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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vegemeister - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Yes, it is a very important feature. The Ivy Bridge IGP can drive 3 monitors. 4 display outputs means 3 of them are digital.Discrete GPUs increase idle power consumption, an as of this post none of them have particularly good open source drivers. Some of us just want lots of screens, good compiz performance, and silence.
philipma1957 - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
I have been building a series of matx htpc/gamer machines.I have one with the basic
Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H mATX board
and one with the
Gigabyte Ga-h77m-d3h mATX board.
I want to decide between
the ASUS P8Z77- m pro mobo or
the ASUS p8z77-m board and
last but not least the
Gigabyte Intel Z77 LGA 1155 AMD CrossFireX/NVIDIA SLI DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort Dual UEFI BIOS mATX Motherboard G1.SNIPER M3 .
I am liking the two builds I did with the lowend gigabyte boards and some intel i5 t2500t cpus I want a better board but I don't have many reviews to go by.
EnzoFX - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Are most DIY'ers really opting for ATX? Should they? I'd bet most people only plug in a video card and maybe one other card such as wireless or even a tuner. Every other possible need they may have would not only be met by mATX but even ITX is pretty full featured these days.You'd think mATX would be what most boards are targeted at, and leaving ATX for extreme builds/bragging rights. It's just like those high end video cards, most people don't buy those, rightfully and importantly so. Those should be the premium prices, and mATX should have a lower price. The focus just feels off.
Zoomer - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
You mentioned people want mATX board. There by itself probably means that it can command higher prices, due to higher price tolerance of the purchasers.Caeric - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
Enjoyed the review. I still have an old AMD dual core, and I'm considering a new system in the next couple of months so these help a great deal.I did find one error in the article, under the ASUS board:
"The ASUS P8Z77-V Pro retails at $225-$235, essentially $100 less than the ASRock Z77 Extreme4..."
It should say "...essentially $100 more than the ASRock..."
Movieman420 - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
Curious as to this controllers' performance vs the ever present Marvell controllers. Does it use a pci-e lane or usb3 for it's bandwidth?FozzyofAus - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
Great review.I'm leaning towards mATX as well for this build as I've never used more than four expansion slots and currently I'm only using 3 (one is USB3 which won't be needed in the new board).
I'd like to have a bit more room in my current case and the option to reuse this motherboard in a smaller case in future if I upgrade my main rig to Haswell next year.
Any chance of adding Asrock Extreme4-m to the next motherboard roundup?
spronkey - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
Sorry guys but this review was a bit average. Comment on the various different controllers used by the motherboard manufacturers but don't offer any kind of review on them?The good additions: DPC latency and boot time.
The missing? Well everything else.
I was especially hoping for a comment on the VIA audio on the UD3H - it's been a while since I've seen VIA codecs on mainstream boards.
I'm also amazed that you didn't slam the ASUS board for it's price and lack of features. Realtek 892? On a board that's nearing twice the cost of the ASRock? Seriously?
No comment on the durability of the boards either? Hrm. No separation in testing of the different controllers on each board?
A bit lacking, sorry.
ggathagan - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Perhaps you're commenting on the wrong review.As Ian stated multiple times throughout the review, Asus is using Intel NIC's on their boards, in this case, the Intel 82579V.
Durability is a function of time. Please point out the other motherboard reviews that covered durability.
spronkey - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
He stated ASUS were using Intel, sure. But didn't get into any details other than stating they exist about the fact that there are multiple USB3 controllers and SATA controllers on each board. No benchmarks comparing them etc.In fact does it even mention which controllers were tested?
And Durability is a function of construction quality and time. It would be nice to see comments on points such as board weight and flex, quality of soldering, quality of components used on the board (according to an electrical minded person on OCN, Gigabyte uses significantly higher rated MOSFETs than other manufacturers), temperatures of chipsets and VRM circuitry. These are things I can't easily find out by reading manuals.