Asrock Z97E-ITX/ac (LGA-1150) Motherboard Review

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging Intel's Z97 platform is a perfect basis for a mini-ITX system build as it features enough performance to please even the most demanding user while still being power efficient enough to be tamed by small form factor cases and modest cooling solutions. Due to those reasons it isn't surprising to see Intel's LGA 1150 platform dominate the mini-ITX landscape. Creating a mini-ITX motherboard from AMD's AM3+ or Intel's LGA 2011 platforms is unfeasible from a number of perspectives including heat and for LGA 2011, the size of the socket and number of memory lanes required. We have seen other mini-ITX motherboards emerge for low power platforms like Intel's Bay Trail, AMD's Kabini and AMD's FM2+ APU platform but relatively speaking all three of these platforms cannot rival Intel's LGA 1150 in terms of raw performance. In short, Intel's mainstream LGA 1150 platform offers the best balance of features, performance, pricing and power efficiency for the mini-ITX form factor. Today we are setting our sights on one of ASRock's newest additions to the line-up, the Z97E-ITX/ac. ASRock, a previous subdivision of AsusTek, has really taken the world by storm, becoming the 3rd biggest supplier of motherboards for the year 2013-2014. Being set on the Intel Z97 chipset, allows this motherboard to be compatible with all the LGA 1150 socket CPU's such as the i5-4570k and i7-4700k. This particular board has been built using all the typical ASRock components; premium alloy chokes, 12K platinum capacitors and a sapphire black PCB, all combining to producing a stonker of a motherboard. Along with the usual hardware components, ASRock has managed to squeeze on the newest Wi-Fi standard 802.11ac, meaning a boost of up to 289% over 802.11n Wi-Fi, a M.2 port for super fast storage and much more. Key Features Manufacturers nowadays need to find innovative ways to stand out from the crowd, ASRock is no different and has brought a huge array of features to this motherboard. ASRockSuper Alloy ASRock 802.11ac WiFi ASRock HDMi-In ASRock Full Spike Protection ASRock Cloud ASRock App Shop ASRock A-Tuning ASRock Disk Health Report ASRock USB Key ASRock App charger ASRock XFast LAN ASRock XFast RAM ASRock Restart to UEFI ASRock FULL HD UEFI ASRock My Favourites in UEFI ASRock UEFI Guide ASRock Instant Flash ASRock Internet Flash ASRock Crashless BIOS ASRock Online Management Guard (OMG) ASRock UEFI System Browser ASRock UEFI Tech Service ASRock Dehumidifier Function ASRock Easy RAID Installer ASRock Easy Driver Installer For more information on these functions, please visit ASRock's Z97E-ITX/ac product page. Packaging and Accessories Very typical enthusiast level extra's. 2x SATA3 cables, install CD, ASRock Cloud manual, quick start manual, ASRock sticker and a single WiFi antennae. A Closer Look & Layout Analysis Layout is crucial with mini-ITX motherboards because space is so limited: every design choice counts. The Z97E-ITX/ac packs a mighty punch, managing to include all the typical consumer hardware expectations and a few extra like the M.2 port. Along the side of the RAM side of the board, we see the usual USB 3.0 header, 24 pin power plug and the front panel button headers. We can also see the recently introduced vertical mounted CMOS battery, massively reducing the battery footprint. As with all Z97 ITX motherboards, the bottom is dominated by the PCI-e slot. Due to the tight spacing with the RAM slots, ASRock fitted a slide locking feature instead of the usual clip. At this angle, we get a better view of how tightly packed the SATA headers are, along with the heatsink and WiFi card. It's a shame ASRock didn't vertically mount the card behind the IO ports; they could have brought the M.2 port to the top of the board then. Along the top of the board, we see a correctly placed CPU socket, giving adequate room from the PCI slot for a decent size heatsink. Hiding behind the Mosfet heatsink, we can see the 8-pin power connector; a bit of a squeeze to unplug if you have slightly larger hands, but easy enough. Look at all the options, 6 USB ports (4 USB 3.0), DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI in and HDMI out, ethernet, wireless adapter plugs and a full array of HD audio jacks. ASRock has taken advantage of sticking a bottom mounted M.2 port here, but being in line with the rear of the CPU socket limits SSD length; even more so if you have aftermarket cooling which requires a hefty backplate. The Test System and Test Software Before we delve into any testing we would like to take this opportunity to review our test system. Test System Motherboard: varies by review CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K processor GPU: Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X graphics card RAM: Cruicial Ballistix 16GB 1866MHz dual-channel kit Cooling: Thermaltake Water 3.0 AIO with Gelid GC-Extreme Case: Lian Li T80 Test Bench Storage Drives: Main storage: Crucial M550 512GB, Test Devices: SanDisk Extreme Pro 240GB SSD, Plextor 256GB M6e M.2 SSD and Patriot SuperSonic Magnum 256GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive PSU: Be Quiet Power Zone 1000W Operating System: Windows 8.1 64-bit Networking: ASUS RT-AC68U router Test Software SiSoft Sandra Engineer - available here WPrime - available here Cinebench - available here 3DMark - available here Bioshock Infinite - available here Tomb Raider - available here AIDA 64 Engineer - available here Latencymon - available here Rightmark Audio Analyser - available here LAN Speed Test Lite - available here Passmark - available here BIOS and Overclocking Upon entering ASRock's UEFI BIOS, it resembles that of a typical legacy BIOS. I personally like this view as it's what I learnt, but nowadays new techies may find a simpler BIOS easier to navigate and use. The first page you can enter is the typical system overview, BIOS version, Processor details and RAM details. From there, you can choose your "favourite" screen to start the BIOS on. This could prove useful if you only ever enter the BIOS to overclock. It may only save seconds, but if you overclock a few times a day for competition reasons, could shave a few minutes. We then find the typical overclock screen, every single feature you could possibly want to get the most out of your K series chip. This follows the typical layout of the rest of the ASRock UEFI overclock screens, so I won't bore you. Again with this processor, we easily achieved 4.8 GHz core clock speed. Along with all the typical BIOS features you have come to expect; ASRock has piled in a few additional features which help the user. Being an ITX board, the applications may be a little different to a typical ATX size motherboard. Most users will have this size motherboard in a HTPC in a family room, or possibly even in a child's bedroom as a first compact PC. With these features, the user can view the motherboard with highlighted parts which you hover over for information. You can set up restricted online access, which through the BIOS is amazing. Most children can work around an operating system or program based internet lock out, but a BIOS lock out requires a little more know-how. The table is originally blank ready to be set up. The dehumidifier function allows you to basically blast the computer by turning on for set periods of time, adjusting the fan speed (1 being lowest, 255 being highest) to eradicate any accumulated moisture. Along with those features, if you're having issues with the motherboard itself, you can contact ASRock direct for support. Overclocking As already mentioned the CPU managed 4.8GHz at 1.3 core voltage: this is a CPU limitation. For those who don't know Haswell and Haswell Refresh overclocking on the LGA 1150 platform is largely limited by the CPU due to the onboard VRM controls. Software Overview So the manufacturer's point of difference is not only the components it uses, but also what it can offer the user during day to day use. ASRock, like others, offer many different programs for you to choose from once set up which can help to make your life a little easier. Usually these programs are useless, offering bloatware or some pretty pointless programs that you wouldn't normally download. ASRock, however, has found that Chrome is widely downloaded, also a few games such as Ghost Recon Phantoms and some of its own software such as A-Tuning. Along with the downloading shop side of things, any ASRock drivers you have installed will show up here, giving you a 2 click update system, pretty cool and something I liked. Now, ASRock has given us A-Tuning. An in-house program designed with overclocking in mind. Also catering for more novice and intermediate users too. A simple home screen with 3 buttons, Performance (Overclocked), Standard and Power Saving. This is very similar to that of a set up on battery life for laptops, however not too useful for desktop users. ASRock has given us access to the tools that's contained within BIOS. OMG can only be modified here via password which is set up in BIOS. Good Night LED allows you to switch off the front panel LED's during the night to give you a peaceful nights sleep while the PC is working. Disk health is also a useful tool, it allows you to see the health of any storage devices, which is very handy to determine possible lifespan or to diagnose hard drive errors. The rest of the tools are self-explanatory. Here we have OC Tweaker. I found this very in-depth, but also very user-friendly. It takes most of the settings from the BIOS and puts them into the operating system. This method of overclocking is preferred by some to real-time stress test and overclock. This method isn't recommended by enthusiasts however. CPU Performance Cinebench CINEBENCH is a real-world cross-platform test suite that evaluates your computer's CPU performance. Cinebench R15 is a totally free utility and is available for download here. Straight away, the ASRock board shows the rest who is boss, offering around 5% more performance at stock and around 30% when overclocked. WPrime wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions. wPrime is a free utility that is available for download here. This might become a rather boring review with "the ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac wins again". Around 5% at stock and 30% overclocked performance increase. SiSoft Sandra The SiSoft Sandra Dhrystone and Whetstone benchmarks are widely used measures of compute power and performance for a wide array of real world usage scenarios. You can find out more details on these tests here or download SiSoft Sandra here. A little off the 5% and 30% increases at stock and overclocked respectively. Still a massive feat for an ITX board. GPU Performance 3DMark 3DMark Firestrike is Futuremark's latest creation for testing the GPU performance of high-end gaming PCs using Direct X 11 graphics. You can download a free basic version of 3DMark here. Tomb Raider Tomb Raider is a popular action-adventure video game published by Square Enix based on the Tomb Raider franchise. The game was released in 2013 and as of March 2014 had sold 6 million copies. Bioshock Infinite Bioshock Infinite is a first person shooter developed by Irrational Games that is the third instalment of the Bioshock series. The game is the last to be produced by Irrational Games before they announced their closure in February 2014. The game has sold over 4 million copies since its 2013 release. Performs a little over the average for the Z97 line up we have reviewed, only being knocked off by the Asus Z97-A motherboard for Bioshock Infinite. Memory Performance For our memory tests we use the built-in memory benchmarks in AIDA64 Engineer and SiSoft Sandra. For more details on each of the benchmarks please see here and here respectively. AIDA64 Engineer SiSoft Sandra Combined Latency Test Due to a new test system, we have had to resort back to our previous memory testing kit, DDR3 1866MHz. Unfortunately, we couldn't retest all of the other motherboards due to being returned. SATA, M.2 and USB Performance To test the storage performance in our motherboard reviews we use AIDA's Disk Benchmark utility built into their AIDA64 Engineer Edition software package and run linear read and write tests. We run each of the benchmark tests on a SATA III, USB 3.0 and M.2 device. For SATA III testing we use a SanDisk Extreme Pro 240GB, for USB 3.0 testing we use the Supersonic Magnum 256 GB USB 3.0 flash drive and for M.2 testing we use Plextor's 256GB M.2 M6e SSD. The drives are always formatted before use. Linear Read Linear Write Here we can see an admiral performance from the Z97E-ITX/ac, we start seeing the possible performance limitations here. However, the Write test shows an outstanding 481MB/s write score, which is on par with the 520MB/s manufacturers speed. I can only assume the other tests were performed before drivers were installed. We also see a good USB 3.0 read speed compared to the rest. Networking Performance For our networking tests we connect the test system up to our Intel Gigabit enabled ASUS Rampage IV Extreme X79 motherboard test system through the ASUS RT-AC68U router and run our tests. We opted for this over a direct point-to-point connection because we wanted to simulate real world performance. For our WiFi tests we do the same except we connect the test system to the ASUS RT-AC68U router via WiFi at a distance of 2 metres from the router. LAN Speed Test Lite LAN Speed Test was designed from the ground up to be a simple but powerful tool for measuring file transfer, hard drive, USB Drive, and Local Area Network (LAN) speeds (wired & wireless). It does this by building a file in memory, then transfers it both ways (without effects of windows file caching) while keeping track of the time. Download the free Lan Speed Test Lite utility from here. From our choice at the beginning of the test, we see that all of the boards apart from the Biostar option, is equipped with Intel's I218V network adapter. This gives a fairer comparison in regards to the others, but not a fair comparison against the Killer chipset. However, we all know the Killer chips are better from our previous reviews. Passmark Performance Test 8 The PassMark Advanced Network Test (which is part of PerformanceTest) is designed to test the data transfer rate between two computers both of which must be running PerformanceTest. One of the computers must act as the server and will sit waiting for a connection. The other computer acts as a client. It connects to the server machine and sends data to it for the duration of the test. You can download a trial version of PerformanceTest from here. Ethernet Average performance and slightly higher than average CPU usage, but that's Intel's issues, not ASRock. WiFi The WiFi tests showing some strong performance compared to the Asus Z97I-Plus. Audio Performance RightMark Audio Analyser (RMAA) RMAA suite is designed for testing quality of analog and digital paths of any audio device. The results are obtained by playing and recording test signals passed through the tested audio path by means of frequency analysis algorithms. A more common mark is also provided for those unfamiliar with measured technical parameters. Available here. We run the RMAA test using a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable connecting the line out to the line in to test the quality of the motherboard audio codec not any external audio devices. We run the complete playback and recording test at default settings and then get RMAA to interpret the results giving the below outputs. We sync the playback and recording audio devices to the same setting as the test for accurate results. 16 Bit, 44KHz (DVD Quality) 16 Bit, 96KHz (Studio Quality) 24 Bit, 96KHz (Studio Quality) Sadly this is where the mighty ITX board takes its fall. With fully updated audio drivers from the ASRock website, we only achieved an Average scoring. To most people, this wouldn't be much of an issue and it shouldn't be a deal-breaker if you are considering this motherboard. Latencymon Audio Latency Analyser Latencymon is a Windows tool that analyses the capabilities of a computer system to handle real-time data streams properly. It may help to find the cause for interruptions in real-time audio and video streams, also known as drop-outs. Available here. Sadly, with our update to Windows 8.1, we lost functionality of our previous latency checker (DPC Latency Checker). This required utilising a known functional latency checker. Here we see a slightly higher latency that the alternatives, but as with previous experience, a BIOS update when available, should bring the latency down. Power Consumption Power Consumption To measure power consumption we use a killawatt meter and measure the total system power draw at the wall. We run three different use-case scenarios for 5 minutes and take the average reading. Here we see the power consumption nestled nicely in the middle of the pack. Generally with ITX packages we would assume lower power consumption. With this package however, it seems the extra power requirement has paid off in overall higher performance. Final Thoughts Pricing The ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac is available for $134.99 from Newegg USA. For our consumers in Europe, OverclockersUK stock it for £109.99. ASRock backs this with a 3-year limited parts warranty. Summary Wow, to put it simply. ITX form factor motherboards are still relatively new in the PC market, but they have taken the world by storm, allowing users to build smaller and more economical computers, usually ending up as Home Theatre PC's (HTPC) in the main room of the house. The ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac is simply astounding, providing equal or better performance to its full-sized Z97 alternatives. It packs every feature you could possibly ask for, maybe a full-sized M.2 port location would have helped, but that's being picky. The sheer performance of this little motherboard is awesome. I couldn't knock it if I tried. It outperformed the comparative competition in almost all tests. If it was behind, the difference was negligible. It comes from a reputable manufacturer, so you can expect this to perform as good on day 1 to the day it packs up in many, many years. Not only the performance of this is amazing, but its price point. There are other options out there for the ITX consumers to choose from, but these are not the full-fat Z97 chipset with all the features this packs in. It includes 6 SATA ports for internal storage and an additional 16 USB ports including internal headers. There were times in the recent past where full-sized ATX motherboards struggled to equip that many storage options. The software, which you have the option of downloading, is very well thought out and includes a lot of useful apps and widgets to monitor the computer and also general programs like Google Chrome are offered as a two click download. I can honestly not find a single bad point about this motherboard, it includes everything that you would come to expect from Z97 ATX, but packed into a matchbox. One thing which I have picked up on, which isn't motherboard related; the Appshop is a little unresponsive. You have to hover over the button, move away and move back over for the button to react to the cursor presence. If I was to recommend anything, being really picky again here, I would relocate the SATA headers to the edge of the board, or even underneath. Most, if not all, computer cases nowadays have a rear CPU tray cutout for easier access to the rear CPU socket; this motherboard is small enough to easily have rear mounted SATA headers and pass the cables through the cut out (you read it here first guys and gals). Along with the relocation of the SATA headers, I would also move the M.2 port; its current location cannot accept full-sized M.2 SSD cards, which proved bothersome during our testing. Pros Outstanding performance for ITX size High quality audio Excellent networking options: Killer NIC and Intel 802.11AC No performance penalty for its size Cons Half sized M.2 slot Appshop could be a little reactive Average Audio performance let the overall rating of the motherboard down. "The ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac, a perfect combination of ATX power and features in an ITX package. Ideal for a smart HTPC set up and one of the best Mini-ITX boards available today!" Thank you to ASRock for providing this review sample.