ASUS P8Z77-V Premium Review: A Bentley Among Motherboards

Conclusion: P8Z77-V Premium

The striking feature regarding the ASUS P8Z77-V Premium, at least from my perspective, is the price.  We very rarely see motherboards costing more than the CPU for a given range (Sandy Bridge-E top chip is $999, top motherboard costs <$600).  However, the P8Z77-V Premium comes in at an MSRP of $450 US.  That is a lot of green, and ASUS have attempted to match the cost with the feature set.

As specified in the review, we have a wealth of additional functionality on the P8Z77-V Premium.  Here are my estimates for the costs of individual parts:

- Dual Intel NIC ($20 combined)
- 32GB LiteOn mSATA SSD ($60)
- PLX PEX 8747 ($40)
- WiFi and Bluetooth module ($40)
- Thunderbolt ($40)
- Marvell 9230 controller for 4 SATA 6 Gbps ports ($20)
- Included USB 3.0 Front box ($20)
- iNetwork Control ($15)
- Fan Xpert II Software (comparable $50 controller would not give similar options)
- USB 3.0 Boost + Specific ASMedia controller ($15)
- ASUS Premium Service (for North American customers) (??)

Totaling these up (please note, these are my own interpretations) would come to $320 – a sizable sum which would pay for three low cost Z77 boards by itself!  Removing these would come to $130, or the rough price of the P8Z77-V LX.  A lot of research and development goes into many of these features (such as the Marvell controllers have PCIe x2 interconnect, or the research/development to put the WiFi module onto the backplane as a card rather than an x1 addition) which we cannot quantify.  This puts the Premium at good value for the features it provides.

All of this adds a cost to the production of the motherboard, which is passed on to the consumer.  The question does become whether there exists a single consumer that can make use of all these, or whether ASUS should filter most of these features into specific individual SKUs.  The other argument is that for a top end board, a user would like to have the option to be able to use everything.  So as long as the user can use every single one of the above options, then this would make the Premium an excellent buy (assuming all else is equal).  Otherwise, we come up against the Luxury car scenario.  Nevertheless, ASUS tell me that during the first three months of the X79 release, the Rampage IV Extreme was their best selling X79 board, despite being the most expensive and having a range of included features that many of the users on the board would not consider using.  Therefore, despite what common sense from a reviewer's perspective may believe, expensive boards can sell well.

In terms of performance, with the ASUS P8Z77-V Premium being the first motherboard we have tested with the PLX PEX 8747 chip, we were a little down-heartened when the initial single GPU results were in.  However, it does seem to be on par with other boards using this chip, meaning that these motherboards strictly aim at the two or more GPU user.  Having four high end AMD GPUs running in this board was great fun, until I put the fans on full.  Using a single 2560x1440 monitor at the highest settings, we reached almost 230 FPS in Dirt3 in this setup.

In our throughput testing, ASUS pulls no punches in fully utilizing MultiCore Enhancement, resulting in the full turbo mode of the processor no matter what the loading.  As a result, our CPU tests are in the top echelons.  IO testing benefits from having a Thunderbolt port, in the sense that any Thunderbolt device will happily smash all our USB 3.0 testing.  The Thunderbolt port also supports an extra DP monitor through the connection with an Ivy Bridge CPU.

Power consumption on the P8Z77-V Premium was a little higher than expected.  This motherboard uses a 20-phase solution for the CPU power, which may contribute to the extra power draw (27W in Metro2033 over the ASUS P8Z77-V Pro).  Though given the nature of the board, power draw is probably the least point of concern on a users mind.

The Premium does have an awesome POST time.  In our testing, ASUS Z77 boards have typically scored around 18 seconds, and 15 when controllers are disabled.  The Premium steams in at 10.44 seconds to finish the POST, cruising ahead of many ASRock motherboards.  For a motherboard that has all this extra functionality, ASUS have played the tweaking game to make this an ultra fast startup board in our testing.  This is reflected in the BIOS, which is easy to use for beginners and enthusiasts alike.

The lynchpin of the Premium comes down to the price.  Yes, it is a good board and it works well, but when I review a motherboard I have to take into account the user base which coincides with the intended market.  I highly doubt that a single user will ever utilize all the additional functionality listed above, which means that there will always be one extra bit of kit that the user does not need.  This is despite ASUS informing me that their most feature rich and expensive X79 motherboard was their best X79 seller, even if the end users were not entirely the intended market.

That makes the Premium a very confusing motherboard for critics like me to recommend.  Perhaps this calls in an analogy of high-end luxury model cars - while no-one would necessarily use the 6.0 liter V12 in a Maybach 62 to its fullest potential, or even the CD changer if they already have a music playing device, it is there if required.  But should we be awarding the luxury cars for pushing the boundaries, or awarding the hot hatchbacks for being worthy of the bang-for-buck mentality?

The ASUS P8Z77-V Premium is an easy board to recommend if you are a multi PCIe device user, you have Thunderbolt devices, need dual Intel NICs as well as WiFi, and want to equip your system with SATA and USB 3.0 storage. The ASUS P8Z77-V Premium represents the all-in-one, top of the line solution.