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 Extreme6—Visual Inspection
With the Extreme6, compared to the Extreme4, there are a significant number of changes, both visual and in terms of features. For a start, the heatsink design is more pronounced, using something similar to their X79 range in terms of black and gold ridged and edged surfaces. The VRM heatsink design is more substantial than the Extreme4, even though online it states it is still only an 8 + 4 VRM design—actually looking at the board, it seems more of a 10 + 4 design.
By looking at the motherboard, you would assume that it would support three-GPU setups. Unfortunately, this third full-length PCIe lane is only PCIe 2.0 x4, rather than splitting up the PCIe 3.0 lanes x8/x4/x4 or using a PLX chip. The MSRP for this board should be around $177, indicating that perhaps that is too cheap a board for one of the expensive PCIe 3.0 expansion PLX chips.
Onboard is also an mSATA port, right in the middle between the first PCIe slot and the PCI slot. Above the PCIe slots is a 4-pin molex power connector to provide extra power to the PCIe slots, although I am kind of getting tired of seeing it put in this location. If anything, it should be at the bottom end or beside the 24-pin power connector, as having it above the PCIe slots just means that there will be cables all over the place.
One other less obvious change to the Extreme4 is that there is a Floppy drive header on board. Yes, you heard me right—floppy drive! It seems odd now to include this legacy connection. It still has a place in industrial concepts (where a machine uses floppy drives and costs 1000x more than the PC processing its data), but not particularly on a higher end product which may be geared towards gaming and overclocking. Perhaps if ASRock are the only ones, then it creates a niche just for them.
In terms of fan headers on board, we have one three-pin beside the 8-pin 12V power connector, two CPU headers (one 4-pin, one 3-pin) just to the right of the top heatsink, two chassis three-pin headers beside the molex connector, and another 4-pin chassis header on the bottom of the board. On the right hand side, the USB 3.0 connector has been placed beneath the 24-pin ATX power connector, followed by the SATA ports. Like the Extreme4, we have the PCH SATA ports (two SATA 6 Gbps and four SATA 3 Gbps) and two extra SATA 6 Gbps from an ASMedia ASM1061 controller.
Around the larger chipset heatsink, we have power/reset buttons and a two digit debug display, both of which I personally like to see as a reviewer (makes my job a bit easier) but also helps overclockers. On the south side of the board, apart from that floppy connector I mentioned, we have a COM port, front panel audio, and an array of USB 2.0 headers.
PCIe layout is similar to the Extreme6, with a PCIe x1, PCIe 3.0 x16/x8, an mSATA connector, PCI, PCIe 3.0 x8, PCI, and a PCI 2.0 x4. This allows a user to use a dual GPU setup, and still have access to a PCIe x1 and x4.
Aside from the bowed picture from ASRock, we have something similar to the Extreme4 for the IO back panel, though this time with a DisplayPort output. From left to right, we have a combination PS/2 port, two USB 3.0 ports (blue), a D-Sub port, DVI-D, DisplayPort, HDMI, a ClearCMOS button, two USB 2.0 (red), an IEEE1394 port, eSATA, gigabit Ethernet, two more USB 3.0 (blue), and audio outputs including an optical SPDIF.
Board Features
| ASRock Z77 Extreme6 | |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | LGA-1155 |
| Chipset | Intel Z77 |
| Power Delivery | 8 + 4 |
| Memory Slots |
Four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB Up to Dual Channel, 1066-2800 MHz |
| Video Outputs | DisplayPort, HDMI 1.4a, DVI-D, D-Sub |
| Onboard LAN | Broadcom BCM57781 |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC898 |
| Expansion Slots |
2 x PCIe x16 Gen3 (x16, x8/8) 1 x PCIe x16 Gen2 (x4) 1 x PCIe x1 Gen2 2 x PCI 1 x mini PCIe |
| 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 (Etron EJ168A) One USB 3.0 header (PCH) |
| Onboard |
4 x SATA 6 Gbps 4 x SATA 3 Gbps 1 x Floppy Connector 1 x IR Header 1 x CIR Header 1 x COM Header 1 x SPDIF Header 1 x 4-pin Molex power connector 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 1 x 4-pin Molex for PCIe |
| 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 SYS Fan Header (one 3-pin) |
| IO Panel |
1 x Combo PS/2 Port 1 x DisplayPort 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 IEEE1394 1 x Gigabit Ethernet 1 x Clear CMOS Audio Outputs |
| Warranty Period | 3 years from date of purchase |
| Product Page | Link |
Nothing immediately jumps out from the board features list aside from the differences to the Extreme4. This is a quite good package for an MSRP of $171.
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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!