NHTV: Mini-ITX motherboards for Sandy Bridge from ASUS and Zotac

NHTV Never has it been this easy to get good performance in a small format now that the mini-ITX formfactor is starting to spread into both livingrooms and compact office spaces, at decent prices too. We have taken a closer look at how much functions you can get on 17x17cm with two motherboards from ASUS and Zotac.

{youtube width=”640″ height=”385″}KDJ7KhOd1SY{/youtube}

Today the usually so diverse companies ASUS and Zotac are brought together by something special, namely motherboards of the mini-ITX format with loads of functions, Socket 1155 and H67 chipset. If the integrated graphics processor isn’t enough each board sports a PCI-E x16 port, if you need some real graphical power to punch through your screen.

The areas of use are of course many, they do well in small office PCs if you choose a Core i5 2400S as the processor, but could also work for a gamer if you go for the Core i5 2600 and makes use of the PCIe port for heavier games. It’s worth mentioning that the H67 chipset doesn’t allow overclocking, which is nothing to cheer about, so you’re stuck with the stock frequency of the processor.

ASUS spices its motherboard with functions like Bluetooth and sturdier power supply for the CPU than regularly with mini-ITX boards, while Zotac offers two extra SATA2 ports, full-size DDR3 memory slots and five year warranty, which makes us lean slightly toward Zotac today, even if both boards have a lot to offer from a performance/dollar perspective. There is no wrong choice here.