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First Look: Zotac’s A75-ITX WiFi FM1 Motherboard

Expected to be available this week for about $150, the Zotac A75-ITX Wifi is the second mini-ITX FM1 motherboard that we’ve previewed with built in WiFi support (the other being the ASUS F1A75-I). Clad in trademark yellow and orange, the A75-ITX is priced at the higher end of the Llano mini-ITX range, but upon first look, appears to offer the features to back up the asking price.

At first glance, it appears that the FM1 socket on this board is further away from the PCI slot than the socket on any other ITX board we’ve seen. But its proximity to the DIMM slots and the height of the motherboards heatsinks might negate any benefits the socket placement has for a larger cooler.

Speaking of DIMM slots, the Zotac A75-ITX has two (no surprise) full-size slots with support for DDR3-1866 with a maximum capacity of 8GB (bit of a surprise). The requisite PCI Express x16 slot is present and the board has four SATA III 6Gpbs drive connectors. As customary with Zotac, 802.11n WiFi is included as is Bluetooth 3.0.

The A75-ITX had plenty of connections for devices and periperhials with a total of 8 USB 3.0 ports (6 on the rear panel and an internal pin header for 2 more) and only 2 USB 2.0 ports via header. This marks the first occasion of a mini-ITX motherboard that has dropped USB 2.0 ports from the rear panel. It makes sense given the backwards comparability of USB.

The rear panel is also home to DVI and HDMI connections (VGA via included adapter), dual Gigabit LAN, optical SPDIF and six analog outputs. It appears that eSATA is not offered on this motherboard.

Zotac has packed a lot of features into the A75-ITX Wifi. The eight USB 3.0 ports and the dual LAN are standout features that are sure to make this board very popular.

Compare the rest of the boards features to the Llano FM1 mini-ITX offerings from ASRock, ASUS and Gigabyte on the ITXGamer Motherboard Comparison Tool page.

Source: Zotac