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
MSI Z77A-GD65 - Overview
Whenever it comes to a motherboard comparison involving ASUS, Gigabyte or ASRock against an MSI board, the MSI board always tends to show a strong result - either in terms of price, performance or features. Therefore, when it comes to the new batch of motherboards for Ivy Bridge, it is fair to say that I expect a strong showing from MSI. Today, we have their Z77A-GD65, which will be one behind their future released GD80 that got attention back at CES for being Thunderbolt equipped.
The Z77A-GD65 currently retails at $190, a good amount above the Gigabyte board. With the MSI, we have an Intel NIC, a full set of audio outputs, but no PCI or mSATA. The Z77A-GD65 is in general a good board to play with. It would underpin any Z77 build with ease. The design is beneficial to multi-GPU setups, offers voltage read points of overclockers, and gives a front facing USB 3.0 port for front panel USB 3.0 cases. The auto-overclocking OC Genie is relatively simple, but using the BIOS is straightforward (either at boot time or in the OS with Click BIOS software) to get something more befitting an Ivy Bridge processor.
Due to some of the other boards providing an overclock out-of-the-box, performance on the MSI may seem to be a little down on the other boards, but by enabling OC Genie on board, which every processor should be able to do, performance numbers would be comparable to the competition.
Visual Inspection
The Z77A-GD65 is another motherboard in this roundup that comes in a black and blue livery. This time MSI have more of an excuse than others do as they have been using it for a fair while now. Using what is essentially a 10 + 2 phase power delivery, MSI are using somewhat beefier heatsinks than their rivals, connecting both via a heatpipe. The socket area is right up against Intel's minimum requirements from left to right, but there is some room to maneuver big air coolers from top to bottom. Around the socket there are at least four fan headers to use: one 4-pin CPU header between the top VRM and the memory slots, a 4-pin system fan header just the other side of the memory slots, a 4-pin to the bottom left of the socket area, and another 4-pin beside the 24-pin ATX power connector. A fifth fan header can be found at the bottom of the board.
Along the right hand side, we have the standard MSI trio of power/reset/OC Genie buttons, followed by a series of voltage checkpoints for overclockers. Aside from the 24-pin power connector and the system fan header, there is also a USB 3.0 header at right angles to the board, indicating its primary use is to the front of the case. Underneath this are the eight SATA ports - two SATA 6 Gbps from the PCH, four SATA 6 Gbps also from the PCH, and another two SATA 6 Gbps from an ASMedia controller.
As the power/reset/OC Genie buttons are at the top right, the bottom of the board has more room to fit in all the headers as needed - front panel audio, TPM, front panel headers and USB 2.0 headers. In terms of PCIe, MSI have done away with the PCIe to PCI bridge and focused purely on PCIe. We have an x1, x16 (x8 with dual GPU), x1, x1, x8, x1, and a PCIe 2.0 x4. In this instance, there is plenty of room for a dual GPU setup with PCIe slots to spare for any extras.
Also of note is the chipset cooler, which is very flat and large with minimal fins, perhaps suggesting that MSI is confident about their heatsink design. Underneath this is a two digit debug display, and a BIOS switch for changing between two BIOSes.
On the rear IO panel, I think MSI have been reasonable with what they have left in and what they have left out. From left to right, we have a combination PS/2 port, two USB 2.0 ports (black), a clear CMOS button, digital and coaxial SPDIF outputs, two more USB 2.0 ports (black), a HDMI port, gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports (blue), D-Sub, DVI-D, and audio jacks.
Board Features
| MSI Z77A-GD65 | |
| Price | Link |
| Size | ATX |
| CPU Interface | LGA-1155 |
| Chipset | Intel Z77 |
| Power Delivery (CPU/iGPU) | 8 + 1 + 2 + 1 (VRM/VTT/GPU/SA) |
| Memory Slots |
Four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB Up to Dual Channel, 1066-2667 MHz |
| Video Outputs | HDMI, DVI-D, D-Sub |
| Onboard LAN | Intel 82579V |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC898 |
| Expansion Slots |
2 x PCIe x16 Gen3 (x16, x8/8) 1 x PCIe x16 Gen2 (x4) 4 x PCIe x1 Gen2 |
| Onboard SATA/RAID |
2 x SATA 6 Gbps (PCH), Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 4 x SATA 3 Gbps (PCH), Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 2 x SATA 6 Gbps (ASMedia ASM1061) |
| USB |
4 USB 3.0 ports (2 back panel, 2 from headers) 10 USB 2.0 ports (4 back panel, 6 from headers) |
| Onboard |
4 x SATA 6Gbps 4 x SATA 3 Gbps 1 x USB 3.0 Header 3 x USB 2.0 Headers 1 x IEEE1394 Header 1 x TPM Header 1 x Front Panel Audio Header Power/Reset Buttons OC Genie 5 x Fan Headers |
| Power Connectors |
1 x 24-pin ATX connector 1 x 8-pin 12V connector |
| Fan Headers |
1 x CPU Fan Header (4-pin) 4 x SYS Fan Headers (two 4-pin, two 3-pin) |
| IO Panel |
1 x Combo PS/2 Port 1 x Clear CMOS Button 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Port 1 x Optical S/PDIF Port 4 x USB 2.0 2 x USB 3.0 1 x Gigabit Ethernet Audio Jacks 1 x HDMI 1 x DVI-D 1 x D-Sub |
| Warranty Period | 3 Years |
| Product Page | Link |
It is good to see an Intel NIC on this motherboard and plenty of headers to go around. The only things missing where other motherboards may have better all-round functionality are a PCI slot, mSATA or on-board WiFi.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
117 Comments
View All Comments
bji - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
Don't intelligently designed modern operating systems use as much unused RAM as is available as filesystem cache? I know Linux does, I would expect Windows 7 does as well. In which case, I have to wonder what the value of a RAM disk except to make your persisted data completely volatile and lost on a power outage.Turning the unusable RAM beyond 4 GB into a RAM disk when a 32 bit operating system is in use is the only marginally useful feature that you mentioned, but you have to be stuck with a 32 bit OS for that to be of any value.
Using a RAM disk comes at the cost of vastly increased complexity for managing persisted files (having to copy things from RAM disk to persistent storage before shutting down) and vastly increased risk of loss of data on unexpected power outage. All of the RAM disk useability features in the world won't help with those issues.
Zoomer - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - link
Temp, cache or scratch files would be good uses of a ramdisk. Other than that, there's really no point.kstan12 - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
i would *love* to read a review of ivy bridge that doesn't include an engineering sample. my i7-3770k seems to want a lot more voltage @ 4.7 than what i see in reviews online. i know one might clock higher than another but it seems these ES samples use less voltage. am i wrong here?and where did you get the updated bios for the asus p8z77-v pro? i can only download 0906. :-)
IanCutress - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
Hi Kstan12,My ES is stepping 9, which is identical to retail. It's all about the luck of the silicon at the end of the day.
Ian
kstan12 - Wednesday, May 9, 2012 - link
oh ok, so you would just compare the stepping, thanks! maybe i'm not so good at overclocking too.love reading your articles...you explain things quite well, good work!
vegemeister - Thursday, May 10, 2012 - link
Unless you bought it retail, they could have easily given you a cherry-picked chip. There is a lot of variation in semiconductor manufacturing, even on the same stepping.Zoomer - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - link
If that's the results from a cherry picked chip, there would be a very compelling reason to choose SB over IVB for overclockers.JSt0rm01 - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
But I feel like the release schedule has slowed way way way down. We need amd to step back up to the plate. We need more competition. I have been waiting on the new xeon parts for what seems like forever.-------------
Also, after being a member of the anandtech forums for 10 years I was permanently banned by the moderators there because they wanted to censor a website (ffdt.info) that had conversation that was critical of their moderation. I find that the free flow of all information on the internet is critical. For a tech website such as this to limit the flow of information is offensive the core of these beliefs and its all because certain people in positions of illusory power deem that information detrimental to their positions.
bji - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
To your first point, x86 development HAS slowed way down and the trend will continue. With consumer computer usage turning more to cell phones and tablets, the market for faster x86 parts can no longer sustain the billions of dollars of R&D necessary to advance x86 state of the art. Intel is probably in the process of reducing their x86 R&D budgets in anticipation of this.This will not change, even if AMD makes a comeback. I have predicted in the past that the fastest x86 part ever to be produced will be no faster than 50% faster than the current fastest Ivy Bridge. I stand by that prediction.
Sadly, the heady days of rapid advances in x86 tech are over, as anyone who witnessed the early/mid 2000's and can compare them to now will testify to.
JSt0rm01 - Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - link
Its unfortunate for power users. I will probably end up with a 2010 6-core mac pro to replace my aging 2006 macpro (please no anti-apple I use certain software and my industry is almost 100% apple I also have been building my own pcs since 1998) but what comes after that? I've already held this macpro for longer then I've had any computer. I guess what comes next? Will arm processors in 15 years be monsters of computational power?-------------
Also, after being a member of the anandtech forums for 10 years I was permanently banned by the moderators there because they wanted to censor a website (ffdt.info) that had conversation that was critical of their moderation. I find that the free flow of all information on the internet is critical. For a tech website such as this to limit the flow of information is offensive the core of these beliefs and its all because certain people in positions of illusory power deem that information detrimental to their positions.