Gigabyte Releases Thin Mini-ITX Motherboards

Gigabyte has entered the market for thin mini-ITX motherboards with its new H77TN and B75TN motherboards. Gigabyte's new mini-ITX motherboards are 43 percent thinner than traditional mini-ITX motherboards since they have a thickness of just 2.5 cm. Of course, in laptop world this might be rather thick, but for a fully featured no-compromise desktop board that's rather thin.

The tricks are simple: use thin ports and cut out bulky legacy ports such as VGA and remove stacked ports, but place all side by side. The new H77 and B75 boards support almost all Sandy and Ivy Bridge CPU's that fit in socket 1155, with a max TDP of 77 W.

While the PCIe X4 slot is a step down from PCIe x16, the board does come with mSATA slot and mini-PCIe expansion slots, allowing users to install more than one PCIe device on a mini-ITX board.

Some other tricks include the use of the smaller SODIMMs rather than the larger space consuming DIMMs, allowing manufacturers to relocate the CPU socket and memory in order to create space for other onboard features.

Do note though, these boards are not necessarily intended for use in desktops, but rather all-in-one PCs. That said, there's nothing stopping manufacturers or DIY users from taking these boards and creating ultra slim desktop systems.

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Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

  • rwpritchett
    Interesting. Pair it up with the Silverstone PT12B and you've got a nice little HTPC that would look right at home in a home theater.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163219

    It looks like it has a plug-in for an external power brick. Does it come with the brick and how many watts does it put out?
    Reply
  • Marco925
    If only they will make some FM2 boards.....
    Reply
  • dalethepcman
    Boo to 4x pcie.. mSata is nice though and I kind of miss that from the z67 boards. I guess if you want to make a slim mini itx pc PCIE isn't important since you can't put a card in the slot anyways, I would prefer to have a nice next gen AMD board with the same hardware though.
    Reply
  • Wisecracker
    Marco925If only they will make some FM2 boards.....
    Ding! Ding! Ding!


    Reply
  • randomstar
    I have been using the Intel DQ77KB boards for AIO machines, and they are great, but pricey. this looks like a possible better value..
    and they dont come with the brick, you add one. a stock HP or Dell one often works. or a generic universal. you size it by the component set you pick - generally 130 - 210w
    Reply
  • dalethepcman
    I guess from the comments above and below mine that people do want this on an AMD system, I just can't figure out why someone would down vote my comment asking for a next gen AMD board with the same specs. You know, like the new Richland series APU that is going to be released in 2-3 weeks....
    Reply
  • Wisecracker
    10439142 said:
    I guess from the comments above and below mine that people do want this on an AMD system, I just can't figure out why someone would down vote my comment asking for a next gen AMD board with the same specs. You know, like the new Richland series APU that is going to be released in 2-3 weeks....

    I fixed that for you :lol:

    Maybe it's an industry conspiracy? :heink:

    I've got one of those 1st-gen ASRock -ITXs with an A10-5700 and it's sweet (and hasn't caught on fire, yet!)

    I haven't taken the GPU above 896MHz for fear it might spontaneously combust, but I want to really get cranking above 1GHz.

    I hope Gigabyte is listening.




    Reply
  • asdfghjkl
    Huzzah, something new for my future self-built AIO :D
    Reply
  • ceh4702
    No benchmarks???
    Reply
  • Dougie Fresh
    I can't wait until these are actually available, not just listed as sold-out on the 'Egg. I have the perfect cases from them -- IWill S197-H80 and S19-H55. I have been making SFF HTPC systems with Giada motherboards in those and they are great. The thing that I stlll need to figure out is a good cooler that blows sideways like the Giada motherboards do. Dynatron K199 is nice but it's a bit noisy and with components moving to the back of the motherboard, not easy to install the backplate.

    Given thin mini-ITX is an Intel form-factor, it's unlikely we'll see AMD designs in this format. I think too all that's needed to keep FM2 cool would defeat the purpose.

    It would be nice to see a Gigabyte FM2 mini-ITX board soon. Please. For Richland maybe? Until then given ASRock the most available choice there's no FM2 happening here. I still put together FM1 systems instead.
    Reply