ASRock Z68M-ITX/HT Mini-ITX Motherboard Review

ASRock have chosen to use a black PCB with dark blue fittings for this model which should make it relatively easy to colour co-ordinate your system.  The motherboard measures 17 x 17 cm (6.7 x 6.7-in). Those who are used to working with standard ATX and Micro-ATX motherboards will notice that there are a number of ways in which the layout of a Mini-ITX motherboard differs due to the substantially smaller PCB used.

As usual, the two DDR3 RAM slots are located on the right hand edge of the motherboard with the CPU socket located to the left.  You will need to be careful when selecting a CPU cooler to use with this motherboard as we tried a number of models which wouldn't fit when RAM and a graphics card were installed, including the Arctic Cooling Freezer 11 Low Profile.  In the end, we fitted the Thermaltake Contac29 BP to the motherboard as this didn't interfere with any of the other components.

Along the bottom edge of the motherboard we find a PCI Express x 16 slot which we would recommend populating with a graphics card for the best performance results.  If you're planning to build a HTPC with a passively cooled graphics card, it is worth considering that many have heatsinks on both sides of the PCB which may interfere with the CPU cooler.  Unfortunately this was certainly the case with our HIS Radeon HD5550 Silence.

We find all of the internal connectors and headers along the top edge of the motherboard.  There are four SATA connectors in total, two SATA-600 and two SATA-300, which should be adequate to satisfy the requirements of most users.  There are also two USB2.0 headers, the front panel header, a 4-pin CPU power header and two fan headers located in this area of the board.

ASRock have all the bases covered when it comes to I/O connections.  From left to right we find two USB2.0 ports, a PS/2 connector, VGA, DVI and HDMI outputs, two further USB2.0 connectors, an eSATA connector, an RJ-45 Ethernet jack, two USB3.0 ports, five 3.5mm audio jacks and an optical S/PDIF output.

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