ASRock Z87E-ITX Review: Motherboard Juxtaposition
by Ian Cutress on November 6, 2013 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- ASRock
- Mini ITX
- Haswell
- Z87
Many thanks to...
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our test bed:
Thank you to OCZ for providing us with 1250W Gold Power Supplies.
Thank you to G.Skill for providing us with memory kits.
Thank you to Corsair for providing us with an AX1200i PSU, Corsair H80i CLC and 16GB 2400C10 memory.
Thank you to ASUS for providing us with the AMD GPUs and some IO Testing kit.
Thank you to ECS for providing us with the NVIDIA GPUs.
Thank you to Rosewill for providing us with the 500W Platinum Power Supply for mITX testing, BlackHawk Ultra, and 1600W Hercules PSU for extreme dual CPU + quad GPU testing, and RK-9100 keyboards.
Thank you to ASRock for providing us with the 802.11ac wireless router for testing.
Test Setup
| Processor |
Intel Core i7-4770K Retail 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 3.5 GHz (3.9 GHz Turbo) |
| Motherboards |
ASRock Z87 Extreme6/AC ASRock Z87 OC Formula/AC ASRock Z87M OC Formula ASRock Z87E-ITX ASUS Z87-Pro Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H Gigabyte Z87X-OC MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming MSI Z87 XPower MSI Z87I |
| Cooling |
Corsair H80i Thermalright TRUE Copper |
| Power Supply |
OCZ 1250W Gold ZX Series Corsair AX1200i Platinum PSU |
| Memory |
GSkill TridentX 4x4 GB DDR3-2400 10-12-12 Kit Corsair Vengeance Pro 2x8 GB DDR3 2400 10-12-12 Kit |
| Memory Settings | XMP (2400 10-12-12) |
| Video Cards |
ASUS HD7970 3GB ECS GTX 580 1536MB |
| Video Drivers |
Catalyst 13.1 NVIDIA Drivers 310.90 WHQL |
| Hard Drive | OCZ Vertex 3 256GB |
| Optical Drive | LG GH22NS50 |
| Case | Open Test Bed |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit |
| USB 2/3 Testing | OCZ Vertex 3 240GB with SATA->USB Adaptor |
| WiFi Testing | D-Link DIR-865L 802.11ac Dual Band Router |
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system as a whole with a wall meter connected to the OCZ 1250W power supply, while in a dual 7970 GPU configuration. This power supply is Gold rated, and as I am in the UK on a 230-240 V supply, leads to ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, which is suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.
While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our test bed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.
The Z87E-ITX does well in our power consumption tests, being relatively low in idle scenarios, 16W lower than the MSI in gaming and under 130W during OCCT.
Windows 7 POST Time
Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we are now going to look at the POST Boot Time - this is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows 7 starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.) These results are subject to human error, so please allow +/- 1 second in these results.
The Z87E-ITX hits the nine second mark square on, providing a nice and quick boot time.
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BernardP - Wednesday, November 6, 2013 - link
Thanks. I hadn't thought about this...Too simple, too obvious!jason11 - Wednesday, November 6, 2013 - link
With Bay Trail, I'm really hoping to see Nano-ITX and Pico-ITX boards come out. Hopefully some cases too but I'm fine with making a simple one myself.mdbusa - Wednesday, November 6, 2013 - link
please excuse my ignorance on this but I need some clarification on how the video ports would work on this. Currently I have a XSX 7750 driving 3 monitors.On this MB with a Haswell DH 4600 chip could I drive 3 monitors using the on board display port and other 2 video ports?? I don't use it for gaming so high performance is not mandatory.
Given the size of the board it looks like it might be difficult to plug in my XFX card
extide - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
Yes you can use your discreet card and the haswell integrated graphics at the same time, so 3 from the integrated + whatever is on your card.DaBean - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
"Both the Z87E-ITX and another 802.11ac mini-ITX motherboard I am currently testing have issues with DPC Latency: both hit peak values north of 200, and only when Bluetooth 4.0 is turned off."If I'm reading this correctly the DPC latency only hits high peak values when Bluetooth is off, so having Bluetooth on solves the problem? Seems counter-intuitive, could you explain what effect Bluetooth has, do you need to be using the bluetooth or just have it enabled?
AnandTech2013 - Thursday, November 7, 2013 - link
I have this board on my list but i was wondering which revision of the chipset is on the board and is it visible on the box. At this time i don't want a C1 anymore and i think the most are all C2 but ASRock makes no statement on this.ZoSo - Friday, November 8, 2013 - link
- 6 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, Intel® Rapid Storage Technology 12 and Intel® Smart Response Technology), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug (SATA3_5 connector is shared with the eSATA port; SATA3_4 connector is shared with the mSATA/mini-PCI Express slot)- 1 x eSATA connector, supports NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug
- 1 x mSATA 6.0 Gb/s connector (Solid-State Drive connector), supports NCQ, AHCI and Full-size mini-PCI Express modules
coolhund - Saturday, November 9, 2013 - link
This is an awesome mainboard. Its layout is almost perfect. Could use a few more USB ports on the back instead of the PS/2 or eSATA port, however.Also I wonder why this negligible "problem" with the 8-pin connector is mentioned, while the huge problem with picoPSUs isnt mentioned: The 24-pin connector is turned 180 degrees, which will make most picoPSUs touch the ram and actually pushes them to the side with quite a lot of force. Its a no-go using picoPSUs on this board because of that.
Why you would need more than one case fan in an ITX case is beyond me either. Also I actually like that the VGA and DVI compatibility is being maintained, else I wouldnt be able to use it.
MarkF - Friday, January 17, 2014 - link
I am using this board with a picoPSU-150-XT and it doesn't touch the RAM (Crucial 8GB - 4x2). The RAM sits straight up, not leaned over. There is a very small clearance between the the outer most DIM and the PSU circuit. My reality does not match yours. :-)Matman - Monday, November 11, 2013 - link
I was sold as soon as I originally saw the specs. No addon USB/SATA controllers. No wanky VRM/audio/wifi/mSATA riser cards. The Broadcom wireless ac isn't quite as good/stable/supported as the new Intel one but that's easily fixed by just swapping out the wireless card. Excellent storage flexibility. Excellent CPU cooler - GPU clearance.As far as I'm concerned this is the closest to high performance mini-ITX perfection anyone has come yet.