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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albiglan - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
amen! Also... "No DVD drive... give me the option to use this space for an HDD or SSD" If I want a drive, I can get a USB cable.Battery life of 4-5 hours would be great but 3-4 is fine (covers 85% of all meetings, plus 85% of all plane trips) Gimme an option to "hot swap" a spare battery if I need another few hours
I wouldn't sacrifice on the panel tho... color and brightness needs to be "decent enough to make sure marketing materials look okay"
FPS should be able to handle BOTH minesweeper and Solitare...
100% the business laptop I'd buy (up to $1000 with Windows/Office installed)
Quantumbytes - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
I'm excited about the Ivy craze coming but what about the enthusiasts? Are we put on the back burner again, our reward for buying the best of the best, or will we see some expensive extreme things to come at the start of the Ivy launch?Jorgisven - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
With processors like Ivy Bridge becoming more power-optimized and able to do more with less, it would seem there would be an inclination to reduce power phase design on the motherboard end, as "sufficient" overclocking could be had with less overhead. However, with the iGPU on both Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge, this could be a counterweight.What does ASUS have to say about this, and how have improvements in transistor technology been played in new designs?
Etern205 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
If the thermal armor is so special, why does none of other platforms (AMD and intel X79) doesn't have it?If the thermal armor is removed, will the vital parts of the board get really hot as compared to a Deluxe which has a permanent heatsink along with heat pipe?
Why does the Tuf seems to lack a lot in features compare to the Deluxe such as a clear cmos switch, diagnostic code LEDS, and onboard reset and power switch?
If the CMOS battery has to be changed or you need to remove it for troubleshooting reasons, then I expect you have to remove the thermal armor to just to access it. Why can't you guys build a sliding cover where the CMOS battery is so it save us a lot of time and make it more convenient? It's like trying to replace a HDD on a laptop where you can't just open a simple cover and you have to like take the whole thing apart just to do so.
Shadowized - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
why cant Ivy Bridge do dual 16x Crossfire / SLI when the previous generation could? there are literally no noticeable improvements over Z68 aside from native USB3.Etern205 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Socket 1156 doesn't go CFX or SLI at x16/x16 it's still x8/x8Only the high end gets x16/x16 like 1366 and 2011.
There are x16/x16 on 1155, but they have a Nvidia NF200 chip that provides additional PCIe lanes.
repoman27 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
And Ivy does PCIe 3.0 x8/x8 which is more or less the equivalent of 2.0 x16/x16 if you're using PCIe 3.0 cards.Arbie - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
I will be buying an Asus Z77 board, mostly because my experience with Asus has been very good, and also because they are miles ahead in fan controls. I'd like to hear about how many and what type of fan headers there are; and how the BIOS uses them. For example, where are temperatures sensed, what fan speed vs temperature settings are available, and is there any provision for "Optional" sensors (RTDs). Also, what Windows monitoring / adjustment software will be included?
Do the top one or two models differ in this regard?
I'd also like to know about board idle power, and how the top one or two models differ.
Rick83 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Actually, I was not happy with the fan controls on my Maximus 4 Gene Z.The included software has only two adressable channels, and makes the PWM only directly dependant from the CPU-temperature.
I can't tell if thatäs the software being at fault (for the latter, it probably is) or the actual chip used.
I'd certainly like to know if fan controls will evolve, two a multichannel setup, and with more flexible software, which allows basing rpm on GPU or HDD temperature or at least case temperature.
Iketh - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
The reason it seems the PWM is in line with CPU temp is because their "mobo" temp is the VRM blocks, which of course heats almost proportionally to the cpu... dumb as hell from the user's perspective I know, but they did this to reduce the number of warranty claims because too many people are leaving their case fans too low with 1.3+ volt overclocks... (they also now have the case fan minimum allowed duty cycle at 60% in bios, 40% in software)Ive been buying asus mobos for years and this mobo is the first ive seen operate like this, so my question is do they have a better alternative for this problem in the works? Improved vrm heatsink designs or even active cooling?
And yes, please allow 2+ channels for controlling the case fans. I like setting my intakes at a higher rpm than exhaust to ensure all air entering the case passes through filters...