ZOTAC 880GITX-A-E AM3 AMD 880G HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX AMD Motherboard

Pros: Small,
power-efficient,
cool (the heatsinks are warm and enver hot)
very good-working wi-fi, working out-of-the-box on linux (atheros chip)
good accessibility of ports.

Cons: I wish there were a pci-e x16 instead of pci-e x1

Other Thoughts: I'm absolutelly happy with the build quality of this mo-bo.
I became a fan of Zotac.
Highly recommend.

Pros: All-in-one, works with Linux Mint

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: This board works perfectly for me. Making an HTPC with an older receiver without HDMI input I needed the optical out. Running HDMI to a 50" plasma and audio with optical out allows me to get 5.1 surround with no problems.

Despite driver compatibility issues between ATI and Linux I have had no trouble streaming Hulu, networked DVDs, mlb.tv, etc. Also, wireless card worked flawlessly without the need to install additional drivers.

I am using an AMD Athlon II x3 440 CPU.

Pros: Sturdy board, usb 3.0, wireless networking, DDR3 and takes almost any kind of AM3, AM2+, If I remember correctly even a few AM2. Check their website for what CPUs it takes. It took my AM3 250e 45watt and it wasn't even listed as a tested CPU for the board works perfectly. Very low wattage, with a TV capture card and a one SSD, Bluray it uses only $146. a year in electricity according to my killawatts. Less than half of my ASUS M2N-E board.

Cons: While opening the bag for the SATA cables the release metal release on the end of the cable is SO sharp it cut my finger. I threw the SATA cables away. Deep cut! The wireless has a blinking BRIGHT light, I think they could have made the blinking light a bit smaller. It lights up the room in the dark. Too bright.

Other Thoughts: Buy SATA cables and toss theirs. By doing so you've save the dangerous SATA clips.

Pros: A simple Mini-ITX motherboard for the AM3+ processors.

Cons: Got a good motherboard after my 3rd RMA. First one didn't turn on. Second one died while running memtest. Third board emitted a high pitch squealing sound that you could also hear with speakers hooked up. The forth and final board I got still had the squealing sound but was much more quieter and couldn't hear it coming out of the speakers.

Other Thoughts: I have purchased many Zotac Mini-ITX motherboards, but they all have been Intel 775 motherboards and they have worked great! I come over to the AMD side and nothing but problems. If I could make a recommendation, Spend the extra $20 and go with the ZOTAC 890GXITX-A-E Motherboard. I was going to go with that one but thought I would save the money. In the end. I didn't save any money. :(

Manufacturer Response:

Hi jscottyh,

I apologize for the poor experience you've had thus far with the 880GITX-A-E. I recommend you visit our forums or submit a technical support ticket and so that we may assist you in resolving the noise issue you've reported. Thank you.

External Link(s):

ZOTAC Forums|

ZOTAC Support Tickets|

Pros: All features I've ever wanted are here in this little board: optical S/PDIF, Radeon w/ HDMI, USB 3, SATA 3.0, built-in 802.11n, support for affordable CPU, PCI-e
Installed Windows 7 Home Premium & it's been running stable
Customer support is EXCELLENT, Michelle V. from Zotac USA answered my questions promptly and she's very helpful throughout the process.

Cons: May be picky with RAM sticks -- swapped with another brand & problems went away.

Other Thoughts: The nature of the compact form factor requires the installer to be more diligent when it comes to cooling (thermal paste, air flow, cable management, etc.)

I highly recommend this board to anybody who's trying to build a compact but powerful HTPC. Not exactly for gaming, but powerful enough to function as HD-centric multimedia machine.

On top of that, I'd recommend Zotac as a company any day because of their excellence in customer and technical service - I'm in no way affiliated, just a happy customer.

Pros: Excellent Motherboard for ITX Builds. Small enough to fit into small spaces. Bought this to make an ITX Server (Windows Home Server v2). Fits inside the HP Mediasmart Server Case (modding of the case needed to connect peripherals such as keyboard/mouse etc). Works With AMD Phenom II X6 1035T Processor. For a small space use a thin heatsink. I just bought a Scythe SCSK-1100 100mm SHURIKEN Rev.B 3 CPU Cooler that is only 64mm tall. Hopefully it will work well with this.

Cons: NONE AT ALL!

Pros: Great features in such a small package. Been running for two weeks now with no problems.

Cons: None....Except for the shipping charges.

Other Thoughts: This is my first Mini ITX build and I must say that I am well pleased with it. Here is a list of everything I used and all bought from newegg.

APEX MI-008 Black Steel Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case 250W Power Supply
ZOTAC 880GITX-A-E AM3 AMD 880G SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI Mini ITX AMD Motherboard
AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Callisto 3.2GHz Socket AM3 80W Dual-Core Desktop Processor
G.SKILL Value Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory
Seagate Barracuda ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
LG CD/DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH22NS70
Added another 500gb drive i had laying around.

I had to relocate the CPU fan because of the limited space. I also added two 80mm fans to the bottom of the case so she will have plenty of air flow.

Pros: Great board and feature set, with good technical suport and warranty.

Cons: I've bought several of these and all have had problems with HDMI HD display resolutions. On both 720p and 1080i/p displays the desktop resolution does not utilize the whole display.

Pros: Built in wifi card, HDMI, optical audio port and video quality great for a small htpc build. 4 SATA plug ins, descent passive cooling on bridges/chipset. Added PCI Express slot is a great added feature.

Cons: BIOS is not properly detecting 3 TB SATA drives, boot selections are combersome with a USB flash drive, flashing BIOS is a pain on this mobo and updated BIOS is still poor and still doesn't support my 3 TB drives. Little Linux support on this board.

Other Thoughts: Will probably end up returning this board. Tried to communicate with customer service today and conveniently got disconnected.

Pros: The board generally worked well with linux and the BSDs, except for the SATA ports in AHCI mode.

Cons: The AHCI chipset probes as Generation-2 only, and connects to 6GBit/sec SATA-III devices at only 3GBits/sec. This is the actual chip registers that are indicating this and has nothing whatsoever to do with any software drivers. What is weird is that this is the 880G chipset w/presumably the SB850 southbridge, which DOES support 6GBit/sec SATA ports because I have the same combo on my Gigabyte 880GMA-UD2H mobo and it probes the same devices at 6GBits/sec speeds.

My presumption is that the Zotac BIOS has very old chipset firmware in it and/or the chipsets have very old firmware, or the BIOS is doing something stupid and blowing up the link configuration causing the chipsets to indicate only 3GBit/sec operation. Or they are lying outright. The information on the site is extremely poor.

The BIOS update requires a msdos floppy, so old. Updating my BIOS didn't solve the problem.

Boot order selection doesn't work very well w/ regards to having a USB stick override the normal HDs

Other Thoughts: I see a lot of poor reviews, and mine is poor too in that the board is advertised as having 6 GBit/s SATA ports when it doesn't. The BIOS also has poor usb keyboard emulation and poor memory & cpu clocking controls, and the smart fan doesn't quite feel right. But insofar as operating as a small server the lack of 6GBit/s SATA support is the only showstopper.