ASUS Ivy Bridge/7-Series Chipset Q&A
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 12, 2012 7:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Motherboards
- Asus
- Ivy Bridge
Intel officially launched the Z77 platform earlier this week, and later this month we'll see the official launch of Ivy Bridge, Intel's 3rd generation Core processors. ASUS has agreed to cart nearly everything it makes (including a handful of unreleased products we saw at CES) over to me in NC for a hands on look on video. More importantly - we're going to be doing a Q&A with you all.
ASUS and I will both be answering your questions on camera. If you have any questions you'd like to see us answer or topics you'd like us to address, respond to the comments here or mention @anandtech with the hashtag #asusivy on Twitter along with your question/topic. We won't be able to get to all of them but we'll pick the most interesting/relevant questions and answer them on camera. The topic is obviously going to be Ivy Bridge and the 7-series platform. Simple questions are fine but what I'd really like to see are topics we can have a good discussion about.
When the video goes live, ASUS is also going to let us give away some new Z77 boards as well. We'll have more details on the giveaway closer to the Ivy Bridge launch.
Make the questions good and I look forward to answering them on camera.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
170 Comments
View All Comments
JackM - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
More details on the new Workstation motherboard lineup would be nice.Will the Z77 work as well with Xeon CPUs like the C2xx chipsets do?
What about ECC RAM support? The website of the P8Z77 WS does not mention anything about ECC RAM, does it support ECC?
One of the critiques on ASUS' motherboards is that it's very hard to tell if ECC is enabled or not, will there be any clearer indication (something like a line in the BIOS telling the ECC status) ?
If Z77 does not support ECC, will ASUS create another WS motherboard based upon C2xx ?
kwrzesien - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
This is a sure way they can separate themselves from all the other board vendors - and take a bite out of SuperMicro.Many customers want Workstations with ECC memory (16/32 GB) and a fast i7 for number crunching - but need the ECC support and a quality (Intel) NIC.
pegounet - Sunday, April 22, 2012 - link
It seems so: Have a look to: http://serversdirect.com/product.asp?pf_id=MB1378"ASUS P8C WS C216, Ivy Bridge, PCIe G3, USB3.0 / SATA 6G server motherboard "
Ngeo - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
In the previous comments I've seen a few talking about thunderbolt. Intel is about to ship the second generation controller (cactus?).When will it be available on your motherboard?
Only Z77 or it will it be available on H77?
Will it use copper wires only, or can we hope fiber optics cable to remove the 10ft/3m limit?
The Z77 has igp, will we be able to connect to a thunderbolt screen? The question has been asked before, but is there a way to use external GPU?
What would be the overtcost of thunderbolt availability?
I have also questions on reliability:
I suppose all asus cards are reliable, but is there a serie which is clearly designed to be the more reliable/stable board? (Performance is not my first criteria)
Does overclocking reduce stability?
JackM - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
the WS range of boards are meant for Workstations and are normally built with focus on reliability and stability.anevmann - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
In Ians motherboard preview there was this qoute:"If you happen to purchase ASUS for Ivy Bridge, there is also a little treat in store, as they have reworked the memory sub-system. Their new method stunned Intel engineers, but should provide distinct memory speed advantages. Simply put, instead of memory banks being read consecutively, the memory is read in parallel. We are awaiting more detail regarding how this feature works."
Why didnt intels engineers think of this and how difficult was it to achieve this? Also how much of an improvement should this give?
hrrmph - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
When will we see Asus provide all-USB 3.0 implementations on the desktop and laptop?LAPTOP
When I go on the road for a month or more at a time, I take a laptop and industrial hubs that give me 8 x USB 3.0 ports.
Of those 8 USB 3.0 ports, I currently use 6 of them for USB 3.0 devices. Two ports are for very large Patriot thumbdrives (primary data) and four are for Seagate HDDs (nearline data and automated backups).
This essentially lets me more or less replicate my desktop setup on the road. I use USB 3.0 to get SATA-ish performance and redundancy, along with time-machine like retrieval of previous versions of files.
8 ports USB 3.0 on a laptop would be a nice number to have to future-proof things for an enthusiast.
At least until 8 ports of Thunderbolt is widespread ;)
DESKTOP
12 ports USB 3.0 would be a minimum (at least 4 ports for out on the front panel and 8 ports in the back).
I often use my machines for a decade and the thought of buying a motherboard in 2012 that has USB 2.0 ports still leftover from April 2000 gives me grief.
I remember the bad old days of boards with mixed set-ups of USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 ports. Let me just reach around here and put this cable in... the wrong port.
THE BLAME GAME
I realize that this is likely Intel's fault, but it would be great if Asus can help out by adding on enough third-party controllers to go with the meager 4 ports native USB 3.0 that Intel is rationing out.
In other words, can Asus help kill off the moldy standard known as USB 2.0?
This is literally the only thing that held me back from rushing out and getting the Asus Z9PE-D8-WS.
SATA 3.0Gbs - THE AFTER THOUGHT
Ohh... might as well take the axe to the SATA 3.0Gbs ports as well.
In spite of wishing good riddance for those SATA 3.0Gbs ports, I must admit that I am more willing to install an add-on drive controller card to get more SATA 6.0Gbs if absolutely necessary. But it would be better if we didn't need to resort to that.
CONCLUSION
In these tough times, it's a lot easier to justify buying hardware when you know that your investment has this decade's technology in it - not last decade's.
No disrespect to integrators like Asus. I do fully understand that the source of this problem was Intel.
But, since the problem exists both for enthusiasts (lack of supply) and for Asus (reduced enthusiasm for products means reduced sales demand), I have to ask: Can you please kill off USB 2.0?
ASAP, please. No mercy.
If you swing hard enough, you might lop off the head of SATA 3.0Gps, too. I don't think anyone will really shed a tear. Their time has passed.
I predict that enthusiasts would be very grateful for your efforts. Some would probably even open up their long closed wallets.
-
kenthaman - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Will ASUS be manufacturing any Dual Socket Ivy boards? If so, is there an ETA? I've read that some mfgs will eventually release these, but it looked like they will be for the Xeon counterparts. Any chance we might see a board for use with 2x i5/i7 chips?kwrzesien - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
I think you need a Xeon CPU for dual-socket, the consumer versions have the second (QPI?) connection disabled.Besides - if you need more cores go Sandy Bridge-E until IB-E comes out. Windows runs better on a single CPU due to L2/L3 caching.
StevoLincolnite - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Asus makes allot of products for enthusiasts.However, nobody makes products with white PCB's. I want a white motherboard, graphics card, sound card, the works to match with my White case, LEDS, Fans etc.
Sapphire did release a white motherboard years ago, but it pretty much ended there.
Some more colour options for us enthusiasts would be nice.
Or another option is to use the full-motherboard armour found on the Asus Sabertooth P67 but release the armour in different colour variations, that is something I would be willing to buy with a small price premium.
Enthusiasts like to dress up their cases in all sorts of colours, just unfortunately most of the market seems to be fixated on Black, Reds and Blues.
Is any such thing possible or even on the table?
Cheers.