The Board - Layout

With the ZOTAC Z68-ITX WiFi out of its box, the ZOTAC Z68-ITX WiFi appears to be the top-left half of any full-size motherboard, but it is by no means a cut-down version. Weighing as much, if not more than the "reference-design" Sapphire HD 6950 2 GB we use in our test bench, it has a high-quality feel, and rightly so, given its MSRP. Flipping it over we found the backside cluttered with surface-mounted components, but it's nice to note that the cooling solution uses screws to attach to the board, rather than the plastic clips we have found so many times on competitor's products. It is the little things that matter, and this is not something ZOTAC has overlooked.


Looking at the socket, we find what seems to be plenty of clearance for aftermarket heatsinks, but truth be told, it only appears that way because the ZOTAC Z68-ITX WiFi is so small, measuring in at six inches square. There is just enough room for a stock Intel cooler, with the DIMM slots and PCIe slot so close by. The back of the socket is completely surrounded as well, with VRM components around three edges of the metal plate found on all SKT1155 products. Lifting the lid on the socket, we find not a single empty component space, as we expect to see on every product based on the SKT1155 platform.


For expansion, the Z68-ITX WiFi features a single full x16 PCIe slot which connects to the CPU itself, allowing full performance from any current discrete VGA card. The included WiFi card which lends itself to the Z68-ITX WiFi's naming, sits on the opposite edge in a combo slot ready to accept mSATA drives, and mini-PCIe devices, by simply flipping the position of a close-by jumper. For memory expansion, we find only two DIMM slots, which does limit the Z68-ITX WiFi's total memory capacity, but with the Z68-ITX WiFi still retaining support for 8GB per DIMM, this shouldn't be much of an issue for most users that this product is intended for.


With everything cramped so close together, we find the pin headers spread out all over the place, with the front panel header at one end of the DIMM slots, the COM header on the other end of the DIMM slots, on the opposite side; the USB 3.0 header is right near the back I/O panel near the top edge, and finally, we find the front audio header above the PCIe slot, next to the rear audio I/O ports.


Speaking of the rear ports, we find five total analog audio connections, enough for full 8.1-channel analog output, as well as a digital SPDIF optical port, stacked together in the same I/O tower. Next to the audio we find the three display outputs; two HDMI, and one mini-DP. The dual Gigabit Ethernet ports are stacked one above the other on the other side of the video outputs, and next to that we find the two USB 3.0 ports mated with a combination keyboard/mouse PS/2. The two red bulbs are the covers for the dual WiFi antennas, which are removable if the WiFi card is not used, and just below them is a Clear-CMOS button, and next to that, is a stack of four USB ports to round out the compliment. What was most surprising, given how much is here, is that there is just four total SATA ports, with the blue ports supporting SATA 6 Gb/s operation, and the red ports SATA 3 Gb/s, with two USB 2.0 headers right next to them. As the chipset natively supports two more SATA 3 Gb/s ports, it's shocking, but completely understandable given how much this tiny product offers. We weren't surprised to find only two fan headers on the Z68-ITX Wifi, but we were impressed by the fact that both are PWM-controlled, with user-adjustable settings in BIOS.