Intel Z77 Motherboard Review with Ivy Bridge - ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI
by Ian Cutress on May 7, 2012 7:40 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- MSI
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- Asus
- Ivy Bridge
- Z77
With initial releases of a big platform, there are caveats a reviewer must avoid or issues that require attention. With Ivy Bridge and Z77, the immediate comparison comes against Z68 and Sandy Bridge. However, it would be foolish to assume that the testing methodology is the same - with a jump in processor performance (and overclocked results), a reviewer has to attempt to learn the chipset from the ground up in order to provide a valid comparison.
Given that the Z77 and Z68 chipsets have the same die size package, it could be conjectured that they are the same silicon, just that USB 3.0 was not finished in time for Z68, along with various Z77 tweaks. We still have for the most part the same set of options as Z68, so this is entirely plausible.
When it comes to products, P67 and Z68 produced a wide range of prices and levels for the user to look at. Observing release prices for the new chipset, this is also true of Z77 - a user could either pick up a board for just under $100, or go the whole way and spend north of $300. The trade off, as it was with Sandy Bridge, comes in the feature set, support, and the allegiance of the user purchasing the product.
Today we have looked at four boards ranging in price from $135 to $225, which should be a price range that encapsulates a large proportion of Z77 sales over the next 12 months ($190 was the initial sweet spot for P67 launch if you remember). Features such as mSATA (Gigabyte), included WiFi (ASUS), Intel NIC (ASUS, MSI), price ($135, ASRock), auto-overclocking (ASUS, Gigabyte), and performance are all up for grabs. None of the boards today stands out as the ultimate choice for everyone - if you want control, go for ASUS; if you want mSATA, go for Gigabyte; if you want a full Z77 on a budget, go for ASRock; and if you want a very easy to use board, go with MSI. It all seems to be a price/feature set battle that a system builder will have to consider.
Over the next few months we should be looking at a series of more expensive boards with esoteric features (ECS Z77H2-AX with 32 PCIe 3.0 lanes) along with some of the mini-ITX boards (ASRock, Zotac, ASUS) and gaming oriented products. The battlefield for motherboards is huge - will one develop a killer feature, or undercut the competition? It is going to be an interesting time if you are planning an Ivy Bridge build.
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drbuzbee - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
The Lan read and write sequential speeds are labeled MBytes ps but undoubtedly are reported in Mbits ps.millisec - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
The Gigabyte UD3 is a nice board but it's a little annoying that's the board GB keeps sending out for reviews because of the $160 price mark. For $29 more you get so much more in the UD5 with Realtek audio, dual lan with Intel/Atheros, PCI 3.0 X4 slot, more sata 3 ports and second Marvell raid controller. The extra $29 buys a lot vs. the UD3 and in IMO is a much better value. Just hoping the UD5 arriving today does not have the same problems with the G.Skill Ripjaws X 2400 kit Anand had. Won't be a happy camper...Zoomer - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - link
$29 for extra sata ports = pass. ;)embeddedbill - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Hi Ian, any chance you will have an update on this board?embeddedbill - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
What... Did that take about 3 minutes from this question to Anands article?smalM - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Black connectors, video ports, PS/2 - the first manufacturer who omits all that nonsense will get my money.KivBlue - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
Gigabyte has gone cheap for sure, I have compared the specs for both on-board audio chips and Realtek clearly has more feature sets. Plus VIA interface looks hideous. My current system's motherboard is Gigabyte and while they have improved things with UEFI, the feature set they have in it is pretty much the same as the old BIOS, ASUS clearly has a more comprehensive UEFI in that regard, I would go with ASUS motherboard in the future as I'm no longer a novice and someone who wants to take full control of a system.bobster1 - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - link
I've been debugging crashes at stock and overclock for a few days and finally seem to have found the cause, and thought it was worth mentioning here as I didn't see anything about it in the article.I was finding my 7970 crossfire/UD3h/3770k setup was locking up frequently in games like the Witcher 2 - the system would freeze and had to be turned off and on again. I discovered by accident that the games became stable if I had prime95 running in the background, and eventually concluded that it must have something to do with the voltages at lighter loads. When I bumped up the voltage to 1.25v in the BIOS (using the static setting, rather than dynamic voltage), it seems to have solved the problem. I'm guessing this is due to Ivy Bridge taking responsibility for pci-e; it's rather unfortunate as it means I can't let the cpu use a lower voltage in an idle state without it rendering the system unstable when rendering 3d.
mikeyd55 - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - link
Hi,First, thank you for addressing this important benchmark!
Your article notes that POST times can be improved by disabling non essential controllers.
It would be helpful to know, with the minimum controllers enabled to support a system built on either the PRO or DELUXE (Asus) boards, with: one NIC enabled in OS (only?), boot from one SSD and/or one optical drive connected to Z77 chipset ports (no third party storage controller needed), USB disabled on boot, but enabled in OS (if possible as with certain Intel boards?), and any Wireless option disabled, what could be expected.
Conditioned - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - link
So how was dpc measured? If you disable intel-c state and all other powersaving features it makes an absolutely huge difference in dpc.