[SOLVED] What motherboard should I upgrade to for a newer intel processor?

[Simthaniel]

I have a great space saving system and I want to keep my case but I don’t know what motherboards I can get that use laptop ram and 2 m.2 drive slots (1 M key and 1 B key) I don’t want to spend a whole lot on my upgrade, just a new motherboard and cpu. It doesn’t have to have both m.2 slots but I would need one M key since that is going to be my boot drive.

I am using an MSI Aegis X barebones system with 16gb of sodimm ram and an intel i7 6700k and I just recently upgraded to a GTX 1080 ti. I would like to upgrade to the i7 9700k or possibly something a little better. I am willing to switch over to AMD cpu if there is about the same or better gaming and photo/video editing performance as the i7 8700k.

I also have two 2tb HDDs and another smaller old 500 gb HDD from my old laptop with the boot drive being the 512gb m.2 drive (also wondering how to switch boot drive to my faster 1tb m.2 drive and get rid of the windows install on old drive without losing data)

I was also wondering if it was possible to replace the psu fan with something quieter because that is the loudest part of the system.

 

[extreme_noob]

You cant use laptop sodimms on desktop motherboards. For gaming and photo editing, along with gaming a ryzen 5 3600 is about on par with, if not better than the 8700K, and is much cheaper than the 9700k.

You can clone the contents of the boot drive to the 1tb drive using software like macrium reflect

No, you cannot replace the psu fan without opening up the unit, which voids warranty and can potentially hurt you with the large capacitors.

 

[Wolfshadw]

I'm looking at the specs for the MSI Aegis X and it's stating 2xDDR DIMM slots, not SO-DIMMS. can you please verify?
Also, I'm not able to find out if that is a standard Mini-ITX motherboard. Any ideas?

-Wolf sends

 

[King_V]

One of the images from this page that shows a DIMM in a ram slot makes me think that, similar to the ASRock A300W, it uses SODIMMs. I haven't been able to find any confirmation, though my search has been admittedly hasty...

 

[Wolfshadw]

...DDR4-2133 is the new laptop standard to take your extreme gaming experience to the next level.

This quote from that page (missed it before), kind of squares that up.

If that's the case, then I think the OP may be out of luck with just upgrading the Motherboard and CPU. I still can't find out if this is a standard Mini-ITX board, but if it is, the OP would likely need to get new RAM as well, as the only ITX boards on PC Part Picker with SO-DIMM slots are X299 boards.

-Wolf sends

 

[Simthaniel]

This quote from that page (missed it before), kind of squares that up.

If that's the case, then I think the OP may be out of luck with just upgrading the Motherboard and CPU. I still can't find out if this is a standard Mini-ITX board, but if it is, the OP would likely need to get new RAM as well, as the only ITX boards on PC Part Picker with SO-DIMM slots are X299 boards.

-Wolf sends

I’ve been trying to find out for a while if it’s a standard size board, because if it is I might be able to get away with getting desktop ram.

 

[Simthaniel]

And I’m perfectly fine getting a board that uses standard ram as long as it still fits inside the tight case without compromising anything like thermals. Since the graphics card is on a rigid pci-e right angle extension that itself screws into the case it might be hard to find a board that has the right positioning of the pci-e slot to fit properly in the case unless the board in there already is a standard size board.

 

[Simthaniel]

I found images of the motherboard I have on eBay, it looks like it is standard mini-itx but I can’t say it with a ton of certainty. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/184179464170