ASUS Ivy Bridge/7-Series Chipset Q&A
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 12, 2012 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Motherboards
- Asus
- Ivy Bridge
Intel officially launched the Z77 platform earlier this week, and later this month we'll see the official launch of Ivy Bridge, Intel's 3rd generation Core processors. ASUS has agreed to cart nearly everything it makes (including a handful of unreleased products we saw at CES) over to me in NC for a hands on look on video. More importantly - we're going to be doing a Q&A with you all.
ASUS and I will both be answering your questions on camera. If you have any questions you'd like to see us answer or topics you'd like us to address, respond to the comments here or mention @anandtech with the hashtag #asusivy on Twitter along with your question/topic. We won't be able to get to all of them but we'll pick the most interesting/relevant questions and answer them on camera. The topic is obviously going to be Ivy Bridge and the 7-series platform. Simple questions are fine but what I'd really like to see are topics we can have a good discussion about.
When the video goes live, ASUS is also going to let us give away some new Z77 boards as well. We'll have more details on the giveaway closer to the Ivy Bridge launch.
Make the questions good and I look forward to answering them on camera.
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obsidian009 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Will Thunderbolt work with Asus Z77 motherboards and when do you expect it to be available?azjeep81 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Does Asus Plan to release something similar to the Gene IV for Ivy Bridge?I just purchased a Gene IV 2 months ago and it is simply amazing.
I love the SFF trend that is going on and I would love to see them continue that trend to IB.
blandge - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Desktop chips are becoming more SoC-like with the integration of the north bridge into the CPU die. Do you expect the PCH to be integrated on die, if so, when? In addition, how do you see this move towards SoCs in the desktop space effecting OEM motherboard design and customization?SalientKing - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
All Z77 boards are going to perform pretty much the same. What makes ASUS boards worth buying over other manufacturers which sell at lower price point, like ASrock?MeanBruce - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Why the big mystery over the availability of the Maximus 5 Extreme and Thunderbolt connectivity? Can we at least have release dates so we can plan out builds accordingly?secretanchitman - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
will any ivy bridge motherboard support dolby digital live and/or dts connect? it was a great feature on my p5w dh deluxe - i havent seen it on a high end motherboard since the 965x/lga 775 days!ReverendDC - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
What will be the major differences between the two chipsets? Could you provide a side-by-side chart or something of that nature?vlado08 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
If z77 is officially released is it possible to test it with sandy bridge processor?Xtrafresh - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
I am a huge fan of the Gene-series of boards. Still the favorite motherboard i ever owned is the DFI Lanparty JR P45, back when they were the only one that offered enthousiast-grade mATX boards. Asus have since taken over that mantle, and each generation we see more attention go to the Gene versions of the spectrum, to the point where ASUS is actually letting the Max 5 Gene lead out at the top end (next to the Sabretooth).What is the philosophy behind this continued support for enthousiast-grade mATX offerings, while the competition seems to be completely ignoring the niche? (Gigabyte seems to be noticing the succes of the Gene finally, and bring the M-sniper, but it's not featured near as well as the Gene).
What are your ideas going forward? Can we expect ROG ITX boards at some point?
hpascoa - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
It seems like most of the time anyone mentions Micro-ATX or Mini-ITX motherboards, it's in the context of HTPCs. Which makes some sense since those form factors are a great fit for an HTPC where you want something that is small, draws little power and is relatively inexpensive. Take an H67 mobo, slap an i3 processor on it with built-in graphics, a 1 or 2 TB HDD to hold lots of recorded media, install Windows Media Center or XBMC and you got yourself a nice little media center that will never draw more than 65W or so of power.The remaining time anyone mentions those form factors, is regarding the opposite end of the spectrum where you have motherboards like the MAXIMUS series that offer all the performance bells and whistles such as SLI/Crossfire support on a Micro-ATX form factor, and are geared towards gamers that want a machine small enough to carry to LAN parties.
Something you rarely see mentioned is the NAS / Home Server market, where those form factors also make a lot of sense. Nobody wants a huge behemoth sitting on their desk serving media or backing up the computers on their home network. However the needs of this segment are fairly different from the HTPC and gaming markets.
One of the main concerns on a NAS is room for expanding storage capacity. You may start with 4 HDDs on your NAS but you would like to have room to add more HDDs in the future as your storage needs increase. Some case manufacturers seem to have noticed this segment of the market and have come out with cases such as the Lian-Li PC-V354 or the Fractal Design R2 that offer 11 and 7 bays on a Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX form factor, respectively. However, try as you might, you won't easily find any motherboards on these form factors that offer more than 6 SATA connectors.
So I guess my question to Asus is if they have considered the home NAS market and if they have any plans for launching any H77 Micro-ATX motherboards with 8 or more SATA connectors geared for this segment.