Intel Z77 Motherboard Review with Ivy Bridge - ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI
by Ian Cutress on May 7, 2012 7:40 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- MSI
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- Asus
- Ivy Bridge
- Z77
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 - In The Box
Driver CD
User Manual
IO Shield
2 locking SATA cables
3-slot SLI bridge
Uncharacteristically from ASRock, we do not have a lot to shout about regarding the contents of the box. Previously with the P67 products we had a USB 3.0 bracket, but this time we are limited to just a pair of SATA cables. This is unfortunate, but perhaps was required to hit a price point.
Voltage Readings
Using OCCT we monitor the voltage change of the motherboard under load. This represents the direct correlation between the Load Line Calibration and how the processor/motherboard deals with voltage requests while under load. This is not to be confused with the quality of power delivery, but more an indication of how aggressive the default LLC settings are on a motherboard.
The CPU voltage at load for the ASRock board seems to vary more than the other boards in this review, which may be a result of the price difference. Nevertheless, this is not a series of massive jumps to be concerned over.
Overclocking
Note: Ivy Bridge does not overclock like Sandy Bridge. For a detailed report on the effect of voltage on Ivy Bridge (and thus temperatures and power draw), please read Undervolting and Overclocking on Ivy Bridge.
As the first explanation of overclocking results on a platform, I would highly suggest you read my article on overclocking performance on Ivy Bridge. As the successor to Sandy Bridge, people may expect similar to Sandy Bridge. However, there are a number of key differences, especially in terms of heat generation and applied voltages.
Auto Overclocking: ASRock comes with several automatic overclocking features, however these are all in the BIOS – ‘Enhanced Turbo 30’ and ‘Optimized CPU Setting’. Enhanced Turbo 30 initially calls upon preloaded settings – 4.7 GHz on the CPU, 1600 MHz on the iGPU, +0.085 volt offset on the CPU and CPU load line calibration (LLC) set at ‘Level 1’. This setting did not do anything to the memory, and made the machine run rather hot – 92ºC during OCCT causing it to stop, and 97ºC during PovRay. Both of these temperatures were on the test bed outside a case, so I would not recommend them inside a case!
The Optimized CPU Settings offers CPU speeds in 200 MHz increments. When selected, it adjusts the CPU multiplier but leaves all else on automatic.
- At the 4.4 GHz setting, this gave 1.112 volts on load, 72ºC during PovRay and 70ºC for Blender.
- At the 4.6 GHz setting, this gave 1.192 volts on load, 85ºC during PovRay and 86ºC for OCCT.
- At the 4.8 GHz setting, this gave 1.240 volts constant at LLC Level 1. This caused the blue screen of death on boot.
Manual Overclocking: Given the overview of overclocking on Ivy Bridge, choosing your maximum voltage to aim for a speed is critical. The best combination I achieved on the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 was 4.7 GHz at 1.175 volts, using LLC Level 1. This gave 86ºC during both PovRay and OCCT, which is essentially near the limit as to what I would suggest on Ivy Bridge.
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vegemeister - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Yes, it is a very important feature. The Ivy Bridge IGP can drive 3 monitors. 4 display outputs means 3 of them are digital.Discrete GPUs increase idle power consumption, an as of this post none of them have particularly good open source drivers. Some of us just want lots of screens, good compiz performance, and silence.
philipma1957 - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
I have been building a series of matx htpc/gamer machines.I have one with the basic
Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H mATX board
and one with the
Gigabyte Ga-h77m-d3h mATX board.
I want to decide between
the ASUS P8Z77- m pro mobo or
the ASUS p8z77-m board and
last but not least the
Gigabyte Intel Z77 LGA 1155 AMD CrossFireX/NVIDIA SLI DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort Dual UEFI BIOS mATX Motherboard G1.SNIPER M3 .
I am liking the two builds I did with the lowend gigabyte boards and some intel i5 t2500t cpus I want a better board but I don't have many reviews to go by.
EnzoFX - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Are most DIY'ers really opting for ATX? Should they? I'd bet most people only plug in a video card and maybe one other card such as wireless or even a tuner. Every other possible need they may have would not only be met by mATX but even ITX is pretty full featured these days.You'd think mATX would be what most boards are targeted at, and leaving ATX for extreme builds/bragging rights. It's just like those high end video cards, most people don't buy those, rightfully and importantly so. Those should be the premium prices, and mATX should have a lower price. The focus just feels off.
Zoomer - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
You mentioned people want mATX board. There by itself probably means that it can command higher prices, due to higher price tolerance of the purchasers.Caeric - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
Enjoyed the review. I still have an old AMD dual core, and I'm considering a new system in the next couple of months so these help a great deal.I did find one error in the article, under the ASUS board:
"The ASUS P8Z77-V Pro retails at $225-$235, essentially $100 less than the ASRock Z77 Extreme4..."
It should say "...essentially $100 more than the ASRock..."
Movieman420 - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
Curious as to this controllers' performance vs the ever present Marvell controllers. Does it use a pci-e lane or usb3 for it's bandwidth?FozzyofAus - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
Great review.I'm leaning towards mATX as well for this build as I've never used more than four expansion slots and currently I'm only using 3 (one is USB3 which won't be needed in the new board).
I'd like to have a bit more room in my current case and the option to reuse this motherboard in a smaller case in future if I upgrade my main rig to Haswell next year.
Any chance of adding Asrock Extreme4-m to the next motherboard roundup?
spronkey - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
Sorry guys but this review was a bit average. Comment on the various different controllers used by the motherboard manufacturers but don't offer any kind of review on them?The good additions: DPC latency and boot time.
The missing? Well everything else.
I was especially hoping for a comment on the VIA audio on the UD3H - it's been a while since I've seen VIA codecs on mainstream boards.
I'm also amazed that you didn't slam the ASUS board for it's price and lack of features. Realtek 892? On a board that's nearing twice the cost of the ASRock? Seriously?
No comment on the durability of the boards either? Hrm. No separation in testing of the different controllers on each board?
A bit lacking, sorry.
ggathagan - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Perhaps you're commenting on the wrong review.As Ian stated multiple times throughout the review, Asus is using Intel NIC's on their boards, in this case, the Intel 82579V.
Durability is a function of time. Please point out the other motherboard reviews that covered durability.
spronkey - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
He stated ASUS were using Intel, sure. But didn't get into any details other than stating they exist about the fact that there are multiple USB3 controllers and SATA controllers on each board. No benchmarks comparing them etc.In fact does it even mention which controllers were tested?
And Durability is a function of construction quality and time. It would be nice to see comments on points such as board weight and flex, quality of soldering, quality of components used on the board (according to an electrical minded person on OCN, Gigabyte uses significantly higher rated MOSFETs than other manufacturers), temperatures of chipsets and VRM circuitry. These are things I can't easily find out by reading manuals.