ECS Z97I-Drone motherboard review

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Final Words & Conclusion

The Platform & The Motherboard

We like what ECS has done with the Z97I-Drone, but let me first get this out of the way. Typically marketing teams choose names for their products that are popular, the parrot Drones etc are popular. However I feel that ECS has not been thinking this one through well enough, Drones are also used in wars and do the most horrendous things to humanity. As a manufacturer you kind need to wonder whether or not you want your product branding to be related to these things ? Ok, that's all I am saying on the topic.

Hey, for 125 bucks the Z97I-Drone is really a lovely product, the nice small form factor, 5 SATA connectors, you get your USB 3.0 fast memory and even a PCI Gen 3.0 graphics card slot.  See the motherboard manufacturers simply went nuts with their motherboard designs, and I believe that 2014 has to be the best year of them all if you look at what the motherboard manufacturers did and are now offering. The latest iterations of the uEFI BIOS interface have finally become mature and I've actually started to really like them. It's easy to navigate through with and without a mouse and a couple of new features like the monitoring pages just kick black booty. So pop a nice liquid cooling kit on the processor and you will get to the 4600 MHz range with a 4770K fairly easily. 

Storage

Combined with five SATA 6Gbps ports you will have sufficient storage connectivity. So storage wise, albeit there's not a lot; there's isn't much to complain about. More interesting I find to be the all new M.2 interface, but on this product it is rendered useless .. you can't connect an SSD to it and the only functionality it offers is that you can connect a WIFI/Bluetooth module to it that you will not be able to purchase anywhere. That's just pointless .. ECS should have included that WIFI module.

 

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Taste differs per person, but admittedly we do appreciate how the Z97I-Drone looks. The black dark scheme combined with the nicely designs heatsinks make it a fairly attractive product to look at really. Just sheer awesomeness in a dark PC case. Lacking are some extra LEDs perhaps, and sure it does not have the allure of the expensive motherboards that are offered by Gigabyte, MSI and ASUS. But it's okay, especially when you consider where ECS came from years ago.

 

Final Words

Overall I'd say that the Z97I-drone is a very nice alternative to keep on your short-list. If you do nopt plan to go nuts overclocking wise then it will offer everything you need at very decent performance as well. It is lacking WIFI though and that i feel is a big miss anno 2015 on a small form-factor build.  

The overall build quality is OK, we see decent component usage and a good layout. That said, the PCB is thin, very thin and you can quit easily bend it. So be careful with installing / seating this product into your chassis. I don't like the  upwards facing SATA connectors though. They might not be blocking graphics cards but the standard is 90 degrees angled ones. I do have to complement the audio features here, as over the standard realtek codec used like two years ago, we now see huge improvement on both hard and software side that is way more appealing to the audiophile. I like the gigabit Ethernet jack, but again, we are missing WIFI though. Combine the decent looks with the features like the five SATA 6 Gbps ports, the Intel Ethernet interface and the 7.1 channel HD audio as delivered by the high-end Realtek ALC1150 codec and we already get a smile on our face. Sitting on top of that codec is a SoundBlaster Cinema 2 audio suite enhancing audio even further. Slowly but steadily audio solutions on-board a motherboard are becoming really good in terms of quality at audiophile levels.

Aside from my comments, we feel that this is a decent motherboard with similar looks, it offers a nice audio solution and is one of the better looking and performing ECS products to date. We like to see some more availability in re/e-tail as we have a hard time finding the Z97I-Drone anywhere, but if you are on the lookout for a cheap good value motherboard and stumble into it, then the ECS Z97I DRONE comes recommended as a nice value alternative.

Handy related downloads: 

“Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle.”

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