ASRock Z77E-ITX LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Very full featured at a fair price. Has all the audio jacks on the back so can use it to out put to a 7.1 system very cleanly.

Good overclocking options and a decent layout.

Cons: Two omissions that need attention:

Firstly, the mSata on the BOTTOM of the board is only SataII which sharply limits the speed available. Anybody going the mSATA route would NEED SATA III (6.0 gbs) - seems a very ill advised design choice.

Not a biggy but wi-fi is only 2.4 ghz, not 5.0 ghz support. Wi-fi antenna is cheap and flimsy

Other Thoughts: My Build

Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz
2 x 8 gigs DDR 1866
256 gig Samsung 840pro
1 TB Seagate laptop drive (with SSD cache)
LD Slim Blu Ray
Antec ISK 150 case
Radeon 7750 single slot low profile

Pros: Like other reviewers who own this board, I chose it for the broad range of features, connectivity, capacity, and price. The board installs easily, and the docs that come with it are clear and easy to understand. The Included Wifi antenna does the job. The MSATA connector on the underside of the board is brilliant ( and not, see below). The CMOS battery turned on the side makes great use of vertical realestate. This is a great little board that can when used as intended. 1 expansion slot, and 2 ram slots mean that you need to think about what you are going to do with this board. It is not as flexible as the micro-atx, or full atx platforms.

Cons: 1st and foremost, is the placement of the msata slot. if you plan on using a msata drive, and a CPU cooler that uses a bracket on the underside of the board ( Corsair H50 for example) you will find that the bracket and the SSD occupy the same place. In order to get a good seat on the mounting bracket, you will need to trim away some of the mounting bracket to make room for the msata ssd ( esp since cutting away some of your SSD would be ill advised)

2nd. The included wifi card, at least with my board was a realtek wireless N card, it's not the best. If you want the best wireless you can get, look into another card. I have ordered a Intel 6300 and a triplet of antenna's to take advantage of dual band wifi.

3rd. The included Wifi antenna is okay. the cables are very flimsy, and the antennas themselves are nothing more than what you would find inside a laptop. I was never able to get top speed out of my wireless network with these antenna/card combination.

Other Thoughts: I am afraid that only a week into my new system, the magic smoke leaked out of some part of the motherboard. I lost sound first, and then the motherboard would not post. I am currently going through the Newegg RMA process to replace the Motherboard, and will update this review with that experience, after testing all of the other parts that go into the system. There is no telling what else the magic smoke came out of .

Please don't let this review discourage you from considering this board. The features, documentation, and overall performance of this board was beyond my expectations.

Pros: I've had this puppy since July 2012 and I've not had a single problem. Runs my 3570k @ 4.2GHz with stock volts just fine. And it's so good that I just ordered a second one for another rig.

Cons: Maybe add an extra sata cable and a m2x3 screw for the rear msata connector.

Pros: fits a bitfenix prodigy case perfectly. everything works and the bios is lovely coming from the old days me using a mouse in bios feels odd but i like it.

the dehumidification setting is odd but really shows some cool thinking from Asrock. i love it and living in the woods is something i can really use

Cons: the cpu amd the north bridge should swap side so i can fit bigger coolers on the board, as it is not much is going to fit if you want a large gpu in the pci slot

Pros: Good layout. Good onboard audio (as good as onboard can be). CMOS clear button on the rear panel. Decent overclocking for an ITX board. Good supply of port options. Built in Wi-Fi.

Cons: Two fan headers, wish it had more. MSata port can interfere with some heatsinks or Water cooling. Socket placement can also interfere with some heatsinks. Fan headers are finicky with speed control. Wi-Fi antenna is a bit low quality.

Other Thoughts: The board actually does allow for a Samuel-17 cooler and video card, despite a prior review. My Sam-17, its gentle typhoon fan, and my 670 FTW card all play nice together.

Pros: I actually really liked this motherboard when I first tested it. Easy to install and setup. No driver problems. BIOS setup and interface were great. I love the board map in the BIOS that allows you to see what is connected to where. I never saw this before and it makes it really easy to troubleshoot hardware problems. I also really like the actual interface. It's just intuitive. The price is also $40 or so below what I see as it's biggest competitor the ASUS p8z77-i (although the ASUS has bluetooth 4.0). Surround display allowed me to simultaneously use both on-board GPU and PCI-E card.

Cons: After a day or two I started to regularly received an error message saying there was a power surge in the USB 3.0 ports and they got shut down. Had to restart to get them working again. This seemingly cut off the 4 USB ports on the back of the card. So basically all your peripherals get cut off. I have had all of these peripherals plugged in to other motherboards and even laptops with hubs without a problem, so I don't know why it caused a problem with this board. All drivers were up-to-date. The hub seemed to cause the conflict, but doesn't on any other board.

I was going to just deal with it (or do an exchange for one that worked better) but then I realized the other fatal flaw of this board. It doesn't fit either of what I consider the two best low profile heat sinks (Prolimatech Sam 17 & Noctua NH-L12) if you have a video card installed. If you are buying a z77 board, you're typically getting it to overclock. If you're getting a mini-ITX you're putting it in a small case that will typically get hotter and need a better CPU heatsink. You can't do that with this.

It seems like they just missed their target audience with this product. Software is good and construction seems solid, but people buying your top of the line product geared towards those who OC are going to want to use the PCI-E slot and have a solid aftermarket heatsink. You can't do it with this board. ASRock, just move the CPU location away from PCI-E connection so we can fit aftermarket fans and this will be golden. ASUS did this and you can fit any fan on the board (pending your case)

Pros: Great performance and features for the price - this board overclocks like a champ and offers features not found on competing units from other vendors, like mSATA and S/PDIF connectivity, all while undercutting them by a fair bit.

Great, easy to use UEFI provides all the tweaking options you'd ever want, as well as simple one-click overclocking starting at 4GHz and going up in 200MHz increments if you want to take a more hands-off approach while still getting the most out of your hardware.

Layout is definitely tight, but thankfully places all external connectivity at the perimeter of the board. There's only two fan headers (1 CHA and 1 CPU) and four SATA ports, but this is somewhat expected at this size.

On the bright side, the CPU socket is clear of obstructions for most aftermarket coolers and their mounting brackets - your RAM selection will be more of an issue than the board itself, so look for low-profile memory (or sticks without heat spreaders at all) unless you're using a liquid cooling solution.

Cons: WiFi antenna is incredibly cheap feeling, even internally - be careful around the thin leads running from the wireless chipset to the IO backplane - they're held on by little more than a prayer.

Other Thoughts: This is a great platform for your Sandy/Ivy Bridge LAN party machine or other SFF builds. Powerful features and performance combine with a killer price tag to elevate this board above almost all of the competition.

Pros: Love the 5x5x5 options, having a virtual hdd on the ram is ver convient. On paper this board was great
See cons

Cons: Got a defective board. The Sound would only output to the right speakers. I tried everything I could think of. Then noticed front ports weren't working either. Tried another board, front ports worked fine. Then did new drivers, no change. At that point I RMA'd the board due to the hardware sound chip not working right. Took it apart, all looked good and sent it back. Newegg declined my replacement due to what they say was customer neglect and pin damage. Kinda wish now I took pictures of the thing before sending it back but oh well. Just out the 100 dollars I guess. If the on board audio worked It would have been fine because it worked amazingly otherwise.

Other Thoughts: So yeah, really bummed I cant have my client's build ready till another week and having to absorb the cost of this board. Just going to buy from local dealer to save some time.
Will say the RMA process @ newegg is usualy great. But my main con is the audio not working right on the board. so beware this may be a common issue, reguardless of my experience

Manufacturer Response:

Dear ASRock Customer

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Sorry to hear the mainboard's CPU socket pins has damages. The CPU socket pins on the mainboard are fragile and need to be handling with carefully. In addition, the CPU socket is covered with the cap at all time to avoid damage the pins and should not be removed until installing a CPU. If you have any technical questions or warranty issues please contact us at http://www.ASRock.com/support/tsd.asp. We can assist you shortly.

Thank you

ASRock SUPPORT
Tech Support Email: user@ASRockamerica.com

Pros: Very fast boot, stock wi-fi antenna works fantastic (I am able to connect to upstairs DSL router and stream Netflix no problem).

Cons: Limited cpu fan options that will leave room for discrete graphics card.

Other Thoughts: I was able to switch from my Gigabyte m1 sniper motherboard to this one with ease. Boot rights up, manually installed. I love this board.

Pros: Fasting booting MoBo I have ever experienced.
Sweet UEFI BIOS.
BIOS update done on first boot from the BIOS, so convenient and amazing!
Got stable OC on i5/i7 Ivy Bridge @ 4.5GHz with only 4-pin ATX power from an old 550W Thermaltake TR2 PSU. Could push more, but additional heat/power draw not worth it.

Everything this tiny little board is capable of still amazes me... Great OCability, 2800+ on RAM, PCI-E 3.0, 6 UBS3, 4 SATA ports even though only 2 are SATA 6Gbps, Built-in Wifi, mSATA on the bottom, 7.1 Channel THX TruStudio with Optical Audio, HDMI, DP, DVI, eSATA and a clear CMOS button on the rear I/O!

Cons: Purchased from a local retailer

Other Thoughts: I challenge you to find a better equipped board this small!

Very clever board layout. Especially like the mSATA port on the bottom of the board and the CMOS battery standing vertically.

Using Antec 620 and because of the mSATA port on the bottom I had to trim the rear bracket for the 620. My trimming removed the capability to use LGA1366, no big deal for me but I thought people should know.

I used to be a ASUS/Gigabyte supporter through and through, but my purchase of a 890FX Deluxe 4 a few years ago changed that. I then moved to the Z77 Extreme6 and now this Z77E. I have been severely impressed with all of them and I recommend ASRock to anyone and everyone.

This Board
i5 3570k @ 4.5GHz
ASUS HD7770 DCII GHz Edition
8GB Crucial Ballistix 1600MHz
120Gb Crucial M4
2TB Seagate Barracuda LP
Antec 620 w/ Arctic Cooling F12 PWM
Rosewill Capstone 650 Modular - En Route from NJ!
Silverstone GD05B