While most of its competitors scrambled to find room to retain all of the Z87 Express PCH's natively-supported features using a mini-ITX form factor, EVGA made space for power and reset buttons, plus a dual-digit system status display. Dedicated to gamers, and by extension to overclockers, the company got there by focusing on the unique needs of the mini-ITX-based gaming system market.

The first thing we noticed was that the board has only four internal SATA 6Gb/s ports, which makes sense when most small cases have no more than four drive bays anyway. A tiny heat sink serves a similarly downsized four-phase voltage regulator, which also works for us since Haswell’s heat issues normally prevent it from capitalizing on the additional capacity of larger regulators. EVGA also gets rid of rarely-used connections like legacy communications ports and the TPM.
That’s not to say the board is stripped. We still find, for example, the full range of front-panel headers, including USB 3.0, USB 2.0, and analog audio I/O. In fact, front-panel audio is a significant addition to the Z87 Stinger, since EVGA neglected to include it on the company's Z77-based predecessor. Also, one of the missing SATA 6Gb/s ports gets re-routed to eSATA.

EVGA even includes a decorative cover so you don't have to look at parts of the board that don't add anything aesthetically. In fact, Wi-Fi is the only feature notably missing from the Z87 Stinger compared to competing products.
The Z87 Stinger has a mini-PCIe slot into which you can drop your choice of wireless networking controller or other compatible device. EVGA even includes a place on the board's I/O shield for mounting antenna leads. On the other hand, if the company wanted to provide its customers with added configuration flexibility, it should have bundled the break-out cables that aren’t included with most mini-PCIe-based wireless modules.

The Z87 Stinger's manual is universal, and based on EVGA's other products. You'll need to rely on its additional configuration sheet to determine the location and function of various connectors, and know to dismiss anything listed in the manual but not found on the board.
- The Mini-ITX Market Is Small, But Growing...
- ASRock Z87E-ITX
- Z87E-ITX Software
- Z87E-ITX Firmware
- Asus Z87I-Deluxe
- Z87I-Deluxe Software
- Z87I-Deluxe Firmware
- EVGA Z87 Stinger
- Z87 Stinger Software
- Z87 Stinger Firmware
- Gigabyte Z87N-WiFi
- Z87N-WiFi Software
- Z87N-WiFi Firmware
- MSI Z87I
- Z87I Software
- Z87I Firmware
- Test Hardware And Benchmark Settings
- Results: 3DMark And PCMark
- Results: SiSoftware Sandra
- Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Results: Adobe Creative Suite
- Results: Productivity
- Results: File Compression
- Energy, Heat, And Efficiency
- Overclocking
- Which Mini-ITX Motherboard Would We Buy For Haswell?

Yes, they've sent one for another article. If the site did multiple items per manufacturer the article would take weeks to finish. That wouldn't be a problem if all Tom's Hardware did was motherboards
More room between the PCI-E and CPU LGA is nice on the Asus as are all the features.
I am still running an older H55n usb3 24/7 and it has been quite stable and cool and low on power consumption. Shame that this new gigabyte board has higher power and temperature levels.
Overall it's good to see the roundup. Would have liked to see post times. With SSD storage, motherboard post times are now becoming the longer wait in a system boot up.
Also interested in thoughts on reasons for Z87 mobos for a standard non-overclocking build. For a non-overclocked gaming ITX PC, say with an I3 or low-end I5, are there any compelling reasons to pay the Z87 premium over, say an H81, which can run $100 cheaper?
I thought Intel did away with allowing non-k processors to use the four 100 MHz bins with Haswell. It only applies to Sandy and Ivy. At least that was what has been reported:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/06/14/haswell-overclocking/1
Now that looks interesting.
I don't see how this is even a consideration. How many people have the need to plug in the connector AFTER installing the cooler? Or for that matter, BEFORE removing the cooler? The only need to move this at all would be during a PSU swap, which is probably very infrequent for most.
Now that looks interesting.
Yep that does look interesting.
Some other itx boards, not as cool as that MSI, but worth sharing.
http://www.asus.com/Commercial_Servers_Workstations/P9DI/
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Q87T/
http://www.asrock.com/server/overview.asp?Model=E3C226D2I
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4463#ov
Not ITX but worth sharing too
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/CSB/
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/VANGUARD_B85/
Yep the Deluxe has Wifi AC and pro has Wifi N