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The ideology of motherboard manufacturers offering Z87 products in the Mini-ITX format is basically the same. Such boards are usually aimed at the enthusiast audience, and therefore not only have overclocking support, but are also equipped with rich peripheral features, which ultimately affects their price. However, ASRock decided to take a slightly different path to the hearts of consumers. The company was able to design a relatively inexpensive Mini-ITX board that still had a good list of features.

As a result, ASRock Z87E-ITX stands at the level of boards from other manufacturers, which are noticeably inferior to it in terms of capabilities, and primarily in terms of connecting drives. However, the secret behind ASRock’s product is quite simple. The engineers did not stuff the compact motherboard with additional controllers, which in the case of the Mini-ITX format turns into a non-trivial task, but simply relied on the functions offered by the Intel Z87 logic set, trying to use them to the maximum. The second original design approach, which found a place in the design of ASRock Z87E-ITX, is adding the maximum number of slots to the board for installing external expansion cards. Of course, you can’t expect much from the Mini-ITX format, but in addition to the usual PCI Express x16 3. 0 graphics slot for Z87-based boards, the Z87E-ITX offers two mini-PCIe slots.

One of these slots is located in the center of the board, it is designed for half-size cards and is already filled as standard with an expansion card — Wi-Fi and Bluetooth controller Broadcom. It should be noted that this controller is quite good: it is dual-band, with support for the 802.11ac standard. Thanks to the support of a pair of antennas (they are included with the board), the maximum wireless data transfer rate reaches 867 Mbps. Mini-ITX boards on the market rarely offer such generous functionality in terms of wireless interfaces.

The second mini-PCIe slot on the front side of the board did not fit as expected, so ASRock engineers ingeniously moved it to the back of the board. And this placement made it compatible even with full-sized mini-PCIe cards. In addition, the same slot also supports solid state drives in mSATA format.

Naturally, the board also has an unchanged pair of DDR3 DIMM slots — this is a standard package for Mini-ITX. On ASRock Z87E-ITX, these slots have one-way latches, so changing the memory in an already assembled system with a video card installed will not be too difficult. The maximum amount of supported memory is 16 GB.

The board could fit two connectors for connecting USB 2.0 ports, as well as a needle connector for a pair of USB 3.0 ports. Adding these ports to those on the rear panel, it turns out that a total of six USB 2.0 and six USB 3.0 are supported on the ASRock Z87E-ITX. This is not a record, but what really deserves praise is the presence of a full set of six SATA 6 Gb / s chipset ports on the board. True, one of these ports is shared with an mSATA slot, and another one is with an eSATA connector on the rear panel. But nevertheless, the ASRock Z87E-ITX’s storage connectivity is clearly richer than most competing products of the same form factor.

Of course, the placement of a large number of slots and connectors on a 17 by 17 cm board could not but affect the design. At ASRock Z87E-ITX, it turned out to be dense and not very comfortable. The LGA1150 processor socket was also damaged, which had to be moved to the top edge of the board. On the one hand, this gives some freedom when using massive video cards, but on the other hand, it creates problems when using large processor coolers. In fact, after installing an ASRock Z87E-ITX in a typical Mini-ITX case, the subset of CPU coolers that fit will be limited to models with no more than 92mm fans. However, in spacious cases or on an open bench, much larger cooling systems can be mounted on this board — they will not conflict with a video card.

Even more serious criticism is the location of the eight-pin power connector. He stuck in the center of the space between the processor socket and the rear panel, which means that in the assembled system, access to it is likely to be blocked.

The processor power circuit itself has a six-channel design. It is based on DrMOS assemblies and iron core coils commonly used in server boards. This gives ASRock reason to claim that its circuitry is highly reliable, even though full-size boards typically use high-current electronic components. Semiconductor elements of the power circuit are covered with a small radiator with a rigid screw mount. During operation of the board, this heatsink can get hot, but compared to how hot the power converters on other boards are, this is mere trifles.

ASRock Z87E-ITX has only two four-pin connectors for connecting fans, which means that after turning on the CPU cooler, only one fan can be connected to the motherboard. The fan speed is controlled only with a four-pin connection, via PWM.

Rear panel contains two USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, an eSATA port, and a PS/2 socket that works with either a mouse or keyboard. There are three ports for connecting monitors to the processor’s integrated graphics: HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI. Analog monitors can be connected to DVI-I via the supplied adapter, while HDMI and DisplayPort ports support 4K screens. Also on the rear panel are five analog audio jacks and an optical S/PDIF, which are responsible for the eight-channel Realtek ALC1150 codec and the TI NE5532 amplifier, which makes it possible to use headphones with an internal impedance of up to 600 ohms. There is also a gigabit wired network connector implemented through the Intel I217V chip, as well as two connectors for connecting WiFi antennas. Among all this abundance, a small, inconspicuous Clear CMOS button was able to squeeze in.

In addition to the already mentioned two WiFi antennas and a DVI-I to D-Sub adapter, the ASRock Z87E-ITX package includes only the most necessary things: SATA cables, a driver disk, a manual, and a plug for the back of the case (I / O shield).

ASRock Z87E-ITX motherboard BIOS is absolutely typical for this manufacturer. It has the usual set of options for fine-tuning the system and overclocking, which is typical for full-size boards. Fortunately, no reductions or simplifications made specifically in the Mini-ITX modification are visible.

The main options for controlling the processor frequency and voltage have been moved to a special section of OC Tweaker.

The memory settings are hidden in the DRAM Configuration subsection.

Processor power-saving technology controls are located in the CPU Configuration subsection of the Advanced section.

Processor overclocking on ASRock Z87E-ITX board is very easy. You just need to change the CPU multiplier and its voltage — the board will change all the other necessary parameters of the Turbo technology on its own. The situation is similar with memory overclocking — we did not encounter any problems when setting the high DDR3 SDRAM frequencies.

In other words, despite its modest size, the Z87E-ITX is a good overclocking platform. But not only. The electrical design makes it possible to assemble very economical systems on its basis. At the same time, the expansion options offered by ASRock Z87E-ITX are among the best in their class.