If you're a fan of mini-ITX motherboards, then Asus' upcoming P8Z77-I Deluxe is likely to blow your mind. We've seen a few high-end mini-ITX motherboards in the past from Zotac, but so far no-one has come up with anything like what Asus has created with the P8Z77-I Deluxe.
Apparently the designers at Asus decided to go for the all or nothing approach with the P8Z77-I Deluxe, as they've literally crammed the board full of features of which the most prominent one as odd as it is, is the VRM module. If you've been around for a few years you might remember that Gigabyte at one point in time had a card which added additional power phases to some of its high-end motherboard models, well, Asus has taken that concept to the next level with the P8Z77-I Deluxe by placing the entire VRM on a vertical PCB. This is the first mini-ITX board that we've ever seen that features eight power phases and we were told that the board is meant to be as good as an overclocker as your average full-size motherboard thanks to it.
As this is a mini-ITX board you only get a single x16 PCI Express 3.0 slot, although Asus has also fitted a half-size mini PCI Express card slot which houses a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth card as standard. There are two SATA 6Gbps and two SATA 3Gbps ports as well as headers for two USB 3.0 ports and four USB 2.0 ports. At the rear we find four USB 3.0 ports – two of which are via an ASMedia host controller – four USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 5.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out and a DisplayPort, HDMi and DVI connector, as well as a pair of buttons that we aren't sure as to what they do.
It's impossible to not be impressed by the engineering that has taken place here, as Asus has created a rather innovative mini-ITX board. It won't be everyone's cup of tea for sure and it's likely to cost as much, if not more than some full-size alternatives, but none of that makes the P8Z77-I Deluxe any less impressive.
A quick look at Asus's P8Z77-I Deluxe mini-ITX motherboard
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