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
Conclusion – Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H
What does a user want from a motherboard? The holy grail of motherboard questions without one distinct, definitive answer. If one user wants a certain feature, another user will not want it nor will they want it on the product as it could introduce cost. So when a motherboard manufacturer draws up a list of future products, what determines which products they sell? Cost? Market research? Previous experience?
From my perspective, we need a motherboard that works out of the box. Suffice to say, the Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H does work out of the box, as long as you are not using G.Skill memory on the F2 BIOS. Upgrade to the F7 BIOS, and we have a board that hits the price bracket at around $160. For $160, we get a full set of video outputs, an mSATA port, a TPM header, power/reset buttons (with debug LED), dual graphics card support, and a rather different combination of audio/NIC compared to other products.
Nevertheless, the board performs well in our testing suite, and is especially the best in terms of minimal voltage ripple to our CPU.
Conclusion – MSI Z77A-GD65
The MSI Z77A-GD65 will be MSI's number two board, behind the supposedly Thunderbolt equipped Z77A-GD80 released later this year, and the GD65 is currently retailing for $190, between the Gigabyte and the ASUS. For the price we lose PCI and mSATA over the Gigabyte, but gain SATA, an Intel NIC, a clear CMOS button on the IO panel, and arguably easier to use software and BIOS implementations (from this reviewers standpoint).
From a performance perspective, to get into the upper ranges of the other motherboards in this review, it is advised that users enable OC Genie to get a 200 MHz frequency bump when all cores are fully loaded. This would help with strenuous multithreaded workloads. In comparison, for rigorous overclocks, manual adjustment is required.
The MSI Z77A-GD65 is an easy to use product that has all the video outputs. As a kicker, it uses the lowest voltage at load than any other motherboard.
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Zoomer - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link
Construction quality analysis would be a good addition, imo. Perhaps the mobo roundups can be done by a team instead of just 1 person. ;)457R4LDR34DKN07 - Monday, May 7, 2012 - link
I am always impressed by the depth of reviews by AT. I can't wait for the mITX roundup!P.S. any comment on availability of i7 3770t?
ltcommanderdata - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
http://www.geeks3d.com/20120506/intel-hd-graphics-...It turns out Intel's new Windows 8 beta driver (v2729) works for Windows 7 and enables OpenGL 4.0 and OpenCL 1.1 support for Ivy Bridge. Can you try your OpenCL Compute benchmarks on them? Perhaps a OpenGL Unigine run as well to test OpenGL tessellation?
althaz - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
So glad to finally get a tech site benchmarking POST times. One point of constructive criticism: I realise this would take more time, but ideally it'd be good to benchmark POST times both at default settings AND with everything possible disabled, so that we can get a true comparison between boards. Even with all features disabled, I've come across older boards where there is still 10+ seconds of difference in POST times.All in all, thanks for a great review!
ZeDestructor - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
"The ASUS P8Z77-V Pro retails at $225-$235, essentially $100 less than the ASRock Z77 Extreme4" Should be "$100 more", not "$100 less"adrien - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
I really wish 10GbE was on mainstream motherboards but I think you've mixed bits and Bytes here. ;-)Casper42 - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
10Gbase-T is a power hog and requires special cabling if memory serves me right.DAC by way of SFP+ is too short and too expensive.
Fiber transceivers cost more than any of these entire motherboards.
How do you propose they get there?
There is a Broadcom chip that does 2.5Gbps when connected to a 10Gb switch and 1Gbps on a 1Gb switch. Maybe that's a good compromise
Metaluna - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
I agree it seems unlikely that 10GbE over copper will ever reach sufficient critical mass to be economical for consumers, especially with wireless standards continually improving. Maybe Thunderbolt is the way forward for small high performance wired SANs in the home?Zoomer - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - link
Thunderbolt is not the answer, due to limited range.theSeb - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
Yep, since MBps is used correctly for the USB 2 and USB 3 charts I was surprised to see 400 megabytes per second over a gigabit ethernet link. :)