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
ECS Z77H2-AX—Visual Inspection
If all you ever wanted in life was something colored gold, I think ECS have you covered. As part of their Golden Board branding, the ECS Z77H2-AX has been plated with a layer of gold paint. Well, their heatsinks, heatpipes, socket, capacitors, VRMs and IO panel have all had a layer of gold paint added in order to improve aesthetics. When I first took this board out of the wrapper, I was figuratively blinded by just how much of the gold color was in my face.
Initially ECS will be releasing two high-end Z77 boards, with this one being the most expensive we have in for review, at an MSRP of $319. As such, I would expect it to perform near the top in almost every aspect—features, extras, performance and usability. As more than twice the price of the ASRock Z77 Extreme4, it had better be at least twice the board.
For a start, we can see that the socket is closed in, with the heatsinks and the memory slots being right up against Intel's minimum required socket spacing. This means big air coolers may not get a chance to fit, and only stock or water-cooling need apply. If that is the case, then I hope ECS have a robust overclock system in place.
One thing to feel disappointed by the ECS board though is the lack of fan headers. Around the socket you are lucky to have two—one 4-pin between the top VRM heatsink and the memory slots, and a 3-pin just above the 24-pin ATX power connector. A solitary third is on the bottom of the board. In the past ECS fan OS controls have had some of the better software support; however, it does not make sense to have only three headers on this.
Down the right hand side of the board, below the ATX power connector, are a pair of power/reset buttons, the standard six SATA ports from the PCH, and a two-digit debug display. Note we do not have any other SATA controllers for internal ports on the board. Below the two-digit debug display is an mSATA connector, which doubles up as a mini-PCIe if a user want to use a WiFi module (note, there is one on board already) or a TV Tuner.
On the south side of the board we are not given a vast amount of headers to say it is cramped—aside from standard front panel headers, there is a USB 3.0 header, a COM header, and a solitary USB 2.0 header.
This big selling point of this board over the other boards in this preview however is its multi-GPU capabilities. ECS have decided to invest in a PLX PXE 8747 chip, which is akin to the NF200 chips we saw on X58. This chip will expand the 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes on the board to 32, meaning that on the PCIe slots, we can have x16/x16 in dual card mode, or x16/x8/x8 in tri-card mode.
Thus in order we have an x1, an x16, x1, PCI, x16/x8, PCI, x8. So if all three full length PCIe slots are filled, there is still access to an x1 and a PCI, but we lose a lot of the functionality on the south part of the board.
The back panel has a mix and match of capabilities and functionality. From the left, we have a Bluetooth dongle, two USB 2.0 (red), an eSATA, a clear CMOS button, D-Sub, HDMI, a WiFi dongle, two USB 2.0, an eSATA, two USB 3.0, gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0, optical SPDIF and audio jacks. The big selling point for me is the WiFi, which ECS have cunningly added to their top range boards for a few chipsets now.
Board Features
| ECS Z77H2-AX | |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | LGA-1155 |
| Chipset | Intel Z77 |
| Power Delivery | 12 + 2 |
| Memory Slots |
Four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB Up to Dual Channel, 1066-2800 MHz |
| Video Outputs | HDMI, D-Sub |
| Onboard LAN | Realtek 8111E |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC892 |
| Expansion Slots |
2 x PCIe x16 Gen3 (x16, x8/8) 1 x PCIe x16 Gen2 (x4) 2 x PCIe x1 Gen2 2 x PCI |
| Onboard SATA/RAID |
2 x SATA 6 Gbps (PCH), Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 4 x SATA 3 Gbps (PCH), Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 2 x eSATA 3 Gbps |
| USB |
6 USB 3.0 ports (4 back panel, 2 from headers) 6 USB 2.0 ports (4 back panel, 2 from headers) |
| Onboard |
2 x SATA 6 Gbps 4 x SATA 3 Gbps 1 x USB 3.0 Header 1 x USB 2.0 Header 3 x Fan Headers 1 x COM Header 1 x SPDIF Output Header 1 x Front Panel Audio Header Power/Reset Buttons Debug LED 1 x mSATA |
| Power Connectors |
1 x 24-pin ATX connector 1 x 8-pin 12V connector |
| Fan Headers |
1 x CPU Fan Header (4-pin) 1 x SYS Fan Header (3-pin) 1 x PWR Fan Header (3-pin) |
| IO Panel |
4 x USB 3.0 Ports 4 x USB 2.0 Ports 1 x HDMI 1 x D-Sub 1 x Gigabit Ethernet 1 x Optical SPDIF Output 1 x Clear CMOS Button 1 x Wifi Connector 1 x Bluetooth 2 x eSATA 3 Gbps Audio Ports |
| Warranty Period | 3 Years from date of Purchase (3yr parts, 2yr labor) |
| Product Page | Link |
Despite having WiFi, mSATA and extended PCIe 3.0 lanes, the ECS board is down on audio (Realtek ALC892 rather than ALC898 of others), lacking fan headers and also lacking video outputs, with a lot of people requiring DVI to D-Sub or DVI to HDMI connectors.
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Zoomer - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
So when is AMD buying them out and integrating this in their gfx cards / platform?neo55 - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Will Z77 support two or three monitors simultaneously?GreenEnergy - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
You mean from the Ivy Bridge IGP?Well depends. (Its the same btw for H77, Z75 and Z77 etc.). You need to have 2 displayport if I remember correctly. So if you got for example DVI, HDMI and DP. Then 2 screens only. If you got DVI, DP, DP then 3. Or if you daisychain the DP?
dubyadubya - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Listing fan header count and layout is useless if you do not test the functionality. Do they report RPM? Can they control fan speed? Does the fan control work with Speedfan etc. or only the software from the motherboard manufacturer? Several years ago many people including myself brought this to Anandtech's attention. At the time Anandtech stated they would include this missing info which they did. Trouble is the info was only included in one or two reviews before it was dropped. When I purchase a new motherboard I want to know this info. I have spent many hours searching for this info for each new build as most manufactures do not give detailed info even in the motherboard manual.IMO if a fan header exists it must have full functionality. If not the header should not be on the board. Motherboard manufactures need to pull their heads out of their asses. If Anandtech reported this info in reviews and gave negative reviews on boards with poor fan support the manufacturers would get the hint.
Nje - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Yeah I would love to know this, particularly if the fan headers can control 3 pin fans as well (ie vary the voltage).ASUSTechMKT - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
Primary CPU headers ( CPU and CPU OPT are fully controllable for 4 pin ) as the majority of CPU coolers are PWM for chassis headers ( 1-4 all allow for 3 pin and 4 pin fan control ).Zoomer - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Asus, can they be used with speedfan or is it BIOS/Asus software only?ASUSTechMKT - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
This has been noted in the last couple of reviews. Specifically for ASUS we have spent considerable time putting quality fan controls on our boards all headers allow for 3 presets as well as min and max rotation and target temperatures. In addition with our software for this generation we offer full calibration per each header that can sense the min and max rotation and provide this information as well as sync this data to the profiles. Overall it is quite extensive make sure to check out our videos coming up which shows it in great depth.Arbie - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
@dubyadubya - Look on the bright side: at least one manufacturer (Asus) takes fans seriously, and at least one reviewer (Anandtech) is even mentionng the fact.I have the same wants as you do, and have made the same requests, but be reasonable. These aren't full motherboard reviews! They don't even have the boards operable, much less any hands-on time with BIOS details.
And when they do have all that, a higher priority will be PCIe lanes and how many graphics cards can be stuffed in. That's because you can't run any modern games with only one board.
But then they might talk a little more about the fan controls... Let's hope. Again - be glad that even one vendor is paying attention and has included some controls to be talked about.
Cavalcade - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
With a slightly more than passing knowledge of rendering, and having spent a fair amount of time handling input in a game engine, I'm curious as to how Lucid came to the responsiveness numbers in the chart on page 3. The concept seems valid at first glance, but the numbers strike me as pure marketing fodder as opposed to solid and testable results.Also, this sort of technology seems far better suited to residing in the driver layer as opposed to yet another piece of middleware for PC gamers to contend with. We're already effectively blocked from the hardware, and forced to go through third-party graphics APIs (Direct3D/OpenGL).
Maybe it's a "you have to see it (feel it)" kind of thing, but from here you can color me skeptical.