Asus Z87-I Deluxe Mini ITX Motherboard Unboxing & Overview
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,304 words · ~6 min read
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the bit Phoenix Prodigy m is Compact and ready for anything click now to learn
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more welcome to my unboxing and overview of the z87i deluxe which is a product
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that I'd be more excited about if ASUS hadn't unleashed the Maximus 6 impact on
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us with this generation of products so that's an Rog grade mitx board this one
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is still very fully featured but in some slightly different ways so unlike the
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last generation product it's got six SATA ports unlike the last generation
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product it's got support for Ultra HD 4K output however if you are you know
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running some kind of a 4K display setup I would really recommend grabbing a
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dedicated graphics card unlike the Rog board it has onboard Wireless AC which
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is actually pretty darn cool and I guess
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I mean okay that's already enough differences that the board justifies its
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existence somewhat it has a very very
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high-end vrm solution just like the last generation z77 I Deluxe board so you can
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see that like all of their super premium ITX boards it has a riser like a
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daughter PCB with a heat sink all over
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the front of it a heat sink all over the back of it and vrm componentry built
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onto it because there just wasn't enough room to put all of that Uber stuff onto
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one of these boards it has their four-way optimization which is a little
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bit different from how they Implement things on the Rog boards so that means
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that it can optimize for you know uh running faster it can optimize for
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saving power when you're away and it can even do things like you can set a
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maximum power consumption for the CPU itself thank you uh for the CPU itself
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that it cannot exceed through the AI Suite software which is again incredibly
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cool so let's take you on a bit of a tour of the board up here in the top
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right is the 8 Pin CPU power connector next is the 24 pin power connector it's
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hard to really say what the optimal locations are for things like this on an
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ITX board because the chassis really do vary a fair bit there's 6 SATA 3 6 GB
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per second ports as I mentioned before and you'll notice the spacing this gives
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you quite a bit more flexibility in terms of uh where you're plugging them
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in because again with that variation in
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the layouts of mitx cases um you you
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don't always have a guarantee as to where you're actually going to be able
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to reach the SATA ports full support for dual Channel DDR3 memory so you can
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easily plug in up to 16 gigs and check this out I really like this they have
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changed the way that the PCI Express slot latch is accessed so that's a full
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speed PCIe 3.0 16x slot and you can access it from this side or this side
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which again is very tailored to the challenges that people face when
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building these little tiny systems fan expert 2 has been added to the board
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which means full control whether you're running three pin or four pin fans using
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the AI sweet software and the fan headers are him here here here and here
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so they're all in pretty much the same spot ASUS has their patent pending
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sensing connector as well for the CPU so that it can automatically apply the
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right control profile it is an LGA 1150 board you've got support for the latest
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Haswell processors and as we move around to the back we find a pretty darn
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complete IO so four USB 2.0 ports six
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USB 3.0 ports that's more than the impact which has a sort of a bit of a
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different load out if you will it has a BIOS a clear SEO switch as well as a
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BIOS flashback switch so if you brick the board in the middle of flashing the
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BIOS you can restore it that way dual link DVI DisplayPort and HDMI optical
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audio out uh Intel powered gigabit Ethernet as well as Wireless AC and
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Bluetooth 4.0 and this this is the thing
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that is really to me the key difference between the impact in the deluxe so it
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has onboard 5.1 audio however you're
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only going to be able to run um 5 a 5.1 audio like that can be
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reconfigured to 5.1 because normally you'd have sort of your your line in
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your or your line out your mic and your uh headphone out and that's kind of or
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speakers out and that's kind of it whereas the impact has a very premium
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audio solution built into it this one has a sort of a hoom audio solution but
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it brings that wireless to the table as well as the extra SATA ports if you were
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to build like a really high-end storage server or something like that that you
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want to put away in a closet you want to trust it that it's going to be super
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reliable so you still want something really highend this would work for that
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so it's just about the different use case scenarios oh yeah I probably should
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have mentioned there's a USB 3.0 header right here in kind of the middle of the
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board not a very optimal location for that would have preferred it at the edge
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and that leads us to the accessories which I sort of tore out in my hurry to
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uh check out the board itself six SATA cables and by six I mean five that's
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very odd there's only there's only one in this package I got to wonder if
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that's actually just oh there's another one that's individually wrapped as well so six SATA
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cables as well as the magnetic antenna
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for the onboard Wireless connectivity so there you go you can sort of stick it
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down flat you can fold it up like this and then stick it to something else like
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that it'll stick to anything that's got some you know iron or nickel content in
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it IO Shield as well as your manual with
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the driver disc and this is actually I don't know this might sound kind of
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crazy but this is one of the cleverest Innovations that I think ASUS brought to
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the table with their latest generation ITX boards this is instead of the older
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style Q connector which is like a little brick that plugs into the board and
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check this out it's a pre-done smaller
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brick that is a breakout cable instead
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of actually having to plug the individual things from the case into the
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top of the connector itself so you take this whole thing it's keyed so you can
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only install it one way you plug that in then you can run it wherever it needs to
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go and plug all your front panel um you know power switch reset switch and all
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your LEDs into that instead which I think is actually really really cool so
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thank you for checking out my unboxing and overview of the Z87 I Deluxe don't
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