MSI's Tiger Lake Motherboard Would Be So Much Cooler If It Had a PCIe Slot

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Awesome Core i5-11260H desktop board lacks any dedicated PCIe slots

MSI Pro HM570TI-B I526
(Image credit: MSI)

Ever wanted to build a mini-ITX computer with a power-sipping 11th Gen Tiger Lake mobile processor? Now's your chance to do just that. MSI has released a new PRO series mini-ITX motherboard featuring a built-in Core i5-11260H Tiger Lake CPU called the Pro HM570TI-B I526.

As the name suggests, the board is designed for professionals who want a compact desktop workstation that will be just as power efficient as a laptop. The Core i5 processor inside features six cores and 12 threads with a 4.4 GHz max turbo frequency and a maximum configurable TDP of 45 watts.

The board has a decent feature set overall, with support for up to 64GB of dual-channel DDR4 3200MHz memory and two SATA ports for storage devices. Unfortunately there is only one M.2 slot available for wireless cards only. Rear I/O comes in the form of four USB ports, a single serial port, and a HDMI port for display output. There is also an Ethernet port and two dedicated 3.5mm jacks for mic support and audio.

But, the strange part of this motherboard is zero information on CPU cooler mounting support. MSI has no information on installing a CPU cooler or what CPU coolers will work with the mobile chip. As a result, you'll need to do this research yourself if you plan on buying this board. But we presume the board is designed for LGA115x or LGA1200/1700 coolers since the spacing between the holes is quite large.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, power comes in the form of a DC power brick. Standard ATX or SFX power supplies will not work with this motherboard if you want to build this system inside a standard mini-ITX desktop chassis. As a result, you'll have to look for a case that is designed around DC power bricks to ensure space isn't wasted and the system looks good.

MSI's board also lacks support for dedicated PCIe add in board cards, such as graphics cards, with no physical PCIe slots installed on the motherboard. It is somewhat of a bummer, as Intel's Tiger Lake processors aren't slow chips, and already make good gaming chips in mid-range gaming laptops with dedicated mobile GPUs or Thunderbolt graphics card docks.

If the board had support for a dedicated GPU, it would be a really cool little gaming machine, that would sip power and generate almost no heat. But, this board wasn't intended for gaming, so we understand why MSI didn't install a PCIe slot.

But, if you are courageous enough, you can technically use a dedicated graphics card. All you will need is a M.2 PCIe x4 to PCIe x16 or open x8 or x4 slot that allows x16 cards to be slotted in. Pair this, with a mini-ITX case with vertical GPU mounting support, and you can get a full blown discrete graphics card to work with this motherboard.

However, the apparent drawbacks would be no dedicated WiFi/Bluetooth card -- with the slot taken up by the GPU and four PCIe lanes is not fast enough for a lot of desktop GPUs. As a result, you'd need to use a low-end GPU to ensure the PCIe lane bottlenecking doesn't kill most of your GPU performance.

We don't know when this motherboard is on sale; MSI hasn't shared a price or estimated availability dates on its website.

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Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • edzieba
    The lack of an internal 19V header is unfortunate (means any existing 19V ITX setups with internal supplies like the those from HDPLEX will need to desolder the read panel header and splice in, or use a pigtail sticking out the back), but the m.2 slot exposes a PCIe 4.0 x4 link, so more than enough for any GPU attached to a CPU of relatively low performance.
    Reply
  • salgado18
    There is no reason for this board to have a dedicated PCIe slot for GPUs, because the CPU itself is a mobile part and power is delivered by a brick external PSU. How and why put a 300W GPU on such a board? (edit) And why not get another Mini-ITX board with a socket for a desktop CPU, that is more powerful, already has a PCIe slot and can use internal PSUs?

    However, the lack of M.2 slot for storage is definitely a bad point. Not only they are a lot faster, but they save space compared to SATA devices. Put another M.2 slot somewhere else for the wireless modules, or bundle them with the board already.

    But the cherry on top would be if it were a Ryzen CPU, with its much stronger GPU. Then you have a power-sipping light gaming machine ;)
    Reply
  • escksu
    Not bad. Though the foot print I feel is rather big. Lack of pcie is not that big of a problem since the m.2 has pcie 4x slots.

    Many pole (including myself) take apart the the Intel NUC and use it as pc. Although we are stuck with data SSD due to using m.2 for GPU. With alderlake NUC coming, it going to be great.
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Sounds like the perfect home for the RX 6500XT!
    Reply
  • bit_user
    OMG. Someone needs to tell the author about thin mini-ITX! Note how even the I/O panel isn't very tall.

    The only reason you buy a thin mini-ITX board is to put it in a case that almost certainly wouldn't accommodate even a half-height PCIe card anyway. Otherwise, you'd just buy a regular mini-ITX board.

    I've seen some pretty neat thin mini-ITX cases, over the years. Here are two examples:
    https://www.newegg.com/p/2AM-005H-00009https://www.amazon.com/Silverstone-Aluminum-Mini-ITX-Center-PT13B/dp/B00DL4BMMC/
    Reply
  • cfbcfb
    "Look! A new computer! That'd satisfy the computing needs of 65% of people while sipping power. Pfft. You can't game on it, or it'd be good."

    Less than 35% of people game, and the vast majority of those are well enough served with modern integrated graphics, at least on the AMD end and Intel's mobile parts, which this represents. Citing once again the old stat from Steam that most folks are using a 1060 or equivalent.

    This is basically a better "mini pc" design for intel, which has existed and sold well on the AMD side. I'm using a ryzen 5800H system built on basically the same sort of motherboard. No PCIE slot.

    What I need is a laptop without a keyboard/screen, for the most part.

    Plus if it has a thunderbolt 4 port (if it doesn't, the next one will) you can use an eGPU with it, either an off the shelf one or by "rolling your own". Just saw a 3080 eGPU for $799 and those will hit $500 before long. Or use an external gpu build with an nvme to pcie bridge cable.
    Reply
  • DracoDan
    These boards are used almost exclusively for all-in-one desktop solutions, that's why it only has an external 19v power connector, why it doesn't show the heatsink compatibility, why it doesn't have PCIe slots, etc.
    Reply
  • Ulyss_689
    salgado18 said:
    There is no reason for this board to have a dedicated PCIe slot for GPUs, because the CPU itself is a mobile part and power is delivered by a brick external PSU. How and why put a 300W GPU on such a board? (edit) And why not get another Mini-ITX board with a socket for a desktop CPU, that is more powerful, already has a PCIe slot and can use internal PSUs?

    However, the lack of M.2 slot for storage is definitely a bad point. Not only they are a lot faster, but they save space compared to SATA devices. Put another M.2 slot somewhere else for the wireless modules, or bundle them with the board already.

    But the cherry on top would be if it were a Ryzen CPU, with its much stronger GPU. Then you have a power-sipping light gaming machine ;)


    It looks like there is a second M.2 slot below the chipset heatsink and next to the RTC battery's white connector
    The SSD's controleur will sit on top of the heatsink
    Reply