Followers of EVGA media man Jacob Freeman may have noticed something rather interesting from his Twitter feed and the EVGA Facebook page recently.  If small is the size of the future, then EVGA are gearing up to release a mini-ITX sized Z77 board, something of a departure from the norm for the extreme-focused enthusiast motherboard manufacturer.

Details are sparse, but EVGA state that this board will still have 'overclockers' features (see the gallery for an LN2 pot strapped to the board), but also contain the following:

- 6 USB 3.0
- 2 SATA 6 Gbps
- HDMI and mini-DisplayPort Output
- Bluetooth
- Clear CMOS onboard
- Mini PCIe

No word on release date or pricing just yet.  Here at AnandTech we are planning a mini-ITX review soon of several boards, and hopefully we will be able to add this to the roundup.

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  • HaydenOscar - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link

    So glad to see another board with the motherboard chipset between the PCIe slot and the CPU socket! It's so much more logical and yet ASUS have the only other board with this layout that I'm aware of.
  • coolhund - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link

    And a mistake too:
    Just like Asus and Asrock, they turned the ATX power connector by 180 degrees while not even having enough space to the DIMM slots. Lots of issues with pico PSUs and very small ITX cases ensure.
  • Menty - Sunday, July 22, 2012 - link

    It'd be a mistake to put a board like this into a tiny case with a low-wattage power supply. Judging by the VRM heatsinking and the fact it's made by EVGA, it's not designed for low-end/lower-power applications like that. It should be in an enthusiast case with good cooling and an overclocked CPU, which removes any pico-PSU related issues.
  • Beaver M. - Monday, July 23, 2012 - link

    Why turn that connector?
    Why limit your customer base with something like that? It really has no advantage for people who dont use a PicoPSU, but will keep people from buying your mainboard who use one.
    Someone here already said "CarPC", but with a connector like that, power options in a CarPC are very limited.
  • santa65 - Wednesday, October 17, 2012 - link

    Device drivers provide the instructional code to interface between your hardware and the operating system. Device drivers are provided by your hardware manufacturer. The Windows registry contains all the settings and configurations for your machine, including the device drivers used for each hardware component installed. During device driver installation, the settings are stored in the Windows registry. You can manually remove the driver by deleting the registry key associated with the hardware device. Thanks a lot.
    Regards,
    http://www.sextoyisland.com/
  • xdrol - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link

    I understand it is better layout if you got big-a** coolers, but it's not really "logical"..

    The PCIe host is in the CPU here, so you need to wire them around the chipset, what is for sure not a trivial task - remember the chipset also needs gazillion of connections, and judging on the layout, they need to cross the PCIe's wires here - to do so, you need more PCB layers, that means lot more expensive manufacturing - what is probably OK with a "premium" board (question is, what is the demand for premium ITX boards), but definitely not cool with a cheaper one.
  • HaydenOscar - Monday, July 23, 2012 - link

    It's not even necessarily for "big ass coolers", just any cooler that isn't a waterblock or the stock Intel cooler, really.
  • wavetrex - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link

    Most of the power for the CPU comes from the other connector which is in the top-left side corner, near the I/O ... so absolutely no problem with the placement of the ATX connector.
  • HisDivineOrder - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link

    ...a mini-sized nVidia Geforce 670 built around the reference/launch mini-board with a cooler that matches its size.

    Gaming consoles, eat your heart out.
  • Conficio - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link

    Why are the pictures so blurry?

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