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If you want to build a tiny PC, but don’t want to compromise on performance, the Mini-ITX Gigabyte F2A88XN-Wifi could well be the model for you. It’s designed from the ground-up to be convenient when building a tiny computer, with a built-in 802.11ac wireless card meaning you don’t need to hook up wired Ethernet or buy a USB wireless adaptor to get online.
It’s certainly very convenient, but this mini-ITX FM2+ board has its downsides as well. With the Wi-Fi card already taking up its single mini-PCI Express slot, the only other expansion slot available on the F2A88XN-Wifi is one PCI-E x16 3.0 slot.
We were pleased to see it runs at the full bandwidth, making it ideal for a graphics card. Using AMD’s Dual Graphics technology you can add a low-cost discrete card and run it in combination with the CPU’s onboard graphics, giving you a speed boost.
The downside of one expansion slot is that it’s very restrictive if you were planning on installing anything else, such as a USB3 card or TV tuner. This is one of the disadvantages of mini-ITX motherboards in general, as its meagre 170x170mm dimensions means space is at a premium.
There’s not a lot of room for building either once it’s in your case. The 4-pin ATX power cable was very tricky to reach, and our two sticks of DDR3 memory were right up against our CPU’s heat sink when we’d put everything in place. This will severely limit your choice of heatsink, so don’t expect to be able to fit a large third-party on here.
We liked that its two memory slots could support a huge 64GB of RAM at maximum speeds of 2,400MHz when overclocked. Its four SATA3 ports were also promising, as you can be sure that all your drives will be performing at the best speeds available as soon as you plug them in.
On the rear panel, there’s a good range of ports for most users. Along with two USB3 and four USB2 ports, you’ll find a DVI-D output and two HDMI ports for the CPU’s onboard graphics, an optical S/PDIF output, five 3.5mm audio jacks for 7.1 surround sound, a Gigabit Ethernet port and two antenna connectors for amplifying your Wi-Fi signal.
The F2A88XN-Wifi performed well in our multimedia benchmarks. Using an AMD A10-7850K processor and 4GB of DDR3 RAM running at 1,600MHz, it scored 71 overall, which is what we’d expect to see. This is puts it on par with larger ATX motherboards, so it shouldn’t affect your PC’s performance.
While there’s no complaining about the Gigabyte F2A88XN-Wifi’s performance, it’s very expensive for what it is. If size is the most important thing for you it’s a good choice, but if you can make do with a regular PC case the Asus A88XM-Plus will save you money and give you more expansion space.
