A Brief Look at Some Upcoming 7-Series Motherboards
by Ian Cutress on March 9, 2012 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- H77
- Z77
MSI
Whilst CeBIT is in full swing, MSI, along with the other manufacturers, has used the opportunity to showcase their future 7-series products. Alongside the X79 Big Bang-XPower II (which I recently reviewed and liked rather a lot), MSI is promoting their Z77A-GD80 – a 7-series motherboard with Thunderbolt support. Anand was able to have a quick look at the board at CES before the Thunderbolt port was officially added, and VR-Zone has confirmed that the model on show at CeBIT does have it on board. We expect this little extra will cause an extra $20-$30 on the price of these boards however, so it may be possible that there are Thunderbolt/non-Thunderbolt versions of various products up and down each vendor's line.
Out of the blocks, MSI is officially treating us to at least seven boards across the 7-series:
Z77A-GD80
Z77A-GD65
Z77A-GD55
Z77A-G45
Z77MA-G45
ZH77-G43
B75A-G43
MSI Z77A-GD80
In a style common of previous MSI boards, the blue-black livery is included with an SFC (Super Ferrite Choke) power delivery. We also get OC Genie buttons and voltage read points as is common on MSI's top end products. In a similar style to the Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H mentioned previously, users of three GPUs on a system such as this will perhaps lose a large amount of the functionality on the bottom of the board. Nevertheless, the USB 3.0 header on board is at 90 degrees, focusing the usage of such a port for the front of the case.
Biostar
Biostar is not a company we've had much chance to look at here at AnandTech for a while, however their few motherboard releases over the past year have come and are available for purchase. For the launch of the 7-series products, Biostar plan on launching a series of five boards:
TZ77XE4
TZ77XE3
TZ77A
TZ77B
TZ77MXE
However one motherboard has graced my inbox in any shape or form - the TZ77XE4:
Biostar TZ77EX4
Biostar have also gone with a three-GPU style setup, this time plumping for a three slot gap between all the GPUs, giving air for them to breathe a little better. Aside from this, there is not a lot I can gather from the solitary, low resolution image, and solid information is not forthcoming until I receive a response from Biostar. Information will be updated when I have it!
Conclusion
We have a lot to look forward to when it comes to these new and exciting 7-series motherboards. Let us know what you would like to see!
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yuhong - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link
The Z68/P67/H67/H61 chipsets don't have them either.. All the MBs with PCI slots had to use a bridge chip to add them.moozoo - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
>There are still a lot of sound cards and TV tuners that are mainly PCI.Looking at http://www.netplus.com.au/product-list/SO40/Sound_... where I buy my gear. They are "mainly" pci-e
Seriously buy a new sound card.
There a plenty of good PCI-e sound cards from cheap though to expensive.
I'd imagine most motherboards are bought for new systems and people buying new systems who want a sound card are going to want a pci-e one.
That and the fact that motherboard sound is good enough for 90% of the market is why the manufacturers are dropping PCI.
PCI can not die soon enough.
I just wish that Intel had a Ivy Bridge that has the GPU and twice the PCI-e lanes.
Wardrop - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link
I say death to PCI. It's about time PCI became a non-standard feature. It's only been super-ceded for 8 years. I've personally consciously avoided all PCI add-on cards for the last 5-6 years; sometimes these PCI-e cards would cost more or be harder to source than their PCI equivalent, but I was guaranteeing future compatibility (and ensuring I had no bandwidth bottlenecks). I'm now glad that every add-on card in our house is PCI-e, except for my second TV tuner which is only PCI because the damn motherboard only had 2 PCI-e slots (already used by the GPU and the primary TV tuner) - which is exactly why I'm glad PCI is finally being dropped.oldabelincoln - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link
The sound card I understand. A TV tuner on PCI I don't understand. Before even the change to broadcast ATSC, tuner cards were PCI-e, at least the ones I looked at that supported ATSC, and with cable cos going to all digital output, I wonder what tuner you are using and what kind of signal you re recording. I'm not disputing the issue, just a bit puzzled.For my part, I use a PCI-e Hayppauge 2250, and certainly wouldn't have minded if it was PCI, so I could free up two PCI-e slots that the 2250 and daughter board use up, and get some use out of the unused PCI space.
LoneWolf15 - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
@oldabelincoln:What does PCI vs PCIe have to do with whether a tuner is analog or digital? There are PCI cards with digital tuners too; Hauppauge's HVR-1150 is an example.
@the earlier poster:
Having said that, the price of being an enthusiast, or at least being one who upgrades to newer high-end platforms, some legacy support will eventually die. I transitioned to a PCIe sound card and a PCIe tuner card knowing I wouldn't always have support for PCI cards. There are a few very specific cards out there that are still PCI only, but usually they are such that and end-user isn't likely to change the configuration of a system using them. Good sound cards and TV tuners are available in PCIe, and are reasonably priced when compared to a $200-350 Z77 mainboard.
Belard - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
That is the thing, intel wants ALL legacy ports off the boards. It lowers costs, lowers point of failure, makes things easier.PCI has done well, it can go now. Ouch... I think I just realized my Tuner-card is PCI, nope... its PCIe. I'm good to go.
For those who need PCI support, they can go with AMD boards, for now...
philosofool - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link
I'm a little confused by this comment, because it looks to me as if GIGABYTE has some (but not all) boards including some legacy PCI.I get what you're saying about wanting them on your board. If you have an old but good sound card, an upgrade is expensive and probably doesn't add to your overall experience. It's just a part you had to replace.
I use a PCI 802.11g card that I absolutely love. I never have connectivity failures that require a reboot of my system. You can't say that for all wireless cards, and I'm not looking forward to the point where I have to replace this one.
Logsdonb - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
I would like to see some ivy bridge / PCI 3 benchmarks with crossfire configurations (ATI 7870s) and high speed SSDs. Most benchmarks published so far only have 1 GPU and don't really show the capability of the new PCI graphics. I am really looking forward to upgrading with CPU, GPU, and PCI upgrades all at the same time.I would like to see very nice gaming / photo and video editing solutions without having to create a massive space heater that is loud and consumes massive amounts of energy to run. In other words, a nice machine that is also nice to live with.
ravisurdhar - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
The sudden appearance of mSATA everywhere kinda surprised me...is this supposed to be used for an SRT drive, for users that don't want a full-sized SSD?peterfares - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link
That and for small form-factor PCs. With a tiny SSD that plugs right into the motherboard it basically takes up no room. This will also be great for HTPCs, too. If you don't need local storage, a small SSD is awesome.