

Honestly, going AMD is probably gonna be your best option, they are a lot more power efficient meaning you can get away with less cooling (though the chips will still run at 95C no matter what) and smaller PSUs which given that this is likely gonna be for an SFF rig is pretty important. You've got two options with these, Ryzen 5000 and Ryzen 7000, each with their pros and cons. Ryzen 5000 series CPUs are really cheap and there is a much larger set of ITX boards available while still being a pretty massive improvement from the 6600K you're coming from. Ryzen 7000 series CPUs don't really have that many ITX board options, there's a whopping total of 5 on the market right now, but then again these CPUs are actually the same speed as the 13th gen CPUs you're currently looking at, plus board prices of the ITX boards do seem to look better on the AM5 socket (though that's only if you're convinced to only go Z790 and not consider Z690 boards). I couldn't fault you from going either way, both are really solid options, though I'd probably be leaning towards a Ryzen 7700 and B650I Edge if it were my system.

As for H- and B- series boards, they didn't ever really get that much attention in the ITX space and are generally beaten by price by the better Z690I Aorus Ultra so I wouldn't really consider them outside of a few very specific scenarios.

Xafer · January 8, 2023

Let me start by thanking you for the comprehensive response!

I'll take a look at all of your suggestions, and rethink my planned build.

I added a few comments below - It's probably not going to change your suggestions massively.

33 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Z690 boards work as well, and there are a few bit more of those, but yeah those are the only Z790 ITX boards. To be fair, 13th gen, while running relatively cool, pulls an insane amount of power so realistically most ITX builds will struggle to be able to power and fit a large enough cooler in them to keep the chips from overheating.

My ITX build is currently in an NR200, and i recently upgraded to a Noctua U12A - So cooling should be decent i guess.

35 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I'd fight you on the prices not being that different, the Z690I Aorus Ultra is roughly half the price of the cheapest of those boards and is still a very solid board.

Should have probably specified that im located in Denmark - So prices might differ.

Current prices:
- GIGABYTE Z690I AORUS ULTRA | 340 USD
- ASRock Z790M-ITX WiFi | 290 USD
- ASRock Z790 PG-ITX/TB4 | 460 USD
- MSI MPG Z790I EDGE WIFI | 490 USD
- ASUS ROG STRIX Z790-I | 650 USD

40 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Depends on what CPU you're planning on going with. If you're going for a 13600K, the Z790M ITX WiFi from ASRock is good enough and most certainly the cheapest option there. If you're going to be going for an i7/i9 though the Z790 Edge is a lot better built and has an insanely good memory topology, and since it's the next cheapest of those options it would be my pick.

Depending on what prices and deals i can get, i'm going to end up with an i5 or an i7 (Or AMD equivilant).

41 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I couldn't fault you from going either way, both are really solid options, though I'd probably be leaning towards a Ryzen 7700 and B650I Edge if it were my system.

I'm going to take a closer look at AMD's options, and see if i'm able to make more of my budget going that route.

41 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

As for H- and B- series boards, they didn't ever really get that much attention in the ITX space and are generally beaten by price by the better Z690I Aorus Ultra so I wouldn't really consider them outside of a few very specific scenarios.

Gotcha!

RONOTHAN## · January 8, 2023

11 minutes ago, Xafer said:

Should have probably specified that im located in Denmark - So prices might differ.

Current prices:
- GIGABYTE Z690I AORUS ULTRA | 340 USD
- ASRock Z790M-ITX WiFi | 290 USD
- ASRock Z790 PG-ITX/TB4 | 460 USD
- MSI MPG Z790I EDGE WIFI | 490 USD
- ASUS ROG STRIX Z790-I | 650 USD

Yeah, this does change things a fair bit. Here in the US the prices are more like $150, $280, $420, $360, and $470 respectively. If you're going for an ITX system here it's hard to justify anything but the Z690I Ultra, but at those prices it's a bit closer. The Ultra IMO still does make the most sense out of those boards, it is very similar to the PG ITX and Edge but for over $100 less, but it's not the cut and dry best option like it is here. Usually if a board is that much cheaper in one market it's usually the same way, hence my assumption.

That said, looking through the options a bit closer with Denmark pricing (at least according to PCPartPicker), the board I'd actually be going for is the B660-I Gaming. It's the cheapest board you can get that has a VRM I'd trust with an i7, plus IMO it's got a pretty decent feature set for the price. As long as you weren't planning on doing CPU overclocking it's honestly one of the best options you've got assuming you go Intel. If you go AMD by recommendation stays as the B650I Edge and something like an R7 7700.

17 minutes ago, Xafer said:

My ITX build is currently in an NR200, and i recently upgraded to a Noctua U12A - So cooling should be decent i guess.

With a U12A, stick to the i5 if you go 13th gen, the i7 13700K from personal experience has no issue pulling well over 250W under full load which a U12A will struggle to cool. If you go AMD, any chip you get will be running up against thermal limits, but they'd be doing that no matter what so any chip you get should be OK enough with that cooler.