The $150 Z77E-ITX is surprisingly feature-packed, providing a half-size mini-PCIe-based 802.11n wireless card and a third pair of USB 3.0 ports, in addition to the features you get built in to Intel's Z77 Express chipset. And, unlike the wary competitors who chose not to participate in today’s round-up, ASRock almost invites users to overclock aggressively by adding a CLR_CMOS button to its I/O panel (oh yeah, we know why that's there).
ASRock finally ditched the space-consuming on-board VGA connector in favor of a breakout block for DVI-I, also including HDMI and DisplayPort outputs.
Quite frankly, the mini-ITX form factor doesn’t leave enough room for companies to make many good or bad layout decisions, but we were a little disappointed by the Z77E-ITX’s lack of space for oversized CPU cooling. Crowding by the graphics card limited us to a 92 mm CPU fan and similarly-sized heat sink.
Internal connectors include four of the chipset’s six SATA ports, with one of the remaining ports re-routed to the I/O panel as eSATA. Two of the chipset’s four USB 3.0 ports also correspond to a front-panel connector, along with four of the chipset’s ten USB 2.0 ports.
Keeping in mind the size restrictions of mini-ITX, the only place we found the Z77E-ITX coming up short was its fan headers. Admittedly, many small cases have only a single fan. Several of ours have a pair, though, and one of the Z77E-ITX’s two fan headers is needed by the CPU cooler.

Though only accessible prior to system assembly, an mSATA slot on the Z77E-ITX's underside offers onboard storage capability to at least a few users, without further crowding the board's top side.

Two SATA cables are adequate for most mini-ITX and DTX cases, though enclosures designed to fit slim optical drives often require that you purchase an adapter cable separately to interface with its smaller power plug. It would have been nice to get one of those bundled. But because neither ASRock nor its competition includes it, the one thing separating the Z77E-ITX’s installation kit from the other boards we're reviewing appears to be the Magix multimedia suite on its software and driver CD.
- Mini-ITX And Z77: Go Small, Go Fast, Or Go Home
- ASRock Z77E-ITX
- Z77E-ITX Firmware
- Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe
- P8Z77-I Deluxe Firmware
- EVGA Z77 Stinger
- Z77 Stinger Firmware
- MSI Z77IA-E53
- Z77IA-E53 Firmware
- Test Settings And Benchmarks
- Results: 3DMark And PCMark
- Results: SiSoftware Sandra
- Results: Battlefield 3 And F1 2012
- Results: Skyrim And StarCraft 2
- Results: Adobe Creative Suite
- Results: Productivity
- Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Benchmark: File Compression
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Overclocking Compared
- Which Mini-ITX Z77-Based Board Is Right For You?


That technology is available from MSI and Asrock (and Gigabyte, but that's irrelevant in this roundup). Look up MSI i-Charger and Asrock App Charger.
There was a big discussion between editors over whether or not the P8Z77-I Deluxe should get an award. The only award for "best features" is Tom's Hardware Approved, and that award is reserved for products that are clearly and obviously superior. The P8Z77-I Deluxe was a better board, but we had to look fairly hard to see it (it wasn't clear or obvious).
LOL, welcome to Windows 8.
How about using Windows 7? Was a reason you HAD to use 8 despite encountering issues? Is there some contractual obligation or monetary incentive to use the lastest version regardless of performance issues? Or at least test them both, it's only 4 motherboards.
It's not like the 80s/90s where you needed a full size AT/ATX motherboard with many slots for the ST-506 controller, floppy disk controller, serial port, parallel port, Sound Blaster card, VGA card, token ring card, and an extra cooling fan.
EDIT:
I will later get a Mini-ITX later & Silverstone case, stick in a Noctua NH-C12P & Haswell i7, and my Nv 680. That will have very high power density and worthy of being my "main" PC. (and it will OC)
Edit: Thanks for the update!
i would like to see an OC comparison of how high they can push an i5-3570k instead of an i7-3770k because i7 OCs are a lot more consistent. i keep seeing and hearing about people struggling to get a good OC out of it on a wide range of boards with the i5. i have an asus p8z77-i deluxe and i was able to get my i5-3570k to 4.8ghz @ 1.22v stable with extreme load line, it was stable but a bit hot because of the limitations of my all in one cooler. i think i could easily get it 5ghz on my asus board. didnt know the asrock had an msata under neither the mobo, but there will be obvious problems with mounting anything other than an all in one if you plan on using a graphics card. the only thing i would change about my asus is its unfortunate color scheme that matches nothing, after its installed you cant see much anyway. i would have liked to see how the z77 gigabyte itx board compares
i was thinking about that, the dual ethernet ports with teaming is pretty cool but i heard bad things about the overclocking capabilities on it. ultimately i went with the asus because it had the best wireless, good overclocking, best cpu position [others move it around making it hard when you choose a heat sink]
me too. the dual ethernet with teaming is pretty cool but i heard it was a poor OCer. anyone else having trouble commenting?
Comapring features, performance, power, and price I think it is an easy pick for winner.
Since this is a review site, I'm not sure I understand why Gigabyte had any say as to whether or not you reviewed their board.
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I'd like to see some mini-ITX gaming builds featured in the SBM, but let me throw out concern #1, and that's heat. Not of the CPU, or of the GPU, but internal case temperature, and its effects on other components (e.g. VRMs and drives). I used the ASRock board in a PC-Q08R, which has two fans, and still one day in the middle of a game the board died. It was an i5-3570K at stock, and a HD7870 also at stock. The CPU was on the warmer side of normal (60C-63C iirc), but what blew was apparently a VRM on the mobo. Maybe it was a fluke, but I've decided that to be long-term viable, the graphics card in such a build MUST exhaust its heat (such as the HIS "Black Hole" models).
Umm...NO!
Frankly, I really don't even like mATX and ATX is about all I use unless I'm building an HTPC or LAN box, or I need a 4-WAY then EATX.
Simply 'if' I want a small box + OC then undoubtedly the ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe is my top tier choice. This has been proven to be the best choice for some period of time i.e. since it was released. The OC'ing components are 'origamied' (folded) on to the MOBO so it's essentially an ATX with one major exception (1) one PCIe slot not to mention less 'stuff' e.g. SATA ports, etc.