The motherboard market is inundated with mini-ITX models these days, and small form factor PC fans have never had it so good. Thankfully, not all the mini boards that sport Intel’s new Z97 chipset are expensive either. In fact, Asus has reduced the price of its mainstream Z97 mini-ITX offering considerably, compared to its Z77 and Z87 counterparts. The Z97I-Plus retails for just £106, making it one of the cheapest Z97 mini-ITX motherboards available at the moment.
If you’re familiar with the Z97I Plus’ lustworthy predecessors, you’ll have noticed immediately that Asus has ditched the large VRM daughterboard and opted for a more standard (and cheaper) layout instead. There are fewer power phases as a result, with a 6+2 design courtesy of Asus’ DIGI+ VRM system, as well as enhanced DRAM power phases.
Weirdly, Asus seems to have an aversion to including SATA Express on its boards, although as M.2 SSDs are more readily available, we understand it favouring the latter. An M.2 slot is, of course, included on the Z97I-Plus, located on the underside of the PCB and supports both 60mm (type 2260) and 80mm (type 2280) SSDs. The positioning of this slot gives you more space on the top side, and while it’s more awkward to access, once you’ve plugged in your SSD and built your system, the chances of needing to remove it regularly are quite slim.
This design decision seems to be mainly motivated by a desire to offer a better layout, though, rather than to free up space for more features. There’s a fairly standard selection of four SATA 6Gbps ports, plus USB 3 and USB 2 headers, but otherwise there isn’t a lot to make the Z97I-Plus stand out.
The layout, however, is excellent. All the major connectors are located at the edge of the PCB, and the four SATA 6Gbps ports are mounted well away from the 16x PCI-E slot, although they’re staggered, which doesn’t look as neat as having all of them at the edge of the PCB. The chipset heatsink is quite small too, and shouldn’t obstruct any of your components, plus you won’t have to accommodate the large VRM daughterboard of the Z97I-Plus’ predecessors.
There’s a min PCI-E 802.11ac Wi-Fi card as well, which is based on a Broadcom BCM94352HMB chip rather than Intel’s more popular 7260 module, and Asus has included a magnetic desktop stand-mounted aerial for it too. Meanwhile, the rear panel is equipped with a plethora of video outputs, including DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI, plus four USB 3 and four USB 2 ports. However both the back panel and PCB are devoid of any overclocking/testing tools, such as power, reset or clear-CMOS buttons, with just a clear-CMOS jumper to help you after a failed overclock.
Performance
The decision to include an M.2 port was a good one, as our PX-G256M6e test SSD put in some blistering results of 764MB/sec read and 570MB/sec write speeds. There were no issues with our SATA 6Gbps SSD either, where the Z97IPlus managed read and write speeds over its SATA ports of 544MB/sec and 520MB/sec respectively. In our Media Benchmarks suite, the Z97I-Plus was initially quite slow, but we found it wasn’t boosting the CPU to its full extent out of the box. Setting the CPU core ratio to Sync All Cores solved this issue, so if you don’t intend to overclock this motherboard, make sure you at least apply this setting.
There was little between the Z97I-Plus and the more expensive Maximus VII Gene, with the Z97I-Plus actually bettering the Gene in the image editing test with a score of 2,097 compared to 2,079. However, the Gene was slightly faster in the video encoding and multi-tasking tests, with its score of 2,463 sitting a little way ahead of its sibling’s 2,443. Meanwhile, MSI’s Z97I Gaming AC was faster still, but only by a few points with an overall score of 2,470.
There was very little to report at stock speed in our game tests too, with the Z97I-Plus posting similar frame rates to the Maximus VII Gene and MSI Z97I Gaming AC, with a minimum frame rate of 30fps in Shogun 2: Total War’s DirectX 9 CPU Test, and a 97fps minimum in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. However, the MSI Z97I Gaming AC posted a noticeably faster average frame rate of 159fps compared to 152fps for the Z97I-Plus.
It was then time to start overclocking, and the Z97I-Plus’s EFI is a dream to use, right down to a pleasant black/grey and yellow colour scheme. The overclocking section is busy but not overwhelming, and we were amazed that it booted straight into Windows with our Core i7-4770K at 4.8GHz using a vcore of 1.29V. As it was perfectly stable at these settings, we gradually dialled back the voltage. We eventually settled on 1.28V, with 1.275V enabling the system to pass every test except Total War.
The hike in clock speed resulted in decent gains in our benchmarks too. For instance, the overall Media Benchmarks score rose from 2,443 to 2,920 – this bettered the Maximus VII Gene, but wasn’t quite quick enough to topple the MSI Z97I Gaming AC. Overclocking the CPU also saw the load system power draw rise from 104W to 181W.
Conclusion
At just £106, the Z97I-Plus is far better value for money than its predecessors, and Asus’ decision to remove the VRM daughterboard hasn’t dampened the board’s overclocking potential either. In fact, it’s one of the better Z97 overclocking boards we’ve seen. With an excellent EFI and generous feature set, it’s equally well suited to a value-conscious gaming system as an overclocked PC. MSI’s Z97i Gaming AC might be generally quicker, but only by a small amount, and the Asus board returns fire with its excellent layout and cracking feature set.
The only noticeable omissions are physical overclocking tools such as clear-CMOS buttons or LED POST code readouts, plus SATA Express, although the latter isn’t likely to be an issue for most people in the foreseeable future. Otherwise, this affordable mini-ITX motherboard ticks all the right boxes. ANTONY LEATHER
SPECIFICATIONS
Chipset Intel Z97
CPU socket Intel LGA1150
Memory support 2 slots: max 16GB DDR3 (up to 3200MHz)
Expansion slots One 16x PCI-E3
Sound Realtek ALC892 8-channel
Networking 1 x Intel I218V Gigabit LAN, Broadcom BCM94352HMB 802.11ac mini PCI-E Wi-Fi
Overclocking Base clock 80–300MHz, CPU multiplier 8-80x; max voltage: CPU 1.92V, RAM 1.92V
Ports 4 x SATA 6Gbps (Z97), 6 x USB 2, 6 x USB 3, 1 x LAN, 3 x audio out, line-in, mic, optical S/PDIF out, 1 x HDMI, 1 x DVI, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x VGA, 2 x Wi-Fi antenna connectors
Dimensions (mm) 170 x 170
VERDICT
Great overclocking, an excellent EFI, decent layout and nearly all the features you could want.
VERDICT
Great overclocking, an excellent EFI, decent layout and nearly all the features you could want.