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

Name: Intel Z77 Chipset
Brand: Intel

by Marco Chiappetta — Sunday, April 08, 2012, 12:01 AM EDT

Due to the fact that native USB 3.0 support is one of the main new additions to the Z77 Express chipset, and a couple of the motherboard had third-party, discrete USB 3.0 controllers on board as well, we did some testing to compare the performance of each solution.

For these tests, we connected an external USB 3.0 enclosure with a 7200 RPM hard drive installed within. Once the drive was connected, we fired up the ATTO Disk benchmark and ran the tests on the external drive.

USB 3.0 Testing

Intel vs. NEC vs. ASMedia

As you can see, in terms of its write performance, the native Intel USB 3.0 performed right on par with the discrete ASMedia controller. Both Intel and ASMedia, however, had a clear advantage over the NEC controller when smaller block sizes were used. In regard to reads, the native Intel USB 3.0 interface trailed the ASMedia and NEC controllers at the smallest of transfer sizes, but Intel eventually surpassed the NEC controller and then just missed the mark set by ASMedia.

With that said, some USB solutions—like Intel and ASMedia—also support UASP, the USB Attached SCSI Protocol, which can boost performance significantly. We’re going to be experimenting with UASP in the near future and will have a follow-up with full performance data posted soon. In the meantime, if you pick up a Z77 board and don’t have the necessary software to enable UASP mode, these are the kind of numbers you can expect.

Tags: Intel, Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Motherboard, Socket 1155, Z77

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com