Biostar is planning to release an updated Mini ITX AMD motherboard according to leaked images sourced by Videocardz. According to the image, the new board will be called the Biostar Racing X470GTN and will feature the AMD X470 chipset which is a refreshed enthusiast chipset that is supposed to be more power efficient and contain tweaks and optimizations for AMD’s upcoming “Zen+” Ryzen 2000 series of desktop processors and APUs.
The Racing X470GTN looks very similar to the Racing X370GTN that Biostar released last year down to the same black PCB and board component layout though the VRM heatsink has been spruced up a bit and is now in red and white rather than black and white. Further, the X470 chipset heatsink lacks the carbon fiber aesthetic and the PCI-E slot is white instead of black. Lastly, the PCB audio isolation for the onboard audio may have been slightly tweaked. The LED-equipped Mini ITX motherboard is powered by a 24-pin ATX and a 4-pin EPS CPU power connector that feeds the seven phase (4+3) power phases. Unfortunately, the heatsink on the VRMs does not look any larger which may hamper any heavy overclocking attempts on the processor as Hardware Canucks saw rather high temperatures (though not magic smoke bad) at stock clocks on the X370GTN they reviewed. In any event, the AM4 socket sits up top and is surrounded by two DDR4 memory slots, four SATA 6 Gbps ports, and one PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot. There is also a PCI-E M.2 slot hidden behind the board for enthusiasts. The onboard audio codec is a Realtek ALC892 chip (per Videocardz) and while the leaked image does not confirm anything I am guessing the Gigabit Ethernet NIC is also of Realtek origin and is likely the same RTL8118AS used in the previous generation motherboard.
As far as rear I/O is concerned, there is not much to speak of but Biostar does include a decent amount of high speed USB ports with at least two being USB 3.1 Gen 2 and the remaining four being USB 3.0 or USB 3.1 Gen 1 (the X370GTN had USB 3.0 but the X470 update may have bumped these up to USB 3.1 Gen 1 not that it matters in practical terms of speed). In addition to USB, the Racing X470GTN’s rear panel hosts a combo PS/2 port, DVI and HDMI video outputs, Gigabit Ethernet, and six audio outputs (one optical, five analog).
Naturally, being a leak, there is no word on official pricing or availability on this motherboard, but I would guess it will be priced around $120 following the launch of AMD’s Ryzen 2000 series CPUs and 400 series chipsets.
In other Mini ITX X470 news:
Not another “racing” board.
Not another “racing” board. When the idiots in marketing name these things, aiming towards teenage boys, do they ever consider the other 90% of potential customers who wouldn’t be caught dead buying this crap because of the ludicrous name? Or have they just given up on serious customers?
this doesn’t in any way mean
this doesn’t in any way mean anything to your use of the product, and this IS a seriously impressive product, the X370 i have it has good enough VRMs to mildly overclock a 1700x i had, overclock 2200g with igpu to limit with ram at 1.2v soc even though it has no SOC heatsink and more phases for SOC than CPU, enough grunt in the IMC controller to actually feed Hynix ram at 3200mhz @ 1.365v a lot of the time since 1004A AGESA before May 2017 and that was before Crosshair VI Hero could do it, and i tested with Prime95 blend temps never going above 77c on 120mm AIO, and that is also a ‘Game Max Iceberg 120mm’ all-in-one loop cooler, would you believe it costs 42GBP yet you’d diss it over a ‘Game’ name? Honestly, you do not know what you are missing.
Is it really that bad? ‘Outrace’ your point & the competition. Remember this is kind of asian and not really to do with bad marketing but translation issues… I prefer Racing to ‘MSI HARDCORE GAMING’
X470 coming for Ryzen 2! AMD
X470 coming for Ryzen 2! AMD is really making a comeback!
I have a 370GTN, it’s a good
I have a 370GTN, it’s a good solid board. The drawback is the lack of onboard wireless, and too few fan headers.
I have X370GTN, it’s nice, i
I have X370GTN, it’s nice, i use it for my mini-itx build with Raven Ridge but the bios 1000a for it is hard to find due to site revisions. Probably the most ‘reliable’ (all reliable is bleeding-edge on Ryzen though) AM4 M-ITX board. I use it with 2200G Overclocked to 3.85ghz with 3200Mhz CL14 ram with tightened subtimings, at native 1.35v DRAM, had to boost SOC voltage which may cause some long term damage due to lack of heatsink on those parts, but with a 120mm AIO i use it is stable in a cramped Elite 130 case, the most quirky PC i probably built, but my first mini-ITX, and possibly the coolest one, it is very stable and temps are max 77c on ‘system’ and CPU once on water, so the board does have potential and i wouldn’t be surprised if it could all-core overclock a 2600X at least to 4-4.1ghz easily, compared to 1st Gen Zen, even with the same voltage regulators – or very similar. Biostar may have awful, childish sounding of marketing, but this is Taiwanese/Asian and you got to remember they have a lot of pack for the money. In spite of using a old sound chipset it is the clearest version of that, and i used the same one on Prime b350-plus which was awful. I used to have 1st gen zen 1700x overclocked to 3.9ghz happily with 3200mhz cl16 xmp ram on Corsair Vengenance LPX, stress test/memtest hci stable for 200-300% no errors, so kind of legit good IMC controller. Some of those older boards, even REV.5 came with AGESA 1004a, the x370gtn instead of original, the rev.5 comes with black socket instead of white as on first Ryzen advertisement photos, and 1006a bios mostly, but rev.5. still can come with 1004a so beware if you want to use anything under Ryzen 5…. Overall it is a good m-itx AM4.