Asrock Z87E-ITX

By far the coolest Intel 8 series motherboard nosotros have at the moment is the Asrock Z87E-ITX, as this little 17cm x 17cm motherboard non but features the Z87 chipset with support for processors such as the Core i7-4770K, but with a full length PCIe x16 slot information technology tin can also handle the latest and greatest GPU's.

The crazy affair almost the Z87E-ITX is that you would wait to miss out on a lot of features due to its tiny size. Even so that's non really the example, as the lath back up 6 USB 3.0 ports, vi SATA 6Gb/s ports, PCIe x16, 2 total size DDR3 DIMMs, eSATA, DisplayPort and wireless.

Although many of these features are provided by the Z87 chipset, one characteristic is more unique to the Z87E-ITX. Included is a brand new IEEE 802.11ac wireless adapter which supports high-throughput wireless local area networks on the 5GHz ring. This new standard is notwithstanding backwards compatible with the 802.11n ii.4GHz band.

This specification has expected multi-station WLAN throughput of at least 1 gigabit per second and a single link throughput of at least 500 megabits per second (500 Mbit/due south). This is accomplished by extending the air interface concepts embraced by 802.11n: wider RF bandwidth (up to 160 MHz), more MIMO spatial streams (upwardly to 8), multi-user MIMO, and high-density modulation (up to 256 QAM).

Again Asrock has used the high-end Realtek ALC1150 audio codec supporting vii.1 channel Hard disk drive audio with a TI NE5532 Premium Headset Amplifier which supports upward to 600ohm headphones. And there's likewise cap less Direct Drive applied science and back up for DTS Connect.

Most Mini-ITX boards just offer two SATA ports, some become as far as to include 4, only we have never seen six before. While it is true that well-nigh Mini-ITX systems cannot even back up 6 SATA devices, it could be possible when using SSD'due south, either way the option is nice to accept.

Still what we really like is the mSATA 6Gb/s connector on the rear of the lath that supports total length cards. This means it is possible to install an SSD such as the M4 mSATA 512GB on the rear of this board and receive total 6Gb/s throughput. This in itself is a vital characteristic for a Mini-ITX board and once more models in the past take either simply featured mSATA 3Gb/s connections or only used half size connectors.

Around at the I/O console we have 2 USB 2.0 ports, iv USB 3.0 ports, PS/2 port, DVI, Displayport, HDMI, eSATA, LAN, optical sound out and v audio jacks. There are also two wireless antenna connections and a CMOS reset switch.