ASUS P8Z77-I DELUXE/WD LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard with USB BIOS

Pros: Very stable and easy to setup

Cons: ..easy except for WiDi and Virtu. Finally got both to work. MOST CRITICAL is you must NOT install your discreet graphics card until after you install Windows. Install the Intel Graphics driver, the Intel Wireless driver, then the Intel WiDi driver. If you use the Asus files youll also be installing the MediaSDK. Test Widi to a widi tv or tv that has an adapter. You probably wont like the resolution, but it does work. After your done with WiDi, then shutdown and install the Graphics card. Leave the monitor on the MB dvi for now. Restart and install the Nvidia or AMD drivers. Then install Virtu. Reboot and wait a long time while Windows figures it out. When your back up in Windows you can move the dvi to the graphic card Do it while live. Start Nvidia control panel and it will see you moved the monitor. Thats most of it.

Other Thoughts: Windows 8 nontouch is really ok. Just remember winkey-D and Winkey-X

Pros: Overclocks on auto like a charm
Plenty of youtubes to help if you need
Fits perfect in the Lian Q08

Cons: The WD is for WiDi but this board has no drivers or software for WiDi. If you get the WiDi Win8 latest off of Intel's site, the install aborts with the message that the PC is not supported. This is bummer. That's why I went for the WD version. I have WiDi on my laptop and it's cool.

Other Thoughts: I like everything about this build, now if ASUS can help me get the WiDi working, I'll come back and update.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Here is a link below that tells you the system requirements to have WiDi. Just click on the 3rd FAQ regarding WiDi.

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77I_DELUXEWD/#support

If you have any questions or comments you can email me again at cl-jeffrey@asus.com which I reside in the U.S

ASUS strives to meet and exceeds our customer expectations within our warranty policy.

Regards,

Jeffrey

Pros: Full featured ITX board
Solid BIOS

Cons: ?? in a small box so you cant see it, but for other builds, color scheme....

Other Thoughts: An Update:

The Noctua fit like a glove. Ultimately the system went together quite well, easier than i had hoped after seeing the Q03 case. I debated over springing for an SFX PSU but read elsewhere that having an oversized, high quality PSU in the Q03 box was a good idea; this is due to the PSU providing the main chassis fan for the case. So with an oversized PSU, it never works anywhere close to its capacity and therefore the PSU's heat v/s its fans cooling capacity leaves the PSU quite cool with its fan barely spinning up. Between the Anatec PSU and the Noctua PSU cooler the system is all but dead silent from 3' away and my temps at idle range from 38-42 C; under HTPC loads the temps bump up to 40-45 C with no additional noticeable fan noise, though i do note that speed must increase per the increase in moving air. Running Prime95 just as a safety test, temps ranged from 42-48 with the occasional spike over 50C, up to 54C, but these spikes are short lived; as these spikes did occur the fans spun up to audible for the first time since powering the system up and the temps quickly dropped back to the ~45C range with the fans dropping dropping back to near silent almost simultaneously. Following the 120 minute run of Prime95 the box was cool and silent after 3 or 4 minutes.

Final Build Specs:

-Lian Li Q03-B
-i3 3225
-xfx 6670
-Samsung 840 SSD - 120GB
-WD 2.5" HDD - 750GB
-unknown slim optical/BluRay drive
-Anatec 650w 80+ Gold PSU
-Asus p8z77-I deluxe/WD
-8GB Memory

Lessons learned for the Q03 box:

-I like the oversized, high quality PSU - allows the PSU to double as a chassis fan why remaining practically dead silent during all use other than stress testing

-the Noctua is definitely not a replacement for the radiator on your race car, but on an ITX build in a pretty small box with an SSD, 2.5" HDD, slim optical blu-ray, 6670 graphics card and an efficient PSU overkill doubling as a chassis fan, the Noctua is perfect.

-keep lots of little SATA cables around during this build - every inch of cable you dont use is better cooling in your case and i imagine that if you picked up this board space and cooling are likely to be the two items atop the priorities.

Final Thoughts:

If i hadn't stumbled into most of the parts at no cost to me, i would have built my HTPC a bit more basic; having said that, this is a sweet machine. As a long time Gigabyte builder, i have no regrets with the Asus MB. it is apparently well built, has yielded a very stable system and allowed me to have a powerhouse full of features in a case smaller than my shoe boxes.... Just wish Asus would head comments on color scheme - i could never use their color schemes building a gamer or enthusiast rig for a client, say in a HAF-XB - i would get laughed at! Quite a shame as i really like the Asus BIOS.........

Pros: -bios updates are refreshing - download the latest bios onto a usb and update from uefi, no os needed.
-this is my 3rd asus board in the last 8 months and i can't believe asus is pulling me away from my favorite hackintoshable gigabyte.
-at first i was worried about the daughter board being too high to fit in an itx m350 case, but it works out very well and doesn't even move close to touching the case.

Cons: -there is a 2nd auto bios update method, but you must first install an os then install the program so when you push the bios update button located on the back panel it will bypass the bios and os; it will just download the latest bios and install. this method for me is a little scary and feels more tedious/dangerous because the only indicator of a completed update is a blinking light (so says the manual).
-there was a sticker on the box saying it is windows 8 ready... sadly the fine print says "bios update required"
-asus driver cd install program will not run under windows 8, but can be manually installed

Other Thoughts: I bought this motherboard wanting to build the smallest mobile powerhouse computer i could. I put this mobo into an itx m350 case wanting to get a 160W pico psu which does 200W peek power. I tested this with win 8, average usage (internet, documents, blah) drew a satisfying 65W with an ivy i7k all mobo features enabled including power saving functions. Fired up prime95 and furmark to max out the i7 and hd4000; got 186W. For this power test i used a 400W non 80plus psu so I could find out what my worst case scenario would be. So... with overclocking i would kill the picopsu... therefore i'm going to mod a platimax.

My setup atm runs really hot, only because the only fan i'm using is the stock cpu cooler which fits flush with the top of the case. (yes more fans will be ordered)

i am very happy with this board

Pros: Was easy to set up and as usual for me ASUS doesn't disappoint. My 1st Intel build in 6-7 years and the biggest reason is more to the fact that my AUSU boards don't give up as much as the AMD platform was so great, in which I have no complaints either. Anyway, this thing is so easy to overclock and stable that I almost don't care that I went with the 3570K over the 3770K but there is a 3970X in my near future and every $100 counts as well as the new ASUS X79 to go with that one also.

Cons: None at all!

Other Thoughts: Tried the Extreme Auto-O/C setting on this board and went to 4.9 before she blue screened and dropped back to 4.8 and was stable for the most part but I dropped her down to 4.7 and left her there and am lovin' every minute with this build.
The Little Maniac:
BitFenix Prodigy
ASUS P8Z77-I DELUXE/WD
Intel Core i5-3570K
Corsair H70
GeIL EVO Veloce DDR3 1866 16GB (2 x 8GB)
Crucial M4 SATA III (64Gbx2) Raid 0
Seagate 1TB
Corsair 750w Bronze

Pros: The board all in all is awesome. It is a well put together compact solution for an HTPC that offers reliable performance and great features.

Cons: None really. I could have used one more case fan port but I just split it at the cable.

Other Thoughts: Buy one you wont regret it.

Pros: *Excellent overclocker, I got my i5-3570k up to 4.8ghz, could have gone further with a better CPU cooler, overclocking seems to be a big downfall in the ITX sector but this overclocks like a dream
*Wifi has a really good range, when its close the 5ghz band can easily reach ethernet speeds for the internet, not necessarily for file transfers. Made by Intel
*CPU is located in the proper place so you don't have to turn heat sinks 90 degrees to make them fit
*Supports 6 USB 3.0 ports, 4 on the rear IO, one internal header for an addition 2
*More internal USB 2.0 headers than you'll probably ever need, but they are there
*Good quality Intel NIC
*Good UEFI BIOS layout, took a little bit of getting used to, but after that I could get some really good overclocks out of it
*eSATA, didnt really know this was a plus until I started using it but its a heck of a lot better for file transfers than USB 3.0
*Wifi antennas are magnetic and can easily stick to anywhere on my case, though I wish they were black
*Bluetooth 4.0, never used it but I am glad its there because bluetooth 4.0 devices take up a very small fraction of power compared to their predecessors
*Large range of display out options including HDMI, DVI, WiDi and display port though I use none of these as I have a GTX 670
*Supports WiDi out of the box via the Intel wireless card
*Comes with additional longer screws for the daughter board
*Wireless card can be configured to be used as an access point if you are plugged into ethernet
*On/off charging
*Audio levels and clarity are perfectly acceptable for me
*Included Asus Q-cable can be a life saver in an M-ITX case but I personally didn't use it because the cables in my case were black sleeved

Cons: *Awful color scheme, seriously Asus, make something that's black or black and red, blue doesn't go with anything but MSI products
*Wish it had more SATA 6gbps ports
*Needs 1 or 2 more PWM fan headers
*Personal gripe but I wish it had 1 PS/2 port
*Doesn't have an MSATA port like the M-ITX Asrock board but I can get over that pretty easily since I already have an SSD
*Hard to get to the SATA ports when everything is installed, thats more of con for ITX boards in general though
*For some odd reason I cannot use my Logitech k400 wireless keyboard on it

All of these cons are more personal preferences than cons

Other Thoughts: All in all I am very happy with this motherboard and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to build a performance M-ITX gaming rig, if you want an HTPC or file server you might as well just go with an h77, b75 or h61 board, leave z77 for enthusiast or performance builds. Running flawlessly for 4 months now. I run my i5-3570k at 4.6ghz but I did get it up to 4.8, with better cooling I can probably go past 5ghz! When overclocking this board past about 4.5ghz make sure to set load line calibration to get higher overclocks out it as its a must or it probably wont boot. I am a bit of an Asus fan boy and have over 10 products made by them all of which work as they should or better. I use Windows 7 Ultimate. Bought this over the non WiDi for the better quality wireless card and potentially for WiDi in the future, though Ill probably just run a long HDMI cord through the wall instead

System specs:
*i5-3570k
*Fractal Node 304 case
*8gb G.Skill Snipper 2133mhz RAM
*Asus GTX 670 DirectCUII
*2tb WD Caviar Black Mechanical HDD
*120gb Sandisk Extreme SSD
*Antec Kuhler 620
*Corsair SP120 Performance Edition Fans
*Raidmax 80+ Bronze 500w PSU

Pros: Im so used to working with full ATX motherboards that I had to just sit back and stare at how small it was. And why the hell don't mobo manufactures put those minipci-e slots on them anyway...

Cons: I think it has been mentioned but that daughter board can and probably will get in the way while your assembling your mini-itx case with other components.

Had to do a little bending of my Corsair H50 cooler pipes to get it to work but both survived and work great.

Other Thoughts: At the time the Deluxe version of this mobo was out of stock so I just went with this one. The only difference is the /WD or the WiDi - PC to TV with Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) and you pay the extra $15-$20 for that ( i had email coupon and discount from newegg so yea)

Pros: bluetooth, widi, asus, USB 3, mitx--essentially one of a kind

Cons: is not a ham sandwich.

Other Thoughts: dis is nice, although I bent and tore away at this guy like crazy (first-time build)
given that it works, 10/10

Pros: Everything. More connectivity than anyone has a right to expect in a package this tiny, superb component layout and high-quality parts that I've come to expect from ASUS.

Cons: Nothing. I wish I could think of something to knock this board for, but it's pretty much distilled perfection in Mini-ITX. Some people complain that it's too expensive, but look at the board features and compare it to the competition. No contest.

Other Thoughts: The front panel audio header on the board is about impossible to use if you have a video card in the slot. I don't use the front audio so it's a non-issue for me, thus I can't say it's a con for my usage.