Intel Z77 Panther Point Chipset and Motherboard Preview – ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ECS and Biostar
by Ian Cutress on April 8, 2012 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Biostar
- MSI
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- Asus
- Ivy Bridge
- ECS
- Z77
Of the nine boards we hope to cover across the Ivy Bridge release, we have a large range of prices and feature sets to consider. Styling seems to be of great importance to these companies, especially when they either all follow a similar color scheme or decide to spray everything with a coat of gold paint!
Today you may see many reviews with Sandy Bridge results being posted. We have decided to wait until we are allowed to publish Ivy Bridge results in order to fully test these boards to the limit, and show how they respond under the latest technology (and perhaps after a BIOS update or two). However, important chipset information is at our hands and we can discuss important changes to motherboard design—the long awaited addition of PCIe 3.0 and native USB 3.0 to the Intel mainstream chipset, but also to new technologies, such as Virtual V-Sync and HyperFormance that comes with Virtu MVP, or just how good ASUS' new memory topology might be.
|
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 |
ASRock Z77 Extreme6 |
ASUS P8Z77-V Pro |
ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe |
|
| Price | $141 | $177 | TBC | TBC |
| Size | ATX | ATX | ATX | ATX |
| Power | 8 + 4 | 8 + 4 | 12 + 4 | 16 + 4 |
| Video |
HDMI 1.4a DVI-D D-Sub |
DisplayPort HDMI 1.4a DVI-D D-Sub |
DisplayPort HDMI DVI-D D-Sub |
DisplayPort HDMI |
| LAN | Broadcom BCM57781 | Broadcom BCM57781 | Intel 82579V |
Intel 82579V Realtek 8111F |
| Audio | Realtek ALC898 | Realtek ALC898 | Realtek ALC892 | Realtek ALC898 |
| Mini PCIe | No | Yes | No | No |
| Wifi | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| SATA 6Gbps | 2 + 2 | 2 + 2 | 2 + 2 | 2 + 2 |
| SATA 3Gbps | 4 + 0 | 4 + 0 | 4 + 0 | 4 + 0 |
| USB 3.0 | 6 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
| USB 2.0 | 8 | 8 | 10 | 8 |
| Fan Headers | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| SLI/XFire | Two GPUs | Two GPUs | Two GPUs | Two GPUs |
| NA Warranty | 3 Years | 3 Years | 3 Years | 3 Years |
|
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H Wifi |
Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H |
MSI Z77A-GD65 |
ECS Z77H2-AX |
Biostar TZ77XE4 |
|
| Price | TBC | TBC | $180 | $319 | $169 |
| Size | ATX | mATX | ATX | ATX | ATX |
| Power | 6 + 1 + 2 +1 | TBC | 8 + 2 | 12 + 2 | 10 + 2 |
| Video |
DisplayPort HDMI DVI-D D-Sub |
HDMI DVI-D D-Sub |
HDMI DVI-D D-Sub |
HDMI D-Sub |
DisplayPort HDMI DVI-D D-Sub |
| LAN | Atheros | Atheros | Intel 82579V | Realtek 8111E | Realtek 8111E |
| Audio | Via VT2021 | Via VT2021 | Realtek ALC898 | Realtek ALC892 | Realtek ALC898 |
| Mini PCIe | Yes | No | No |
mSATA + mini PCIe |
No |
| Wifi | PCIe Card | No | No | Yes | No |
| SATA 6Gbps | 2 + 0 | 2 + 0 | 2 + 2 | 2 + 0 | 2 + 2 |
| SATA 3Gbps | 4 + 0 | 4 + 0 | 4 + 0 | 4 + 0 | 4 + 0 |
| USB 3.0 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 4 |
| USB 2.0 | 6 | 10 | 10 | 6 | 8 |
| Fan Headers | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 |
| SLI/XFire | Two GPUs | Two GPUs | Two GPUs | Three GPUs | Two GPUs |
| NA Warranty | 3 Years | 3 Years | 3 Years | 3 Years | 3 Years |
There is a lot to digest regarding Z77. If you are planning an Ivy Bridge build, we want to hear what you want out of your boards or which ones you are considering to purchase. A little while after these boards, we should be tackling some rather interesting mini-ITX ones as well, so stay tuned!
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MrSpadge - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
"multiples of 15 Hz (15, 30, 35, 60, 75)" on page 2Ryan Smith - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Got it. Thanks.MrSpadge - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
How does it work together with nVidias adaptive VSync, which debuted with the GTX680? And which, IMO, looked quite promising (lowering average power consumption a lot while gaming).Ryan Smith - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
You wouldn't use MVP with Adaptive V-Sync. It only makes sense to use MVP by itself.Thaine - Thursday, August 16, 2012 - link
"Predicting which frames (or rendering tasks) will never be shown and taking them out of the pipeline so the GPU can work on what is needed"Along the lines of power consumption (and the ever-important side effect, heat), I would be very interested in seeing an article on MVP vs power consumption/heat on a power-hungry dGPU (ala GTX 480).
primonatron - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Not sure why most of these boards bother including the non-Intel USB 3.0 controllers any more.Not many people have several USB 3.0 devices, so they could be saving costs. Or instead bringing back some of the things the article mention were taken away - like DVI on an ASUS board.
GreenEnergy - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
I think board makers are getting desperate for ways to add value.Less and less components to change and diversify with.
And its not getting better in the future. Haswell on LGA1150 basicly removes the entire VRM part on the motherboard. No more 32 phases or whatever.
A 50$ board performs identical to a 200$ board if you dont overclock. Actually the 50$ board might be more reliable (less components to fail) and more power efficient.
Xale - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
50 dollar boards are probably going to at least boot faster. The driver load and POST times with many 3rd party controllers, SATA especially, is atrocious. Seen some boards that take nearly 3x longer if the external controllers aren't disabled.Metaluna - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Mostly marketing I would guess. Intel only supports 4 3.0 ports, so if you add another chip you now have a checklist item to justify the premium price of your motherboard and possibly differentiate it from lower-end versions in the same product line.Second, ASUS owns ASMedia, who makes a lot of the (mediocre, IMHO) USB 3 and Bluetooth controllers on their boards, so there's probably an incentive to use them in their own products to help prop up their production volumes.
Third, a lot of the third party controllers have special modes to support things like high-current charging for iPads or charging when the computer is turned off. Does anyone know if it's possible to add these features to Intel-based ports? If not, that would be an incentive to include a secondary chip.
GreenEnergy - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
I saw the DH77DF im looking at myself got high current recharge. So that doesnt seem to be related to the controller at all.