Introduction and Technical Specifications
A review of EVGAs latest Z77 based micro-ITX board the Z77 Stinger.
Introduction
Courtesy of EVGA
Sometimes, good things do come in small packages. The latest board on our test bench from EVGA proves that fact, the EVGA Z77 Stinger. The Z77 Stinger is a micro-ITX form factor board based on the Intel Z77 chipset, but don’t let its size fool you. This board is packed with features and delivers the performance that we’ve come to expect out of its full-size brethren. At a mere $199.99 base price, the EVGA Z77 Stinger would be at home in any enthusiast’s full tower case or HTPC build.
Courtesy of EVGA
Even with its small stature, the EVGA Z77 Stinger promises to pack some power. It features support for the following: SATA 2, SATA 3, eSATA, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 type devices; two different network types featuring an Intel GigE NIC and an Atheros Bluetooth adapter; PCI-Express x16 3.0 and m-PCIe ports; and HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.1a style video ports. With the addition of an m-PCIe adapter, the board can support onboard Wi-Fi as well.
Courtesy of EVGA
Technical Specifications (taken from the EVGA website)
|
Performance |
Based on Intel Z77 chipset |
|
Memory |
2 x 240-pin DIMM sockets Maximum of 16GB of DDR3 2133MHz |
|
Storage I/O |
4 x Serial ATA 300MB/sec (2x Internal + 2x E-SATA) with support for RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 0+1, RAID5, RAID10 and JBOD 2 x Serial ATA 600MB/sec (2 Internal) with support for RAID 0 and RAID1 |
|
Expansion Slot |
1 x PCIe x16, 1 x Mini PCIe |
|
Multi I/O |
Audio connector (Line-in, Line-out, MIC) |
|
Integrated Peripherals |
8 Channel High Definition (ALC889) 1 x 10/100/1000 (Intel 82574L) |
|
Form Factor |
Mini-ITX Form Factor Length: 6.7in – 170.18mm Width: 6.7in – 170.18mm |
|
Operating System Support |
Windows 8 32/64 Windows 7 32/64bit Windows Vista 32/64bit Windows XP 32/64bit |
Will you ever do a Mini ITX
Will you ever do a Mini ITX round up sort of thing? By the looks of the recent ones that been featured on PCP’er i will strongly consider a Mini ITX Motherboard for my next upgrade.
This should have the
This should have the “mini-itx” tag.
indeed, added
indeed, added
NO MSata?
Having used
NO MSata?
Having used Mini-Itx boards in a couple of builds the crucial area that MB makers need to consider is cable management – in most mini-itx cases it is a real pain. There is not a lot that can be done with the Sata cables, in an ideal world I would want a MSata 3 socket on back of board, but there is something that can be done for the 24 pin ATX and 4/8 pin Aux power sockets: it is not enough to have them on the edge of the board they need to be at right angles to current norm.
Personally I would go with the ASRock z77 e-itx board over the EVGA
If anyone goes Asus over EVGA
If anyone goes Asus over EVGA you are either misinformed, have never dealt with Asus before, are filthy rich and do not care about throwing money away, are just an Asus fanboy, or possibly retarded.
I have built 100’s of PC’s this year alone. I bang them out like Rihanna gets hit. All the time. They have a higher than failure rate than EVGA, use inferior parts in most cases, and WORST of all you can not do an Asus RMA to save your freaking life.
ASUS = HEADACHES AND HASSLES
EVGA = GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE, SUPERIOR COMPONENTS, GREAT DESIGN, GREAT ENGINEERING
I sell more Asus stuff than EVGA, so don’t count me a “Fanboy” by any means. But for someone to PREFER an Asus MoBo to this little stinger is just dumb. No offense inteded here btw.
TheBoss
BossRigs.com
Strange, but I have had
Strange, but I have had almost the exact opposite experience. I have had problems of bad capacitors leaking in a few EVGA products, and few construction problems with ASUS. I have had a dead MOBO or two from ASUS, and getting an RMA was not difficult (I do live close enough to drive down to ASUS and pick up the replacements). I’m happy with the quality of both EVGA and ASUS, in fact just installed a couple of the new ASUS ac routers.
I believe he suggested an
I believe he suggested an ASrock board… not ASUS. Seems like you blew a gasket about nothing
I really love your site..
I really love your site.. Pleasant colors & theme.
Did you build this website yourself? Please reply back as I’m trying to create my very own blog and want to know where you got this from or just what the theme is named. Thanks!
Here is my website – his comment is here
This really should have been
This really should have been compared to the Asus P8Z77-I Deluxe (ITX) board. They are at the same price point and trying to accomplish the same level of performance.
But I understand you guys don’t have an endless supply of hardware to compare with 🙂
Either way its great to see another high performance ITX board.
There will likely be more
There will likely be more mini-ITX reviews in the future, along with the possibility of some type of comparison article as well. Stay tuned…
“It’s [sic] performance both
“It’s [sic] performance both at stock settings and while overclocked were nothing short of astounding”
Astounding? 4.36GHZ is downright anemic compared to the other mini-itx boards and the vdroop issues and memory OC failure don’t scream quality. Considering the price, I would give this board a 6/10.
While 4.36GHz may not seem
While 4.36GHz may not seem high comparatively speaking, but for the 3570K CPU we use in testing, it is on par with what we've seen with other boards. Also just in terms of base clock overclocking, aq 104MHz base clock is nice, since most won't go above 103MHz if you're lucky.
The memory o/c was a bit odd to me also, but it wasn't something to distract from an otherwise stellar board – on the Intel side, o/c'd memory does not buy you a huge performance gain for most things (read real-world gaming).
The VDroop issue can be controlled via careful BIOS tweaking, so that in my mind is a non-issue…
What about the power
What about the power consumption numbers without an add-on video card?
Good point, something we’ll
Good point, something we'll consider adding in future m-atx and m-itx reviews…
Avoid EVGA at all cost. This
Avoid EVGA at all cost. This board does not work correctly. The bios settings are all messed up, don’t save, don’t clear either optimized defaults or the clear CMOS button.
EVGA ignores all the problems related to this board on their forums. They don’t even answer support tickets.
Save yourself a huge headache and just buy another brand. It’s pretty clear they did no validation on this motherboard.
…no , it`s a pretty nice
…no , it`s a pretty nice MB, some peoples or programers just made wrong stuff on BIOS or bad flash bios, that`s all… any brand have some trouble , i remember downloaded a Bios from ASUS for a ROG.mATX board…
Very bad thing…the worst is that they changed the bios update some days after…with the same name and denomination 1.xx ,i had 2 downloaded files with the same name , frome the same place at ASUS…but with diferent bios inside…thank you ASUS you crushed my very expensive ROG MB ^^
I realize this thread is
I realize this thread is super old, But the EVGA Z77 Stinger is a piece of trash. 2 years later I still cannot operate my RAM at its rated speed in this board (1600MHZ). Its crippled further by its horrible support in terms of BIOS updates and EVGAS crap service. Never again will I purchase another EVGA motherboard.