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Five Z87 Motherboards For Your Mini-ITX Build, Reviewed

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Z87 rules the PC enthusiast market by exposing the Haswell architecture's full feature set. We're particularly interested in mini-ITX-based platforms able to integrate Z87 in a compact form factor. Five boards contend for supremacy of compact computing.

Results: 3DMark And PCMark

Tighter integration makes it difficult for any product to stand out in a performance comparison, though companies can still cheat a little on base clock or force a modified Turbo Boost mode, where the highest (single-core) turbo ratio is applied even to quad-core loads. We disable that tomfoolery when settings are available, and enable Intel’s full power-saving feature set to the best of each motherboard’s capability. That means benchmarks do nothing more than show if anyone is cheating or accidentally crippling their product.

Storage scores are the only synthetic performance measurements that carry though to our final analysis. They range from 4993 to 4997 will have little overall impact there.

28 Comments Comment from the forums
  • lp231 25 November 2013 06:03
    Here is another MSI ITX board
    Reply
  • PEJUman 25 November 2013 06:05
    Why would one pay extra for ASUS's power delivery if it didn't yield any additional OC/DRAM stability? In the end, ASRock features & cheaper price should be a better option here.
    Reply
  • Crashman 25 November 2013 06:34
    12025866 said:
    Here is another MSI ITX board
    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 :p
    12025873 said:
    Why would one pay extra for ASUS's power delivery if it didn't yield any additional OC/DRAM stability? In the end, ASRock features & cheaper price should be a better option here.
    ASRock's cheaper features also made it a competitor with the cheaper boards for the value award. Since it competed well for both awards, it had to get a different award.

    Reply
  • nukemaster 25 November 2013 06:36
    While some may not like the layout, the Gigabyte and MSI layout should work well in some cases like the SG05 from SilverStone. The top mounted power and sata ports help keep wires out of the air flow path.

    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.
    Reply
  • xkm1948 25 November 2013 06:37
    Since most of them has built in Wi-Fi. Will it be better to include a Wi-Fi test column?
    Reply
  • Crashman 25 November 2013 06:47
    12025986 said:
    Since most of them has built in Wi-Fi. Will it be better to include a Wi-Fi test column?
    We formerly had a controller reviewer, and I'd like to see someone take on this task again. A separate article on the controllers (with everything else identical) wouldn't tell you anything about the antennas included with different products, but antennas are cheaply replaceable.

    Reply
  • KrazyKap 25 November 2013 07:08
    Is the Asus Z87 Pro the same as the Deluxe? Seems to be region specific but I can't find the difference. Help? I've just bought the Pro for myself as it is only slightly more than the MSI or Gigabyte options.
    Reply
  • unipablo 25 November 2013 11:57
    I think that the Pro version comes with wifi-N instead of wifi-AC.
    Reply
  • vertexx 25 November 2013 13:08
    Let's just roll some dice and toss out some awards, eh? Couldn't help but laugh through the conclusion.

    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?
    Reply
  • rolli59 25 November 2013 15:10
    Nice review and boards, conclusion is all good buy's depending on what features you want except the EVGA.
    Reply