Intel Z77 Panther Point Chipset and Motherboard Preview – ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ECS and Biostar
by Ian Cutress on April 8, 2012 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Biostar
- MSI
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- Asus
- Ivy Bridge
- ECS
- Z77
ASRock Z77 Extreme4—Visual Inspection
ASRock are still insistent with bringing the black gold philosophy to its range, as seen here with the Z77 Extreme4 and later with the Z77 Extreme6. The main point you may immediately notice is the size and depth of the heatsinks covering up the power delivery—they are smaller than previous iterations of ASRock boards, and no longer connected via a heatpipe. This is indicative of quite a few boards we are looking at today, due to the low power requirements of the new processors and as a result, the lack of heat produced at stock voltage.
The socket area is relatively clean, especially to the south where we have no large intruding heatsink. The VRM heatsinks however do brush right up against the Intel specifications for the socket area, so you ultimately have only two directions (to the PCIe and towards the memory) in which to play around with big air coolers. The socket area is adorned with five fan headers—three along the top edge of the board and two chassis headers near the top PCIe x1 slot. The other header on board is along the bottom next to the two-digit debug.
The board is actually not a full ATX sized board—from left to right, it measures only 21.8 cm, rather than the standard ATX size of 24.4 cm. As a result this means ASRock do not have to deal with the far right holes in the motherboard for case mounting, and hence why the SATA ports in the bottom right are neatly tucked away. In this corner, we have the six SATA ports from the PCH (two SATA 6 Gbps, four SATA 3 Gbps) and another two from an ASMedia ASM1061 controller (SATA3_A1 is shared with an eSATA port, however). The internal USB 3.0 header is located nearer the 24-pin ATX power connector, perhaps indicating that is for both front case use and rear case use, taking up the space where the first PCIe x1 is.
The chipset heatsink is rather small, compared to Z68 and X79 boards, and is not connected via heatpipe to any other heatsink nearby. On the south side of the board are the standard array of audio and USB headers, along with a fan header and power/reset buttons. It is good also to see the two digit debug on the board as well.
The PCIe layout is indicative of what we will see on many Z77 boards this year, which do not use any form of PCIe lane expansion, such as a PLX chip. In this case, we have an x1, an x16 (x8 on dual card), a gap, a PCI, an x8, another PCI, and another x1. This is some smart thinking, as even with a dual GPU setup there is space for two single width PCIe x1 cards and a PCI card (which contrary to what some people think are still used in reasonable numbers).
Despite the stock image from ASRock looking a little bent on the back panel, we have a typical Z77 arrangement for IO. From left to right, a combination PS/2 port, two USB 3.0 ports (blue), a D-Sub output, a DVI-D output, HDMI, a clear CMOS button, two USB 2.0 ports (black), an eSATA port (red), gigabit Ethernet, two more USB 3.0 ports (blue), and a standard array of audio jacks featuring an optical SPDIF output.
Board Features
| ASRock Z77 Extreme4 | |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | LGA-1155 |
| Chipset | Intel Z77 |
| Power Delivery | 8 + 4 Phase |
| Memory Slots |
Four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB Up to Dual Channel, 1066-2800 MHz |
| Video Outputs | HDMI 1.4a, DVI-D, D-Sub |
| Onboard LAN | Broadcom BCM57781 |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC898 |
| Expansion Slots |
2 x PCIe x16 Gen3 2 x PCIe x1 Gen2 2 x PCI |
| Onboard SATA/RAID |
2 x SATA 6 Gbps (PCH), Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 2 x SATA 6 Gbps (ASMedia ASM1061) 4 x SATA 3 Gbps (PCH), Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 |
| USB |
Two USB 3.0 at rear (PCH) Two USB 3.0 at rear (ASMedia 1042) One USB 3.0 header (PCH) |
| Onboard |
4 x SATA 6 Gbps 4 x SATA 3 Gbps 1 x IR Header 1 x CIR Header 1 x COM Header 1 x SPDIF Header Power/Reset Buttons Two Digit Debug LED 6 x Fan Headers Front panel audio connector 3 x USB 2.0 headers (support 6 USB 2.0 ports) 1 x USB 3.0 header (supports 2 USB 3.0 ports) |
| Power Connectors |
1 x 24-pin ATX connector 1 x 8-pin 12V connector |
| Fan Headers |
2 x CPU Fan Header (one 4-pin, one 3-pin) 3 x CHA Fan Headers (one 4-pin, two 3-pin) 1 x PWR Fan Headers (3-pin) |
| IO Panel |
1 x Combo PS/2 Port 1 x HDMI 1.4a 1 x DVI-D 1 x D-Sub 1 x Optical SPDIF 2 x USB 2.0 4 x USB 3.0 1 x eSATA 6 Gbps 1 x Gigabit Ethernet 1 x Clear CMOS Audio Outputs |
| Warranty Period | 3 years from date of purchase |
| Product Page | Link |
Rather than dump a Realtek NIC/Audio combination on this board, ASRock have gone for a Broadcom NIC. This means either they have struck a deal, or it works a lot better for their ASRock LAN software. ASRock are one of few motherboard manufacturers to state they support HDMI 1.4a on their website specifications as well. As one of the cheaper boards of this roundup, the Z77 Extreme4 actually comes away pretty well in terms of features.
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DanNeely - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
This is similar to what happened with the USB1->2 transition. The newer controller is significantly bigger (read more expensive) and very few people have more than one or two devices using it per computer. I suspect the 8x (Haswell) chipset will be mixed as well; simply because the total number of ports on the chipset is so much higher than it was a decade ago (vs older boards were all but the lowest end models added more USB from 3rd party controllers).ASUSTechMKT - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
mSATA currently has very little penetration on the market and cost wise it is much lower to purchase a larger cache SSD for the same or lower cost. We would prefer to focus on bringing implementations that offer immediate value to users.As for the Intel nics all our launch boards across the board for ATX ( Standard and above all feature Intel lan ) we have been leading in this regard for a couple of generations.
In regards to USB 3 we offer more than the standard on many boards but keep in mind many users only have 1 USB3 device.
jimnicoloff - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Maybe I missed something from an earlier post, but could someone please tell me why these don't have light peak? Are they waiting to go optical and it is not ready yet? Having my USB3 controlled by Intel instead of another chip is not enough to make me want to upgrade my Z68 board...repoman27 - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Thunderbolt controllers are relatively expensive ($20-30) and their value is fairly limited on a system using a full size ATX motherboard that has multiple PCIe slots. Including two digital display outputs, an x4 and a couple x1 PCIe slots on a motherboard provides essentially all the same functionality as Thunderbolt but at a way lower cost.ASUSTechMKT - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
Almost all of our boards feature a special TB header which allows for you to easily equip our boards with a Thunderbolt add on card which we will release at the end of the month. Expect an approximate cost of $40 dollars, this card will connect to the TB header and install in a X4 slot providing you with Thunderbolt should you want it. A great option for those who want it and for those who do not they do not pay for it.DanNeely - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Sounds like a reasonable choice for something that's still rather expensive and a very niche product.Am I correct in thinking that the mobo header is to bring in the DisplayPort out channel without impacting bandwidth available for devices?
jimwatkins - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
I've made it this far on my venerable OC Q6600, but I can't wait any longer. I do wish they weren't so stingy on the 6 core as I could use it, but I just can't justify the price differential (w 3 kids that is.)androticus - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
USB 3.0 descriptions and depictions are contradictory. The platform summary table says there are 4. The Intel diagram shows up to 4 on front and back (and the diagram is itself very confusing, because there are 4 USB 3.0 ports indicated on the chipset, and then they show 2 going to hubs, and 2 going directly to the jacks.) The text of the article says there can only be 2 USB 3.0 ports.What is the correct answer?
mariush - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
I think there's 2 real ports (full bandwidth ports) and the Intel solution uses 2 additional chips that act like "hubs", splitting each real port into 4 separate ports.Basically the bandwidth of each real port gets split if there are several devices connected to the same hub.
Hub as far as I know means that what the hub receives sends to all four ports (and then the devices at the end of each port ignore the data if it's not for them).
This would be different than a switch, which has the brains to send the data packages only to the proper port.
plamengv - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
DZ77GA-70K makes DX79SI looks like a bad joke (which it is really).LGA 2011 turns into an epic fail and DZ77GA-70K is the proof. I have 1366 system and I have zero will to get LGA 2011 system thanks to the crappy tech decisions somebody made there. Six cores is the top? Again? An old 32nm process? Really? Chipset with nothing new inside but troubles? Since 1366 something strange is going on and Intel fails to see it. The end user can get better manufacturing tech for the video card than for the CPU. First it was 45nm CPU with 40nm GPU and now 28nm GPU and 32nm CPU and Intel call that high end? Really?
Everything that DX79SI should have been you can find inside DZ77GA-70K.
1. DZ77GA-70K has high quality TI 1394 firewire controller, while DX79SI has cheap VIA one that no any audio pro would ever want to deal with.
2. DZ77GA-70K has next best after Intel SATA controller by Marvell to get 2 more SATA 6.0 and eSATA vs zero extra SATA and hard to believe no any eSATA on DX79SI.
3. Intel USB 3.0 vs crappy Renesas.
DZ77GA-70K has everything to impress, including the two Intel LANs vs the Realtek that everyone else is using.
DZ77GA-70K fails in only one thing - it had to be LGA 2011, not 1155 that will be just 4 cores like forever and has zero future.
Wake up INTEL!