Z77 mITX Round-Up: Five of the Best – MSI, Zotac, ASRock, EVGA and ASUS
by Ian Cutress on December 31, 2012 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- MSI
- ASRock
- EVGA
- ZOTAC
- Asus
- Ivy Bridge
- Z77
- mITX
Zotac Z77-ITX WiFi Conclusion
At the time of writing this conclusion, each 7-series mITX motherboard I have tested has used the same layout in their design – the CPU socket goes near the bottom and the chipset is at the top. I am beginning to wonder who thought this was a good idea – having everything this way round means that the socket presses up against the DRAM and PCIe slots, restricting cooler size and compatibility. It means that the CPU Power connector is in an awkward place onboard and power cables will have to stretch over the board to reach it – this is less of an issue on the Zotac board due to the included 8-pin extension cable in the box. The argument for this layout is usually a robust ‘well it puts the IO on the edge of the motherboard’. But the IO usually has the long thin cables designed to go anywhere – I have no issue stretching my SATA cables over my RAM to fit, or a front panel audio cable. However, big bulky power cables across the board and restrictive cooling due to socket area placement are not enticing prospects.
Enough of socket placement aside, the Zotac Z77-ITX WiFi has a number of good points to be mentioned. The video outputs on board are a novel interpretation of the ‘three digital output’ allowances. Normally we get a DVI-D, HDMI and a DP on almost all other mainstream channel Z77 motherboards – however Zotac have shaken up the market. We get two HDMI outputs (for dual screens, or sending video one way and audio the other), and a mini-DisplayPort. The mDP port is bolstered by the mDP to DP cable found in the motherboard box, meaning every modern digital display (except Apple’s Thunderbolt display) is covered. Kudos to Zotac on this design choice.
Also in hardware, we get dual Realtek 8111E GbE NICs alongside integrated WiFi, making sure all networking options are open. Unfortunately we do not get any network management software in the box to complement this design choice, despite the fact that Realtek has some proprietary software which should be almost free to include. We also get the perennial favorite of reviewers, system builders and troubleshooters alike – the power/reset switches (kind of rare for a mITX board) as well as a two-digit debug. Despite the extra cost these afford, I believe they are well worth the money on every motherboard in the market. Other hardware features onboard are an mSATA, two fan headers and an extended heatsink covering the power delivery.
There are also some poor hardware choices in this build, such as the Realtek ALC889 audio which failed our RMAA 192 kHz test. Almost all motherboard options I see are Realtek ALC892 or above, which should offer a better audio experience. It should also be mentioned we do not get any Realtek audio software included in the package either.
On the software side, the driver CD requires a manual installation of all the drivers rather than the painless silent install we are becoming used to. There are no software utilities to speak of for overclocking or fan controls – the only way to control the fans is via the BIOS. For the BIOS itself, we really only have a colored skin on top of the normal BIOS options, rather than anything embracing the graphical BIOS concept of interactivity. As a downside as well, SATA configuration on the BIOS tested defaulted to IDE rather than the preferred AHCI.
In the modern motherboard industry it is very hard for a smaller manufacturer like Zotac to get a design win. In certain aspects Zotac have achieved it, plugging in some functionality into this mITX board that no other manufacturer has. But it gets let down by other design decisions and the lack of interoperability between the user and the system itself. Putting a Zotac motherboard in a build all comes down to price, and given that I have seen it on Newegg for $130 one week then $163 the next means that you may have to pick and choose the best moment if you want this board.
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Sabresiberian - Tuesday, January 1, 2013 - link
Thanks for the great comparison review!It looks like there is a little mistake in the spec list for the Asus board, which shows it having a mini-PCIe connector. I would love it if it did, but I didn't see it on the board and it isn't mentioned in other spec lists.
It is important to me because I would ideally need connection for both a graphics card and a sound card (which I believe I could do through a mini-PCIe to PCIe x1 adapter if needed). This makes the EVGA Stinger the choice for me here, though the Asus board is the one I would prefer to buy.
I am truthfully a little disappointed in the EVGA board, which seems all too common with EVGA products in general these days. Great support is still there, but I'd rather they build bleeding edge components and not have to find out whether or not their support is as good as people say it is. The Stinger is a good board to be sure, and the Intel LAN alone puts it in the category of "will buy" for me, but I was hoping it would be something that would match or beat the Asus P877-I, and it just doesn't.
Foeketijn - Tuesday, January 1, 2013 - link
When you take overclocking out of the equation, B75 has it all, for the price just a tiny bit north of the old H61 chipset. Support for IB features (1600Mhz DDR3, PCI-e 3.0), Native Sata III, USB 3.0.It wasn't intended for the DIY market but fits the bill perfectly in my opinion. Only the very very few who need to OC, +16Gb ram or multiple SSD's @ full 6 Gb/s need the Z77 chipset.
The only thing is, that us mere mortals can't predict is, if a much cheaper chipset is used, did the OEM also cheapskate on the critical parts to? I would love to see some in-depth component analysis which I see for example, when a PSU is taken apart.
Which components are used? how well is the soldering done, does it still work at a sauna lanparty, etc.
I might be alone in this, but I would find that much more valuable information than all the performance benchmarks together (race to the bottom, be dammed!).
Including the northbridge in the CPU made motherboard and CPU reviews so predictible (or borring).Since then, I'm only interested in stability, ease of installation (nicely covered) and practical use (fan controll, MEM compatibility ect).
<offtopic> Oh I loved the XP-m 2500+ siverpainting 2001 era where you actually could get a noticeable improvement of performance and not necessarily have to sacrifice stability or risk bankruptcy</offtopic>
vanwazltoff - Tuesday, January 1, 2013 - link
i picked up an asus p8z77-i deluxe/wd before christmas and made a beast gaming computer out of it with an i5-3750k OCed to 4.5ghz and a gtx670 =]vanwazltoff - Tuesday, January 1, 2013 - link
*3570kBeaver M. - Tuesday, January 1, 2013 - link
Loved the POST screen measurements and the DPC latency testing. Something you dont see every day. Actually Ive never seen it, and yet I always wanted to know those.However I am not really interested in the Z77s, since they have a horrible layout for my needs. Only the Asus one comes close to what I need, but I just dont buy Asus anymore because of several very bas experiences.
So, I wish you would also test the B75 and H77s.
paksoy - Tuesday, January 1, 2013 - link
I love the features of this Asus mobo, but i want to use it in a really small form factor case like the Antec ISK 110 VESA Case.http://www.anandtech.com/show/6192/antec-isk-110-v...
I'm just worried that the height of the VRAM board would prevent it from using it with this case.
mi1stormilst - Tuesday, January 1, 2013 - link
I still opted for the Gigabyte Z77N and love it...Sivar - Wednesday, January 2, 2013 - link
Does this refer to the ALC889 playing an audio file encoded at 192KHz?If so, does it really matter? Failing a test is never a good thing, but I know of no widely available 192KHz audio source, and such a source would have no benefit, nor would a 96KHz source.
cjs150 - Wednesday, January 2, 2013 - link
I am a happy user of the AS Rock board in a silent HTPC. It works exceptionally well. However it is clear that some work still needs to be done on motherboard design.MSata on back is excellent - now can we have it as SATA 3 because the better MSata SSDs are all Sata 3.
Placement of Sata connectors is often awkward on these boards. On edge and at right angles please.
Similarly I would love it if someone either did the 24 pin ATX power connector at right angles or someone manufactured a right angled converter that did not require de soldering the motherboard connector. Cable management in Mini-OTX is very hard and that would really help.
Finally, careful choice of RAM can eliminate issues Ian had about the closeness of the CPU socket preventing the use of many after market coolers. I use the Samsung green low profie memory, which is so low that any after market cooler can be used (and runs at 1.35v, is an unbelievably good overclocker and reasonably priced!)
romrunning - Wednesday, January 2, 2013 - link
As has been mentioned previously, the H77 chipset is great for those who do not need overclocking. I've used the Intel DH77DF, and I heartily recommend it. Since the DH77DF has an eSATA port (not too common), I've even been able to keep an eSATA dock that I used before USB 3.0 was more readily available. If you install this board into a Fractal Design Node 304 case, you can use all of the SATA ports as well. I've used it with a Silverstone SG05 case, and the loudest part of my setup is the fan on the graphics card (Radeon 7850).One thing I've noticed, though, is the relatively low mic input from the front audio. Not sure if this is common to the Realtek ALC8xx chip series, but even after boosting the gain in Win7 to +30db, it still isn't quite as loud as an older AMD board I previously had (which didn't need a boost at all).