The motherboard manufacturer ASRock has just presented its first gaming motherboard, in mini ITX format, for the AMD X470 chipset. The new ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming-ITX / ac is a very compact motherboard but it has all the necessary additions to make it a good model for that segment of small computers. With the processors with Bulldozer core, few were the brands that dared with the segment of gaming motherboards in mini ITX format. Something that, on the other hand, we consider quite logical, if we consider that the performance in games of these processors, was far from being spectacular. In those years, the brand that “split the cod” was Intel, and for its processors yes that many motherboards came out in this format.
However, the arrival of AMD Ryzen processors to the market changed this completely. And in a short time we could see that the brands were encouraged to get motherboards for these new processors with this format so small, that many users used to build their gaming equipment of small dimensions.
Although we must also bear in mind that these processors, with their low TDP, are better for this format of base plate and boxes, than the old ones, with much higher thermal envelopes.
The new ASRock Fatal1ty X470 Gaming-ITX / ac will support all the Ryzen series processors that AMD has released so far, including Summit Ridge and Pinnacle Ridge cores, as well as Raven Ridge APUs. Interestingly, this new gaming motherboard will not have support for the Bristol Ridge processors that have been released for the AM4 platform, although we do not rule out that this support will be incorporated later by updating its BIOS.
On the other hand, the ASRcok motherboard incorporates a number of features that make it stand out above the competition. As a matter of principle, it incorporates two USB C ports on its back, a high density fiberglass PCB, in which 2 ounces of copper have been used in the data traces, to achieve a better purity in the data transmissions. It also incorporates an 802.11ac WiFi card manufactured by Intel, as is its Gigabit Ethernet network card. The storage is carried out by four SATA 3 ports, located in the lower right of the motherboard, together with an M.2 port, located on the back of it, compatible with its use by SATA or NVMe devices.