Introduction

The last mITX board I looked at was pretty decent, to say the least, and affordable, but what if you have a larger budget and are looking for a slightly higher feature set? Who can give you that? The quickest answer many are going to respond to that question with is ASUS.

ASUS is actually nearly my favorite company out there, purely based on the level of BIOS functionality and the feature sets that meet my needs, particularly as an enthusiast that gravitates towards products with a higher price tag, whatever reasons there may be to motivate me in such a way. I like to tweak and play around with my memory overclocks, and ASUS was one of the first to provide a huge level of tweak-ability on a wide scale. That same level of customization is possible with nearly all of their products now and has been refined to truly impressive levels, which brings us to the board we are looking at today, the ASUS P87I-PRO.

The ASUS P87I-PRO comes out of ASUS's mainstream line-up, clad in their return to black and gold that has caused many enthusiasts to react - few seem to remember that "old-school" mainstream ASUS boards going back to the '90s commonly included yellowish to golden PCBs and black DIMM slots. Fitted with a 12+2 VRM design, unbelievable for a mITX product, and sporting WiFi, Bluetooth, and a host of other ASUS-specific features, the ASUS P87I-PRO is purposely designed for the high-end mini-PC connoisseur wanting everything the Intel Z87 platform has to offer, including that decent overclock.

Specifications