Top Mini ITX motherboards pricing roundup

In this article we’re taking a look at the best ITX motherboards locally available. Where possible, reviews for the motherboards shown below were taken from reputable sites. Prices were taken from Rebeltech, Wootware, Ikonix and Titan-Ice.

If you want to build a rig that’s easy enough to take to LANs regularly, you’ll need to think a little smaller. ITX motherboards and chassis have been popping up everywhere as the platform becomes more popular with system builders, and the allure of having a small, easily portable gaming rig is hard to resist.

As we noted in our earlier feature today, Planning for the upgrade bug, your choice of motherboard dictates how versatile your rig can be and with the constraints of the ITX standard, prioritising physical attributes over features becomes a delicate juggling act.

Motherboard	Rebeltech	Wootware	Ikonix	Titan-Ice
MSI B75IA-E33	906	1026		950
ASRock FM2A85X-ITX	1123	1278	1371
ASRock Z77E-ITX	1785		1700	1790
ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe	2670	2365	2757	2749

MSI B75IA-E33 (±R960)

MSi B75IA-E33

MSI’s entry into the ITX space begins with the B75IA-E33. At around R960 its not too expensive and packs in a decent amount of features as well as useful and available ports.

It has front-panel USB 3.0 support, four SATA ports with one SATA 6GB/s port coloured in white, a comprehensive set of video ports including HDMI, DVI-D and VGA as well as support for optical out on the sound card, which isn’t something you see often on a budget motherboard.

Despite its size, the B75IA-E33 can accommodate Intel’s Core i7-3770 and a discrete graphics card as well as up to 16GB of DDR3-1600 memory. Reviews on the board aren’t easily found because its still so new, but it did land up as the top choice for Tom’s Hardware’s mini-ITX gaming system.

ASRock FM2A85X-ITX (±R1250)

ASRock FM2A85X-ITX

ASRock exited the international market in 2009 with the launch of Intel’s Nehalem processor family. Because their LGA775 motherboards weren’t doing too well even on the home front in Taiwan, they decided to go back to the drawing board. Their products today have been rated very highly and they’re one of the top five motherboard brands in the world.

The FM2A85X-ITX is their premium offering for AMD’s socket FM2 processors and its packed with features and ports.

On the back panel there are enough USB ports to service your devices and the motherboard’s layout is superb. The RAM slots now run across the top of the board and ASRock moved enough things around to open up space to include no less than seven SATA 6GB/s ports. There’s also a PCI-Express slot for discrete graphics cards and, together with an AMD A-series processor, you can plug in a compatible graphics card for some dual-GPU action.

Hardware Secrets gave it a thumbs-up and noted that the board’s back panel port selection allowed it to fit into any role comfortably.

ASRock Z77E-ITX (±R1760)

ASRock Z77E-ITX

Once again ASRock makes a showing with a decently kitted out ITX motherboard for the Intel Z77 platform. Its very similar in layout to the MSI board in this roundup and this may be a result of Intel’s reference designs being copied for simplicity.

It too features front-panel USB 3.0 support, four SATA ports (two of them are of the 6GB/s variety), two memory slots supporting up to 16GB of DDR3 at a higher frequency of 2,400MHz. It also has a built-in wireless card.

It also has the Z77 chipset which means that overclocking options are almost endless. Most reviews out there managed to get the Core i7-3770K up and well over 4.6GHz which is nothing to sneer at. The board also boasts a special extra – flip it over and there’s a mSATA slot for a SSD.

The TechReport reviewed it recently and were it not for a minor bug in their review unit, they would have given it a recommended award.

ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe (±R2635)

ASUS P8Z77-I-Deluxe

When it comes to high-end ITX motherboards, however, ASUS has everyone beat.

The P8Z77-I Deluxe has the highest overclocking performance out of any other Z77 ITX motherboard on the market and as is the case with ASUS boards, a ton of customisation features to get the most out of your hardware and fan setup. It has a full complement of ports including DVI-D, HDMI and Displayport. Its the only high-end motherboard that is licensed to use the Dolby Digital DTS standard through the on-board sound.

ASUS spared no expense in the board and it would be equally comfortable under the Republic of Gamers brand as well. It is the best ITX Z77 board you can buy, bar none. It even won the Recommended award from TechReport.