ZOTAC Z68ITX-A-E LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Fits nicely in my HTPC setup.
Nice performance.
Easy setup

Cons: none for what I am doing with it (XBMC / AirVideo server)

Pros: Tiny, packed with features (USB3 front header, SATA 6), accessible parts. The mobo+cpu+ram+ssd takes up less volume than my atx psu!!

Works fine with Linux distro Debian Squeeze and Win7.

Cons: CPU is very close to the RAM slots; even with a thin rifle cooler, I had to change the orientation of the hsfan so it didn't hit the heatsinks on the RAM.

Other Thoughts: Had for >1yr, moved between two different builds and finally built it into my entertainment system. Smaller than a book, and built to last!

Pros: For a mini-itx board, this thing packed full. Dual HDMI outs, USB3, onboard Wifi (or mSATA), the works.

Cons: This board supports Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 Ivy Bridge processors. HOWEVER! Out of the box, the BIOS that ships on the board does not support Ivy Bridge, only Sandy Bridge. There is a BIOS update on Zotac's site to add support.

This is important: The only way to flash the BIOS is to install a Sandy Bridge processor first. The board will absolutely not POST with an Ivy Bridge processor. The board will show a debug error code of 55 (which suggests a RAM issue, but that's not true).

Other Thoughts: Once you get the BIOS updated, this board is good. I'm running Ubuntu 12.04. Ivy Bridge processors have only been out for a few months, and as such, there are a few Linux driver issues right now. There are patches and workarounds for them (mostly HD2500/HD4000 video bugs) currently and they are being mainlined.

Pros: I've been running 4 of these boards for more than 3 months now without any instability at all. Two of the machines are on 24/7 and never need rebooting unless I'm installing new software.

One of the always-on machine is a BT seedbox and HTPC. The other always-on machine is an HTPC and gaming machine using the Z68 chipset's SRT feature which allows it to use an SSD as a cache for a plattery HD. Everything works perfectly. The machine using SRT cold-boots to desktop in 20 seconds (25 until the busy spinner stops).

Also, at least at the time of my purchase, there was no other board with this particular combination of features (mini-ITX, Z68, HDMI, WiFi).

Cons: 1 of the 4 boards had a broken HD activity LED.

Other Thoughts: I might have taken a star off for the broken HD activity LED but this board is getting such bad reviews for no reason that I can figure out and believe it needs a ratings boost.

It's probably relevant that the boards I received came with the latest firmware out-of-box.

Pros: - Great feature set, with removable Atheros Wireless adapter, that can be swapped up for an mSATA SSD, very handy to use with Intel SRT to create a Hybrid RAID set between an SSD (up to 64GB) and another attached disk (1TB+) so boost overall performance under a single drive letter. (Similar to how the RevoDrive Hybrid works).

- Z68 Chipset hums along nicely, and seems to have less glitches in general than the Asus P67 Board I came in from

- UEFI Bootable - GPT Ready - AHCI Ready, Wifi Ready, the list goes on and on.

Cons: - The ram sockets are about 2mm too close to the CPU based on the socket clearance spec, if you plan on getting Corsair Vengeance/XMS3, or ram with similarly 'tall' profiles, you might want to find the short version here on newegg instead, so it will fit next to fatter heatsinks. I managed to wedge the ram in, at a slight pitch, but that is less than ideal.

- Claustrophobic layout. With a graphics card installed, a heatsink, and the ram butting up against the socket strike zone, as well as the big fat heatsink near the peripheral sockets, expect any heatsink that blows down to create a static pressure bubble and drop efficiency, and as a result, run pretty warm (usually idling between 40C and 65C under Prime95 with a Kozuti heatsink fan)

- Though it has UEFI, its incredibly boring. It's more or less just a regular BIOS with the ability to use a Mouse. It seemed to be a rather lazy implementation of the UEFI interface you see from other manufacturers.

Other Thoughts: Currently used as thus:

Lianl-Li Q11-B Mini-ITX Tower Case
Zotac Z68ITX-A-E DDR3 / Socket 1155 Wifi Board
Intel Core i3-2105 3.1GHz HT 65W Dual-Core
Scythe Kozuti 40mm Heatsink Fan (Rated to 65W)
Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 8GB
Gigabyte UD GeForce GTX 560 Ti Graphics Adapter

Pros: This board is just feature rich. I picked it up because it had a Mini-PCIe port for both WiFi and mini-SATA, 2x HDMI and 1 Min-DP, along with USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0. While it does come with a low profile WiFi adapter, it has a bracket to hold a full height WiFi adapter in the Mini-PCIe slot. There have been a few short commings, but nothing that would make me change my mind on this purchase.

Cons: My Seagate 3 TB USB 3.0 GoFlex drive is not recognized on boot through the USB 3.0 ports. It works just fine on the USB 2.0 ports though. If I want it to work on the USB 3.0 ports I have to plug it in after booting up.

Another thing I did not like was the Atheros WiFi adapter. Mainly because it does not support the 5GHz range. Worked great on the 2.4GHz range though. Thankfuly I had a spare Intel Adapter lying around from an old laptop that supported it and that has now taken the spot of the Atheros adapter.

Pros: Small, lots of features, has sata 3, usb 3 and virtually every other port you could possibly use.

Cons: Overclocking options are scattered over several pages. Hopefully this will be improved over time with future BIOS updates.

Other Thoughts: I build a ITX box for my day to day machine and for taking to LAN parties. Have previously had a huge tower for home and a gaming capable laptop. Got tired of having to maintain versions of applications on two computers and both units were starting to get old and slow. I really wanted to run BF3 at high-ultra settings but didn't want to spend the cash making a new gaming box AND buy a new laptop.

So i decided to make a single box that would suit all my neads.

This is my configuration:-

Red Cube” PC – Mini-ITX Gaming Rig
• Lian Li PC-Q08R Case
• Zotac Z68-A-E Wifi ITX motherboard
• Intel i5-2500K CPU
• MSI GTX 570 Twin Frozer III
• 8 Gigs of Corsair 1600 Meg DDR3 RAM
• Corsair 120GB Force 3 GT SSD SATA III
• 2 Tb WD Hard Drive SATA III
• Corsair H60 Water Cooler with Noctua NF-P12 High pressure fan
• Corsair HX-650 Power Supply
• Samsung Blu-Ray Combo Drive
• BitFenix Spectre Pro 140mm Black Tinted Red LED Fan
• Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Extremely happy with

Pros: What a fantastic mini Itx board .
It's a board I would suggest that people consider if they're wanting a small Z68 platform with a lot of features and speed.
My setup is :
LUXA2 LM100 Mini Itx Case
Intel Core i7-2700K Sandy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 95W
G.SKILL Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900)
OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC
Slim Sony Optirac BD-5730 Blu-Ray Drive

The cpu and the memory i used to build my system is not on the " offical Z68ITX-A-E TESTED cpu/memory list " but everything working superb :o)
Windows 7 Ultimate Experience Index is : 6.4 without any "fine tuning" .
Processor : 7.6 / memory : 7.6 / Graphics : 6.4 / Gaming Graphics : 6.4 / Hard disk : 7.9
The graphics experience index is from the cpu built in graphics (Intel® HD Graphics 3000)
The system "Cold" boot time is less than 10 second !!!
Windows 7 ultimate installation from usb drive took 12 minutes . Zotac drivers from cd 15minut

Cons: Poor OC options
The manual was not clear on if you could run with just the 4 pin connector. ( yes you can )

Other Thoughts: I don't have the right power connectors on my power supply for the this motherboard. The MB has an 8 pin connector (CPU) and my power supply has a 4 pin connector.
The manual was not clear on if you could run with just the 4 pin connector. My setup working fine with a 4 pin connected to a 8 pin connector.

Pros: It was the only itx board that met all of my requirements. Usb3 header, mini pcie, full size ram, and 2 ethernet ports. And Z68 chipset if possible.

Cons: The board would not POST. Onboard LCD reads 2e. Manual doesn't actually list the error codes. Searching online led me to believe that this was part of the memory configuration step. Tried 3 different brands of ddr3 and none worked.

Pros: Small formfactor
Fast chipset
Built in wireless (with exchangeable card, you can even drop the wireless and get an internal SSD)
Dual Ethernet
4xSATA-3 6Gbps
USB 3.0
Rock stable

Cons: Atheros Wifi chip is horrible
Almost non-existent customer support
BIOS is really bad

Other Thoughts: So I bought this with 16GB of RAM, i7 2700k and a HD7970 to put into my small formfactor gaming rig, and it runs like crazy, fastest thing I've ever seen. I really can recommend this if you want a small, fast computer.

But the bad thing is the wireless chip they use. It's an Atheros and it only gave me 2 bars and 40Mbit connection 15 feet from my router, plus it dropped connection every 10minutes.
Now the good thing is that the chip is replaceable, as it uses the same interface as notebooks. I tried replacing it with an old Intel 6200, but it didn't work. But as the chip had been collecting dust a while I didn't know if it was the motherboard or the chip, so I contacted customer support to ask. First I emailed them. No reply. Second time I got a live chat, where they told me they'd email me back once the technicians had a look at it. No reply.

So I did a leap of faith and bought a Killer Wireless N 1102, and it worked! Now I'm at 150mbit and max signal, no more drops. Perfect..