The True Shortest AM4 Motherboard: Thin-ITX Comes to AMD
by Ian Cutress on January 22, 2019 5:00 PM EST
There seems to be a bit of a rush on small motherboards lately for AMD systems. We saw the mini-STX platform that ASRock announced back at CES, which is a standard height motherboard in a 5-inch by 5-inch form factor. Now we have an Onda motherboard that halves the vertical height, in the first example of AMD in the thin Mini-ITX form factor.
Small form factor systems do not always need to focus on all dimensions being small. Usually we discuss the x/y dimensions being small, but the z-dimension counts as well. This new motherboard from Onda uses the A320 chipset along with two flattened SO-DIMMs and a shortened height rear panel in order to minimize the total z-height of the system.
To push this more, the system uses a 19V DC-In power, which removes the need for a bulky 24-pin ATX power connector. The motherboard supports up to 32GB of DDR4-2666 SO-DIMM memory, has access to an mSATA port and two SATA ports, offers VGA and HDMI video interfaces, uses a Realtek audio codec with half-height audio connectors, and offers an M.2 Wi-Fi interface. Wired networking comes from a Realtek gigabit controller. On the rear there is four USB 3.0 ports, with two headers onboard for four USB ports.
We are likely to see this motherboard, like the ASRock, end up in dedicated chassis built for it. Onda calls this motherboard the ‘B320-IPC’, with the IPC part usually focusing on embedded systems. Onda sells almost exclusively in Asia.
Additional images from Chupatrick (Reddit), running the system with a 2200G.
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Ej24 - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
Yes! I've been waiting for this forever! Most OEMs have given up on thin itx. Can only find one not so good h310t from Asus. I was hoping an am4 thin itx would show up eventually. I'm holding out for a Zen+ or Zen 2 based apu though. IIRC 2200g and 2400g are still Zen (original) with a few minor tweaks? Do they at least feature the better boost clocks of zen+?GreenReaper - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
I mean, it was released almost a year ago now. It's essentially Zen revision 1.1 (so doesn't have the problems from the first Ryzen) plus Vega. There are tweaks to both Zen and Vega for it.It's still "14nm" but apparently has Precision Boost 2 and mobile-focused power gating features:
https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/amd-ryzen-5-2400g-z...
However as I recall there were troubles enabling certain portions of this on Linux so I don't know how effective it is in production. Certainly initial power usage was high, so be sure to update your motherboard firmware if you get one.
deil - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
I feel that fan is missing a tunel, so airflow will be forced,one way instead of running all over the place, but that's case/fan issue, board itself if a nice thing to have.the case have vesa mount ?
with size like this I feel that someone should make heatpipes and use case as heatspreader :)
dontlistentome - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
Wow, VGA? Displayport please - you can run two screens off one port and convert to VGA/HDMI if needed with a cable.eurico - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
Second that, no Displayport makes it a no-go!nathanddrews - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
VGA port means this could be perfect for an arcade machine...eva02langley - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
VGA... no HDMI 2.0... or displayport? We are in 2019 for the love of God...Useless... I use my 2400G at 2160p and play at 720p.
DanNeely - Wednesday, January 23, 2019 - link
It does have an HDMI between the power port and VGA. According to the reddit thread linked in the article it's v 2.0.artk2219 - Thursday, January 24, 2019 - link
Kind of bummed there is no usb 3.1 or thunderbolt on it. Then you could start out with an APU and if you needed more power in the future you could plug in an external gpu.Sevok - Monday, June 8, 2020 - link
Where can I find this to buy it?