Intel Z77 Panther Point Chipset and Motherboard Preview – ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ECS and Biostar
by Ian Cutress on April 8, 2012 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Biostar
- MSI
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- Asus
- Ivy Bridge
- ECS
- Z77
ASRock Z77 Extreme4—Visual Inspection
ASRock are still insistent with bringing the black gold philosophy to its range, as seen here with the Z77 Extreme4 and later with the Z77 Extreme6. The main point you may immediately notice is the size and depth of the heatsinks covering up the power delivery—they are smaller than previous iterations of ASRock boards, and no longer connected via a heatpipe. This is indicative of quite a few boards we are looking at today, due to the low power requirements of the new processors and as a result, the lack of heat produced at stock voltage.
The socket area is relatively clean, especially to the south where we have no large intruding heatsink. The VRM heatsinks however do brush right up against the Intel specifications for the socket area, so you ultimately have only two directions (to the PCIe and towards the memory) in which to play around with big air coolers. The socket area is adorned with five fan headers—three along the top edge of the board and two chassis headers near the top PCIe x1 slot. The other header on board is along the bottom next to the two-digit debug.
The board is actually not a full ATX sized board—from left to right, it measures only 21.8 cm, rather than the standard ATX size of 24.4 cm. As a result this means ASRock do not have to deal with the far right holes in the motherboard for case mounting, and hence why the SATA ports in the bottom right are neatly tucked away. In this corner, we have the six SATA ports from the PCH (two SATA 6 Gbps, four SATA 3 Gbps) and another two from an ASMedia ASM1061 controller (SATA3_A1 is shared with an eSATA port, however). The internal USB 3.0 header is located nearer the 24-pin ATX power connector, perhaps indicating that is for both front case use and rear case use, taking up the space where the first PCIe x1 is.
The chipset heatsink is rather small, compared to Z68 and X79 boards, and is not connected via heatpipe to any other heatsink nearby. On the south side of the board are the standard array of audio and USB headers, along with a fan header and power/reset buttons. It is good also to see the two digit debug on the board as well.
The PCIe layout is indicative of what we will see on many Z77 boards this year, which do not use any form of PCIe lane expansion, such as a PLX chip. In this case, we have an x1, an x16 (x8 on dual card), a gap, a PCI, an x8, another PCI, and another x1. This is some smart thinking, as even with a dual GPU setup there is space for two single width PCIe x1 cards and a PCI card (which contrary to what some people think are still used in reasonable numbers).
Despite the stock image from ASRock looking a little bent on the back panel, we have a typical Z77 arrangement for IO. From left to right, a combination PS/2 port, two USB 3.0 ports (blue), a D-Sub output, a DVI-D output, HDMI, a clear CMOS button, two USB 2.0 ports (black), an eSATA port (red), gigabit Ethernet, two more USB 3.0 ports (blue), and a standard array of audio jacks featuring an optical SPDIF output.
Board Features
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 | |
Size | ATX |
CPU Interface | LGA-1155 |
Chipset | Intel Z77 |
Power Delivery | 8 + 4 Phase |
Memory Slots |
Four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB Up to Dual Channel, 1066-2800 MHz |
Video Outputs | HDMI 1.4a, DVI-D, D-Sub |
Onboard LAN | Broadcom BCM57781 |
Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC898 |
Expansion Slots |
2 x PCIe x16 Gen3 2 x PCIe x1 Gen2 2 x PCI |
Onboard SATA/RAID |
2 x SATA 6 Gbps (PCH), Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 2 x SATA 6 Gbps (ASMedia ASM1061) 4 x SATA 3 Gbps (PCH), Support for RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 |
USB |
Two USB 3.0 at rear (PCH) Two USB 3.0 at rear (ASMedia 1042) One USB 3.0 header (PCH) |
Onboard |
4 x SATA 6 Gbps 4 x SATA 3 Gbps 1 x IR Header 1 x CIR Header 1 x COM Header 1 x SPDIF Header Power/Reset Buttons Two Digit Debug LED 6 x Fan Headers Front panel audio connector 3 x USB 2.0 headers (support 6 USB 2.0 ports) 1 x USB 3.0 header (supports 2 USB 3.0 ports) |
Power Connectors |
1 x 24-pin ATX connector 1 x 8-pin 12V connector |
Fan Headers |
2 x CPU Fan Header (one 4-pin, one 3-pin) 3 x CHA Fan Headers (one 4-pin, two 3-pin) 1 x PWR Fan Headers (3-pin) |
IO Panel |
1 x Combo PS/2 Port 1 x HDMI 1.4a 1 x DVI-D 1 x D-Sub 1 x Optical SPDIF 2 x USB 2.0 4 x USB 3.0 1 x eSATA 6 Gbps 1 x Gigabit Ethernet 1 x Clear CMOS Audio Outputs |
Warranty Period | 3 years from date of purchase |
Product Page | Link |
Rather than dump a Realtek NIC/Audio combination on this board, ASRock have gone for a Broadcom NIC. This means either they have struck a deal, or it works a lot better for their ASRock LAN software. ASRock are one of few motherboard manufacturers to state they support HDMI 1.4a on their website specifications as well. As one of the cheaper boards of this roundup, the Z77 Extreme4 actually comes away pretty well in terms of features.
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ASUSTechMKT - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
ASMedia does not produce or design a bluetooth controller. Additionally you are correct in that add in controllers do offer support for specialized modes of operation.functionality ( like charging )ASUSTechMKT - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
the Intel controller under Windows 7 does not offer operating in UASP mode. With UASP the ASMedia add in controller can provide superior performance especially in queue depth. The USB3 Boost package is offered for both the Intel controller and the ASMedia ( Intel support change from BOT mode to SCSI ( Turbo mode ) and the ASMedia controller of support for BOT, SCSI ( Turbo ) as well UASP.MrMaestro - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
I didn't know a motherboard could be kitsch until I saw the ECS.XSCounter - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
P8Z77-M is the one I am waiting for for my Micro ATX build. It has no those xtra useless controllers which are all gonna be inferior to native Intel ones. So won't overpaying anything.However, I am planning to overclock so I wish to know how it will perform in this regard! Hoping to see these ASUS Micro ATX boards on Anandtech asap :)
http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/...
ASUSTechMKT - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
It features a Digi+ VRM with robust VRM components overall in our testing the -M Pro provide comparable scaling to that of our standard board. You will see this information from ASUS soon. Solid board !Lonyo - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
What happened to the boards with 10 SATA ports?There were some from tradeshows earlier in the year, but none listed here (apart from the one with 8 + 2 eSATA).
Obviously this isn't a comprehensive lineup, but most of these seem to be fairly high end boards, yet no 10 SATA ports.
ASUSTechMKT - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
Very few users use this many ports it makes sense more to prioritize expansion lane support to add ons that will be used. Keep in mind even with a board with that number of ports you may not actually be able to have that usable bandwidth.Should you really need that many you should consider an add on controller card. Things like SATA ports while important are not the only way to distinguish true attention to design in higher end boards.
aranyagag - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
"four SATA 6 Gbps also from the PCH," shouldn't that be sata 3 gbpsin the msi gd65 board
ConVuzius - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
The article says Virtu MVP has an i-Mode and a d-Mode, but which one is the better one? I kinda didnt get the difference, except where you connect your display.Ryan Smith - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
For regular Virtu, d-Mode is the mode that was better from a performance perspective, since at times performance under i-Mode dipped due to having to send frames out to the iGPU.For MVP, there's not going to be all that much of a difference. Regardless of the mode used Virtual V-Sync needs frames passed from the dGPU to the iGPU. The only difference is which display output is used, since a copy of the frame is on both GPUs (i.e. while you have to send frames to the iGPU, you don't have to send them back even in d-Mode).