14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that the new Z68 chipset from Intel has found its way to the mini-ITX form factor, courtesy of Zotac, although the company hasn't actually announced the two motherboards yet.
One would think that the new chipset from Intel wouldn't hurry up to power small form factor motherboards, but this is exactly what happened if a report is correct.
More specifically, a certain maker of platforms took matters into its own hands and devised the Z68ITX-WiFi and the Z68ITX-B-E.
Users might remember the Z68ITX-B-E from when it was an early revision during CES or CeBIT 2011.
The Platform has two SO-DIMM memory slits, two SATA 6 Gbps ports, two SATA 3 Gbps connectors and a PCI Express x4 slot, as well as a vertical mini PCI Express slot with WiFi card.
Even more importantly, the small board has a built-in NVIDIA GeForce GT 430 GPU (graphics processing unit), fitted with 1 GB of memory. I/O includes two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports, eSATA, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1 audio, two DVI ports, HDMI and a DisplayPort.
Meanwhile, the second product, Z68ITX-WiFi, has only one PCI Express x16 slot, along with the same set of SATA ports as above and the horizontal mini PCI Express slot with WiFi card.
What's more, Zotac seems to have been able to cram in an mSATA connector as well, offering an extra over the expected pair of full-size DIMM memory slots.
Furthermore, a pair of USB 2.0 pin headers exists, as does a rear I/O panel with four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 connectors and a PSI/2, plus 7.1 channel audio with optical S/PDIF, a mini DisplayPort, two HDMI connectors and two Gigabit Ethernet ports.
The Z68ITX-WiFi and Z68ITX-B-E have been listed, in Japan, for 19,800 Yen ($301) and 23,980 Yen ($364), respectively. Computex 2011 should see their maker stepping out to formally announce them both.
