I'm very happy with the board, does everything very well...almost.
In short this board is a great all rounder, has all the latest connectivity options M.2, intel Lan, dedicated wifi/bluetooth, great uefi bios with all the tweaking options as expected from good old Asus. So I wont bother repeating what everyone else have said. Besides, if your buying this board then I'm sure your have done your research and have read proper in depth reviews which are plentiful..just google it.
So then my review is all about what I don't like about this board..just one major aspect..the onboard sound...and yes I know, if I wanted everything, including better onboard sound then why didn't I just go for the maximus VII impact? Well in hindsight, I should of, but then I don't need all of the extras on the maximus and didn't want to pay an extra £50 quid just for better sound when I know I could buy a dedicated sound card for that extra money..and Asus were clever about leaving the top end sound out of this board in order to sell the impact for those who are in the know and who actually care about such thing.
The onboard Realtek ALC892 is a bit dated sound chip. The actual output of the sound is decent and you wont be able to notice the difference if your not used to using a high quality dedicated sound card, and if you have always used onboard sound then you would say the sound is fine and hey no problem at all. The Problem is I was coming from using a creative labs x-fi card on my previous machine and the sound it produced was crystal clear, warm and vibrant with excellent bass response etc etc so I immediately noticed the difference. The sound is a lot flatter and I was having to use a software EQ to tweak it and it just wasn't good enough. I also have decent 2.1 sound sytem, a logitec THX certified amplified speakers with a sub and I could tell the sound quality was day and night different. I was also having to increase my volume on the speakers to 50% high in order to produce the same loudness in comparison to my previous creative labs card, I only needed to increase the sound to 25% high for the same normal listening volume....I was kind of expecting this to be honest and I know I could of bought a more expensive motherboard with better sound, but in the end, I just opted in buying an X-fi Titanium fatality pro card for around £30 off ebay and I was so happy again.
Be aware you only have one pci-e expansion slot on mini itx boards so you will need to carefully decide what your going to use in it, a dedicated sound card or gfx card. I'm not into PC gaming or don't do any graphics intensive work, so my Haswell onboard intel graphics is enough for me running a 1080p montior for watching movies, listening to music, browsing the net and office productivity..I have a ps4 and xbox for gaming and have never really been into PC gaming so this was not an issue for me, but I know this will be an issue for others.
This board would have easily been a 5 out of 5 but the lack of good onboard sound is a real shame in my opinion.
| Brand | ASUS |
|---|---|
| Product Dimensions | 35 x 30 x 6 cm; 1 Kilograms |
| Item model number | Z97I-PLUS |
| Manufacturer | Asus |
| Form Factor | Mini ITX |
| Processor Type | Xeon |
| Processor Socket | LGA 1150 |
| Processor Count | 1 |
| Memory Technology | DDR3 |
| Computer Memory Type | DDR3 SDRAM |
| Maximum Memory Supported | 32 GB |
| Memory Clock Speed | 3200 MHz |
| Wireless Type | 802.11b, 802.11a, 802.11g |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 4 |
| Number of VGA Ports | 1 |
| Are Batteries Included | No |
| Lithium Battery Energy Content | 1 Watt Hours |
| Lithium Battery Packaging | Batteries contained in equipment |
| Lithium Battery Voltage | 1 Volts |
| Lithium Battery Weight | 1 Grams |
| Number Of Lithium Ion Cells | 1 |
| Item Weight | 1 kg |
| Guaranteed software updates until | unknown |
