ZOTAC Z68-ITX WiFi LGA1155

[cadaveca]

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.

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[xBruce88x]

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

 

[mlee49]

Nice review Dave. Very good work.

 

[HammerON]

Man is that a tiny, but yet awesome mb

 

[stupido]

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

 

[Frick]

This cracked me up.

 

[cadaveca]

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.

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.

 

[Maban]

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

 

[cadaveca]

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?"

 

[Maban]

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

 

[cadaveca]

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?

 

[Frick]

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?

 

[cadaveca]

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.

 

[to6ko91]

why the 2 hdmi ports + dp ?

 

[W1zzard]

why the 2 hdmi ports + dp ?

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

 

[stupido]

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...

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...

 

[_JP_]

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.

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

Asus has this one and this one.

 

[wrathchild_67]

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.

 

[_JP_]

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.

 

[cadaveca]

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.

 

[[H]@RD5TUFF]

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

 

[Steven B]

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.

 

[cadaveca]

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

 

[_JP_]

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

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

 

[Steyr]

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.