News - First look: MSI Z87I Gaming and GTX 760 Gaming ITX

[HEXUS]

High-end motherboard and GPU combo for your next SFF build.

Read more.

[AETAaAS]

Looking at the graphic card, my mind lept straight to Asus' DirectCUII Mini. Nice to see more manufacturers making shorter cards and mITX boards to accommodate SFF builds. A head to head is in order, in particular I'm interested to see who has the better cooling solution for temps and noise. MSI's Radax or Asus' CoolTech.

[jateruy]

Still not a big fan of "south-bridge north ended".

[CoolHotCold]

Looks about the right direction for MSI. Consumers want smaller and there are better cases now than previously for ITX builds.

[OilSheikh]

"2014 will be a big year for small-form-factor gaming PCs" - what ????

At first I was going to moan as I have a thing for big motherboards, but then I thought how many of the features of my motherboard do I actually use ? Then, I had a look at MSI's offering again and I must say I am sold !

My only concern is the lack of PCI slots. What if I wanted firewire or a TV tuner card ?

I hope there are affordable cheapo Mini ITX cases by the likes of Casecom and such cheapo brands. And, there are affordable PSUs by Seasonic as well.

[Sim0n]

Firewire ? This is 2013 dude

And TV Tuner, simple USB tuner. Its not like you need the bandwidth of a PCIe slot for TV.

[Biscuit]

USB3.0's mssive bandwidth has kind of rendered most PCI-E cards redundant. Aside from storage controllers and graphics cards (although even then, its comfortably possible) there isnt much that cant be handled externally!

I personally like to have internal cards still so i know how you feel, but really, there isnt much need!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

After seeing the throttling issues with reference GTX760 cards,I think I would probably avoid the short GTX760 in the article TBH!

[Antagram]

Wonder if Gigabyte are going to release a Sniper mini-ITX model too? Going by opening paragraph.

If they do I hope they don't position CPU socket in same position as existing Z87 mini-ITX.

[TaintedShirt]

Nice mobo except for the wifi. Are they going to leave it looking like that? Needs some sort of cover.

Is this a sample that you have or a press image? Did someone spill something on the mobo? There appears to be staining on the right side of the cpu (near the heatsink slots) and over the ram slots.

[peterb]

Looks as if they are playing catch up with Gigabyte Z77 and Z87 range, right down to providing wireless through a mini PCIe slot (follow the wires back from the antenna connections on the back. (and if that is the Intel mPCIe wirekess card, I suspect it provides Bluetooth as well)

[Butuz]

Killer Nic?? Arrrgghh why!!!! *commits sepuku*

Butuz

[Noli]

Do these things have Optimus (or similar) yet?

For me it would be great to have a mini ITX SFF under the telly as a media box but then I could do some gaming when the mood takes me (Valve big screen and all that). But for the 95% HTPC use, it would be good if the CPU + any integrated graphics were handling stuff and cards like that GTX 760 were not sucking down watts and more importantly, did not have their fans whirring.

Does this exist? Or does having dedicated graphics mean always having the cooling active?

[cjs150]

I want this. But I also love watercooling so will wait until there is a waterblock for the GPU.

But for the need for a PSU a case which is no more than 9" cube would be sufficient - stunning what power in what a small space

[gerryw]

My only concern is the lack of PCI slots. What if I wanted firewire or a TV tuner card ?

I'm in the same boat here. I need firewire for my top-of-the-range Hi8 HandyCam and a TV tuner to catch all the latest on VHF Band III.

What a serious hindrance to my modern day lifestyle.

Cancel my last post.

I've just realised my phone records in 1080p and someone has just explained 'On Demand' to me.