Z77 Motherboard Round-Up: MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, Intel

Good to see these boards making it into the market.

I liked the ASUS board the most, but as you guys said, even the cheapest one of them is a damn nice board.

Impressive performance ! Hope and trust you will retest when the Ivy Bridge - Oops ! «3rd Generation Core processors» - become available !...

Henri

You didn't think that Intel motherboard showed up without an Ivy Bridge CPU in it, did you? :)

Got my hands on the Z77 boards at Pax (Some of them even had Ivy bridge chips in them) Man these things are nice. I find the power efficiency improvements to be pretty impressive.

Marco, as you know, I personally possess no special knowledge as regards which processor was included with the Intel motherboard, but I do presume that all the tests were performed with a Core i7-2700K, as per your headsup : «One thing we should point out though, is that we tested all of these motherboards [emphasis added, MHD] using a Sandy Bridge-based processor; a Core i7-2700K to be more specific». What I attempted to express above was my hope that you will retest all these mainboards when the Ivy-Bridge processors become generally available....

Henri

Great article, but what does "Thunderbolt Ready" mean? Are the MB people planning on releasing a card that I can stick in there? Is there an ETA on when the card would show up or any details about it? Same size connector as the mac version of ThunderBolt?

Hey Optimus while you are entitled to your own opinion all I see you do is flame marco nonstop, whats with all the negativity? 

We tested the MSI board and were able to hit a stable 5.3GHz with a 2600K for our review, same goes with our Gigabyte sample, but it was the Z77 UD3, even our Biostar Z77 board was able to hit 5.3GHz, ASRock Extreme6 4.9GHz. We just receive five more Z77 boards and should have those results up shortly

AS far as the comments left by OPT, every review site has to put up with someone like this, he should be posting his own results before resorting to this type of crap

I liked the ASUS board the most, but as you guys said, even the cheapest one of them is a damn nice board.

What I attempted to express above was my hope that you will retest all these mainboards when the Ivy-Bridge processors become generally available..

Hi Kevin I love Asus and Gigabyte boards becuase they are always brimming with innovation, and NOT the same "OC GENE II" stuff, MSI have to sell to the newbies... They Talk a lot about 'SFC' and 'military class hardware', all Gigabyte and Asus boards are made to very high standards too, and do not need to usher in the word "military Class hardware"....

I know MSI are great boards but to plasticy for my liking even the buttons on board of top models are all made of plastic. Unlike Asus, which is "Aluminium, buttons". And Thought Gigabyte sometimes go for plastic they have "clever colour schemes". Since the launch of the LGA1156 P55 MSI just anit brought nothing new to the board apart from Gene II and I must admit they have a "very clever BIOS II" on the Z77 top models (GD65 and GD80). BUT NOT on the (G43 & G45 or GD55) MODELS... Ive checked that out... on their site.

I love an interesting BIOS being an enthusiast myself. yup... but "Asus is equally So", and same goes for "Gigabytes new Z77 3D BIOS, very clever and attractive just like their motherboards. GA Z77X UD5H for example. even the GA Z77X UD3H. with an affordable price tag. -

Yes! the Asus Z77 Range of boards gets my thumbs up. 9/10..

I didn't know squat about ASUS until I met JJ. I now watch his videos religiously, and have fallen in love with his in depth descriptions.

Been looking into a Z77 board for my new computer I may start making, the Asus just seems too good to pass up.

These are nice looking motherboards, might even think of getting on of these! :D

I just purchased a new Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe for $224.99 - was that a good deal? ;-)