# ZOTAC Z68-ITX WiFi LGA1155



## cadaveca (Jul 1, 2011)

ZOTAC recently announced their mini-ITX Z68 motherboard. Supporting standard desktop parts for expansion, the ZOTAC Z68-ITX WiFi offers all the features of the Intel Z68 chipset, including some decent overclocking. We put the Z68-ITX WiFi through the paces, and take this little roadster for a wild ZOTAC ride.

*Show full review*


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## xBruce88x (Jul 14, 2011)

good job with the review, looks like a quality board, with the exception of the mounting issues for the cpu cooler, but like you said that's to be expected with the size, and that's not too hard to get around.

now they just need to make one for FM1 that can support an A8 series apu


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## mlee49 (Jul 14, 2011)

Nice review Dave. Very good work.


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## HammerON (Jul 14, 2011)

Man is that a tiny, but yet awesome mb


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## stupido (Jul 14, 2011)

This is very nice board to build small gaming machine  
I'm curious if Gigabyte & Asus will come out with similar board?

Gigabyte had very nice one based on the P55...

also the self-contained liquid cooling solutions (Corsair, Antec, CoolIT) are made for such boards


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## Frick (Jul 14, 2011)

This cracked me up.


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## cadaveca (Jul 14, 2011)

stupido said:


> also the self-contained liquid cooling solutions (Corsair, Antec, CoolIT) are made for such boards



Unfortunately, not this one. I did mention this in the review. I had to assemble my own mount for the Corsair H70 I used for overclock testing, and this mount style, with backplate, is common between most of those AIO-watercoolers. That siad though, any cooler that comes with a backplate(like 99%) will require some engineering to mount properly.

Gigabyte showed a Z68 miniITX board, but it do not think it's expected any time soon, and I'm not currently happy with thier products. Perhaps they have other products that may satisfy my needs, but they haven't sent me one, so I am loath to wait for any Gigabyte product arrival.



Frick said:


> This cracked me up.



Me too. But that pic, very specifically help put it all in perspective...this board is small, and the hardware design is very sound, and given it's small size, that's not an easy task, at all. A few tweaks, and Zotac just might put some serious pressure on the "Big Three", and considering the short time they've been a player on the market, they're definitely headed in the right direction.


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## Maban (Jul 14, 2011)

Why is that picture a GIF when all of the other pics of the board are jpeg?


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## cadaveca (Jul 14, 2011)

Maban said:


> Why is that picture a GIF when all of the other pics of the board are jpeg?






My error? Does it matter? File sizes are near the same. I wonder why you'd even notice. Perhaps I'll watermark pictures from now on.:shadedshu


 I was expecting you to say "Why no naked board pics?"


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## Maban (Jul 14, 2011)

The colors are a dead give away. It really doesn't matter either way, I was just curious.


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## cadaveca (Jul 14, 2011)

Maban said:


> The colors are a dead give away. It really doesn't matter either way, I was just curious.



So you know the answer. 




They look good, don't they?


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## Frick (Jul 14, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Me too. But that pic, very specifically help put it all in perspective...this board is small, and the hardware design is very sound, and given it's small size, that's not an easy task, at all. A few tweaks, and Zotac just might put some serious pressure on the "Big Three", and considering the short time they've been a player on the market, they're definitely headed in the right direction.



Couldn't agree more. They usually come at a great value as well, considering what you get.

BTW, any chance of reviewing any of the even smaller systems? Nano/Pico etc?


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## cadaveca (Jul 14, 2011)

As long as it uses standard "off-the-shelf" parts, and arrives at my door, I'll review any board.

The question should posed to the OEMs, and whether they are ready to submit thier products to my testing. There are alot of OEMs out there, so I'm more than willing to take a look at what they offer...I have seen alot of good products so far...and not one with any issue that'd really prevent me from using it myself.


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## to6ko91 (Jul 14, 2011)

why the 2 hdmi ports + dp ?


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## W1zzard (Jul 14, 2011)

to6ko91 said:


> why the 2 hdmi ports + dp ?



probably to offer dual screen support without wasting a lot of space for analog vga/dvi


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## stupido (Jul 14, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> Unfortunately, not this one. I did mention this in the review. I had to assemble my own mount for the Corsair H70 I used for overclock testing, and this mount style, with backplate, is common between most of those AIO-watercoolers. That siad though, any cooler that comes with a backplate(like 99%) will require some engineering to mount properly.


I'm engineer... And I like DIY... 



cadaveca said:


> Gigabyte showed a Z68 miniITX board, but it do not think it's expected any time soon, and I'm not currently happy with thier products. Perhaps they have other products that may satisfy my needs, but they haven't sent me one, so I am loath to wait for any Gigabyte product arrival.


Indeed current Gigabyte products are not as one would expect from them... though their P55 miniITX was quite OK one...


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## _JP_ (Jul 14, 2011)

Very nice review. Looks like we have a little monster in our hands, while in stock speeds.  It's a shame that the cooling options don't allow a worry-free OC, but such a small board won't go on a HAF either, so I'd say it's ok. As for the UEFI BIOS, it seems Zotac is taking the same road as MSi and integrating the old BIOS visual style. A few updates should clear the issues, though.


stupido said:


> I'm curious if Gigabyte & Asus will come out with similar board?


Asus has this one and this one.


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## wrathchild_67 (Jul 14, 2011)

All the people who have been waiting for this board, like myself, are now left wondering if we should settle for 4.5GHz with the expectation that Zotac will improve the BIOS enough to break that limit. I was almost ready to give my first born for this motherboard, almost.


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## _JP_ (Jul 14, 2011)

Cadaveca, sorry to bother (and this being a bit off topic, to the review), but do you think the ITX boards with the Z68 chipset poses any considerable advantage over a board with the H67 or H61 chipsets?
I mean, the overclocking potential is usually small and the "Smart Response Technology" seems a good idea only if the board has enough SATA headers. The dual-GPU feature is the only advantage I see that can make an actual difference and be relevant when choosing a board.
I'm asking this because the prices are a bit high on Z68 boards and I'm not so sure the motherboards should be ignored, just because the chipset is something other than the Z68. Every penny counts to me.


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## cadaveca (Jul 15, 2011)

I cannot offer a direct answer for that, as it really depends on each board's components, to me.

Do I think Z68 is better than H67? Yes.

Does that eliminate H67 boards? No. But they do not offer overclocking abilities due to the H67 chipset, something that Z68 has no problems with. H67 offers only DDR3-1333 MHz support, and +400 Mhz on the CPU over stock, as a max. Z68 is completely "unlocked", both on CPU multis, and memory dividers.

For me, that means that H67 is quite useless, but for those that want to run stock on thier CPUs, H67 is perfectly fine.

There are a couple of other things about Z68 and overclocking, like System Agent voltage being tied to VCCIO on many products, which makes P67 a better option for overclocking, in my books.

So...Yeah...not exactly an easy question to answer.


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## [H]@RD5TUFF (Jul 15, 2011)

I have been waiting for m-ITX to adopt 8 pin CPU power, I so want one of these!


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## Steven B (Jul 15, 2011)

I hope you look at their other super overclock board, the ATX one, first Zotac ATX board in a while, but these VRm components are overkill, but still very nice to see. Their 24 phase one on their ATX Z68 board is pretty sick.


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## cadaveca (Jul 15, 2011)

I'll have to hit them up for one. Thanks for the heads up, Steven.


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## _JP_ (Jul 15, 2011)

cadaveca said:


> So...Yeah...not exactly an easy question to answer.


Thank you for your time and attention. That will do.


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## Steyr (Jul 15, 2011)

Hi everyone, nice review, 

exactly the mobo i need, ( project Silverstone SG07 + Zotac Z68itx + Noctua )

but that heatsink backplate problem is really bad, what solutions you think there are to fix it and use Noctua ? 
Replace Noctua backplate with little rings or something ? How did you do to place the Corsair backplate ?  

Otherwise found few others not using backplate ( and max 115mm height to fit SG07):
Scythe Shuriken rev B,
Scythe Ninja Mini rev B,
Thermalright AXP140 rev B,
but not sure they all fit itx cases like SG07, any hints are welcome.


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## cadaveca (Jul 15, 2011)

Steyr said:


> How did you do to place the Corsair backplate ?



I did not use a backplate.

I used some plastic washers, some threaded bolts, some nuts, and a spring or two....

and then...


TAA-DAA!!!


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## DeerSteak (Jul 15, 2011)

These are adorable but I can't help but wonder why there haven't been takers on the mini ITX Llano front yet?  One of these with a 65W variant seems like the peanut butter and chocolate of a very tasty HTPC Reese's peanut butter cup.  Probably someone, somewhere is cooking up such a design.  E-350 is a little under-powered for some truly awesome real-time image clean-up, but Llano should be just right.


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## TiN (Jul 16, 2011)

Hm. Let's put LN2 on CPU and throw GTX580 classified with LN2 container to it. 

I'm serious!


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## cadaveca (Jul 16, 2011)

TiN said:


> Hm. Let's put LN2 on CPU and throw GTX580 classified with LN2 container to it.
> 
> I'm serious!



Sure. Send the pot and vga to me; I'll do it, no problem.


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## bm88 (Jul 30, 2011)

*Heatpipe*

Thank you for that wonderful statement. 
Can you tell me if the heat pipe is bonded to two radiators because I want to make a change. Thank you


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## cadaveca (Jul 30, 2011)

Yes, the heatpipe does appear to be thermally bonded to each heatsink.


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## bm88 (Jul 30, 2011)

*Heatpipe*

Ok, thank you Cadaveca. Excuse my English. I will use a case mCubed, I need to change the radiator ZOTAC marked as it hinders the passage of the tubes (heatpipe) to cool the CPU.
My motherboard ZOTAC Z68ITX-A-E is in order.
Thank you.


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## AlphaStormX (Aug 23, 2011)

What card was used on the test bench?


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## bm88 (Aug 23, 2011)

*Zotac z68itx-a-e*

Here is the link test:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/Z68-ITX_WIFI/1.html


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## AlphaStormX (Aug 24, 2011)

A sexy and small board.


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## yaxattax (Sep 5, 2011)

This might seem like a strange question, but I am interested in this board because of the dual LAN. Now the only other thing I need to know is the capability for the board to underclock and undervolt the CPU. 

I've been searching for a while for a board that has a dual LAN and potential to change clock speed and voltage, because I want a system that has a reasonably low power consumption, without sacrificing too much performance, and I see this as being the ideal way to achieve this - my question is, so much attention is paid to the overclocking ability .. but does the board actually have the ability to underclock and undervolt?

If the answer to the above is no .. I'd also be interested to know of any mini-ITX, LGA1155 boards with dual LAN that can undervolt and underclock.

Cheers,

Yax


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## cadaveca (Sep 5, 2011)

Hi yaxattax!

Unfortunately, no this board doesn't NOT allow for much in the way of underclocking.

AS to my side of your question, at the beginning of the BIOS section of every board I review I put a table of critical votlages, and thier ranges, as well as possible bus speeds. if you check this table, you'll see that this board, with the BIOS that was current when I tested the board, did not allow setting exact voltages, but rather allowed setting offsets, so undervolting is not possible, except on DRAM, which itself doesn't allow for much flexibility downwards.

I haven't had the opportunity yet to test other mITX products, but hopefully in the future I'l lbe able to procure samples of the other products in this form factor.


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## yaxattax (Sep 5, 2011)

Hi Cadaveca,

Thanks for the prompt response. I also see the table you mention, I should have looked a little more carefully!

I think its a real shame that all the manufacturers are putting out products capable of overclocking, but not underclocking .. particularly in the mITX format where you're just as likely to want low power as high performance ... there is the Atom but it just doesn't put out the same kind of performance as say, a Sandybridge 2500T.

I hope something comes along soon that can fill this apparently niche requirement of mine


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## cadaveca (Sep 5, 2011)

Thanks very much for the feedback. I will be re-doing my review format in the near future, looking at things fro ma completely different perspective that may give a bit more info to readers, and I think I'll be separating Intel and AMD products, too.

Like you, I am very much interested in smaller form-factor builds, although I do prefer higher-performance products personally, because, really, I'm a gamer at heart, and I like to enjoy most games the day they come out, so my systems need to be up to the task.

I'll keep your perspective in mind when developing the new review format, for sure, as I do not think you belong to a that small of a niche, really, based on other feedback I've received.


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