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.
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jasonmccaffrey - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Is ASUS going to release any 7-Series motherboards with thunderbolt. I would definitely be interested in a micro-atx z77 board with thunderbolt or an x79 micro-atx with thunderbolt.pepperoni - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
I would like to better understand why switchable graphics is handled differently on mobile and desktop platforms. Nvidia Optimus is a mature technology that has been around for years. AMD has something similar. The hardware and software work fine on notebooks but for some reason desktops require a clunky Lucid Virtu chip with additional layers of software. Why is it so complicated?Quantumbytes - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
People love pretty and pretty sells.Are there any plans to not only just apply nice color schemes to the motherboards but maybe go a step beyond and give the people a way to create their own color schemes?
Eg. Slap some translucent platic parts on the MBs and have a multi LED light them up to whatever color we want. Maybe even some pulse options for cool effect.
Eg2. Several heatsink color caps come with the motherboard.
Cheers.
rimsha - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Everything changed after the ASUS Transformer Pad 300 began to appear in the price of different retailers.theNiZer - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Hi Anand,as stated above, will I get anything out of using the Z77 chipset's Rapid Storage Technology when I have a new (Samsung 830 256gb class) SSD for my OS and primary games?
I know I can buy an small caching SSD in combination with the Rapid Storage Technology and I can then speed up the files I load from my large 2 TB storage hdd - but that isn't worth while when I already own a fairly large primary SSD, right? I mean, my OS and games are there, not much won by speeding up the photo album :)
Best
Casper
theNiZer - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
Correction: instead of " Rapid Storage Technology " I meant Smart Response Technology (SRT), sorry!Side question: can I use a part of my primary ssd to do the ssd caching or must I buy an intel 313 ssd to make the SRT work?
Best
Casper
buhusky - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
None of their desktop boards support the ATA user password (also known as the drive password) for SSD encryption. I can't imagine it's TOO hard to implement (most notebooks I've seen have the option), so why no desktop support? I like my desktop data protected as well as my laptop data, thank you very much!Nathanael - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Tom's Hardware did an interesting interview with Intel's power design engineers last year (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hawthorn-farm-... in which the Intel engineers openly mocked the idea that a high number of phases is required for a stable (even overclocked) motherboard. Their statements indicated that 6 or 8 was good enough even OC if you designed it right.Some of their testing methodology when examining high phase count boards (from other manufacturers) included using FLIR to examine heat distribution on the boards and look for hotspots created. Their analysis found most high phase count PWM designs resulted in significant hotspots, lack of power where needed, etc.
How does Asus approach power phase requirements engineering and what sort of testing is done along the way?
Also, separate question regarding memory slots and support. I am a gamer, but also a systems engineer. I don't like having to build separate "gaming" and "workstation" machines when most of the components would be similar. I'm currently running 24 GB of RAM (in a Rampage III Extreme), but can't really go any higher with this board (and would like to for some of the non-gaming work I do at home).
In comments on the support for quad-channel memory controllers, most focused on the fact that 4 DIMMs versus 6 would be an improvement in reducing board crowding. I found myself hoping for 8 slots however. What are the chances that Asus will be introducing quad-channel solutions with 8 (or even 12) slots in the future?
Jorgisven - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
See ASUS P9X79 Deluxe with 8 slots. Ivy Bridge does not currently support quad channel, however Sandy Bridge-E does. This is CPU bound, not motherboard bound at this point, due to the CPU-integrated memory controller. If you're actually utilizing that much memory, you may benefit from the updated high-end platforms. Otherwise, wait until early next year for Ivy Bridge-E. Ivy Bridge is aimed at consumer level and the lower part of "Premium Performance" per Intel's roadmap.Hybris21 - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Any info on ROG's Z77 lineup, particularly the Maximus V Extreme would be awesome.