A Brief Look at Some Upcoming 7-Series Motherboards
by Ian Cutress on March 9, 2012 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- H77
- Z77
MSI
Whilst CeBIT is in full swing, MSI, along with the other manufacturers, has used the opportunity to showcase their future 7-series products. Alongside the X79 Big Bang-XPower II (which I recently reviewed and liked rather a lot), MSI is promoting their Z77A-GD80 – a 7-series motherboard with Thunderbolt support. Anand was able to have a quick look at the board at CES before the Thunderbolt port was officially added, and VR-Zone has confirmed that the model on show at CeBIT does have it on board. We expect this little extra will cause an extra $20-$30 on the price of these boards however, so it may be possible that there are Thunderbolt/non-Thunderbolt versions of various products up and down each vendor's line.
Out of the blocks, MSI is officially treating us to at least seven boards across the 7-series:
Z77A-GD80
Z77A-GD65
Z77A-GD55
Z77A-G45
Z77MA-G45
ZH77-G43
B75A-G43
MSI Z77A-GD80
In a style common of previous MSI boards, the blue-black livery is included with an SFC (Super Ferrite Choke) power delivery. We also get OC Genie buttons and voltage read points as is common on MSI's top end products. In a similar style to the Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H mentioned previously, users of three GPUs on a system such as this will perhaps lose a large amount of the functionality on the bottom of the board. Nevertheless, the USB 3.0 header on board is at 90 degrees, focusing the usage of such a port for the front of the case.
Biostar
Biostar is not a company we've had much chance to look at here at AnandTech for a while, however their few motherboard releases over the past year have come and are available for purchase. For the launch of the 7-series products, Biostar plan on launching a series of five boards:
TZ77XE4
TZ77XE3
TZ77A
TZ77B
TZ77MXE
However one motherboard has graced my inbox in any shape or form - the TZ77XE4:
Biostar TZ77EX4
Biostar have also gone with a three-GPU style setup, this time plumping for a three slot gap between all the GPUs, giving air for them to breathe a little better. Aside from this, there is not a lot I can gather from the solitary, low resolution image, and solid information is not forthcoming until I receive a response from Biostar. Information will be updated when I have it!
Conclusion
We have a lot to look forward to when it comes to these new and exciting 7-series motherboards. Let us know what you would like to see!
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mbf - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
Is ECC support on the P8Z77 WS confirmed? Last generation ECC for Sandy Bridge-based (Xeon) processors was only introduced with the P8B WS, which uses the C206 chipset, and not, for instance, the P8P67 WS Revolution, which uses the P67 chipset.ASUS itself doesn't say one way or the other (http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155...
Don't get me wrong. I'd _really_ love ECC support on the P8Z77 WS, but somehow I doubt it.
ven - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
at least this time intel didn't do any crazy things like limiting the IGP access to selected chipset (P67,they purposely removed that feature just because for that lucid Logix virtu thing(Z68), I think it doesn't create any difference most of them used the discrete graphics card as the primary graphics engine.completely useless feature)one thing i hate with 7 series is still it is supporting only 2 SATA-III port, those marvell and asmedia ports performance are no match for the intel.
Still no hint of thunderbolt,maybe waiting for haswell.
st.bone - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
Oh Thunderbolt is here.... Check this out:Thunderbolt Port Pictured on MSI Z77A-GD80
http://www.techpowerup.com/161912/Thunderbolt-Port...
ven - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
is it native to Z77? then why didn't all motherboards has this feature?mmaestro - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
Would love to see some stuff on the H77 boards. SRT on an entry-level board should give some great idiot-proof performance boosting for the folks who just need a basic system to deal with media, web browsing, email, and office apps.MobiusStrip - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
Wasn't Thunderbolt supposed to be on-board finally?mbf - Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - link
No, USB3 is finally on-board. Thunderbolt is just no longer an "Apple Exclusive". Apart from that, the Thunderbolt chip costs a pretty penny as well.Arbie - Tuesday, March 13, 2012 - link
I hope you'll review the Asus Sabertooth Z77 board, with some emphasis on its thermal armor and fan control suite.Reviews of the board's predecessors have either left the thermal armor with no fan, or have installed the fan backwards. Asus evidently provides no guidance on this, and may not even include the fan. As a result, there have been no good reviews of what the armor achieves.
The design of the armor shows that an exhaust fan is expected. This will pull warm air out of the covered areas and dump it into the space above the fan port (between CPU cooler and graphics board etc). This should help the protected motherboard components run cooler. However, there remain questions of physical interference between the fan and the card slots, especially the 1x slot nearest the fan port. Also, what fan size is required, and is there a best choice for this?
I'd also like to know what thermal sensors are supported by the mobo and its BIOS, how many PWM headers there are and what they control on, and any other details that will help plan a build.
Asus stands out in its support for air cooling of an overclocked rig in a real-world PC case, and I think that what they offer should be evaluated for its benefits. Reviewers too often shortcut or simply ignore such provisions because they are testing on an open chassis. So most manufacturers feel free to shortcut the issues as well. But consumers buying the boards will be using them very differently, and case cooling is VERY important.
Far less important to me are extra slots and PLX-type chips for SLI graphics boards. Given the glacial improvements in PC games, a single board is all I need or want. Given the practical drawbacks, I'd bet that only a small fraction of enthusiasts (which is already a very small group) actually run two boards.
Thanks
colonelclaw - Wednesday, March 14, 2012 - link
It's a bit annoying that none of these chip-sets supports 8 RAM slots, but then I guess that would be cannibalising the more expensive kit. As someone who works in 3D graphics for a living it makes me slightly wince to see that Asus board labeled 'Workstation' with just 4 RAM slots. Intel sure likes to squeeze as much money out of us as they can now that they make the undisputed best processors, not that I can blame them for doing so, after all they're not a charity.Are there any chips that have more than 4 cores/8 threads that you can put in any of these boards? It's funny, 4 cores seemed like like so much just a few years ago, nowadays it feels like the bare minimum acceptable.
coachingjoy - Sunday, March 18, 2012 - link
Any mITX goodness available?Thanks.