Z77 Mobo Roundup II: EVGA, ASRock, Gigabyte, Zotac
EVGA Z77 FTW
The board features a 7+1 Phase PWM, and although you only need to use one of them, the board has dual 8-pin power connectors for better overclocking capabilities; the POSCAP capacitors and a gold-infused CPU socket are also designed to help with stability when overclocking.
In addition to supporting Intel Socket 1155 CPUs, as you might expect, this motherboard will take up to 32GB of up to DDR3-2133MHz+ memory in its four DIMMs. A high-end mainboard like this one (especially with the E-ATX form factor) should boast strong expansion capabilities, and the EVGA Z77 FTW doesn’t disappoint; with five PCI-E 3.0 x16/x8 slots (and one PCI-E 2.0 x1 slot), the board supports up to four-way SLI or CrossFireX. For increased control, you can disable various PCI-E lanes with onboard switches.
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Intel Socket 1155 CPUs |
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In addition to the aforementioned USB and eSATA ports, the rear I/O panel includes a PS/2 port, dual LAN ports, clear CMOS button, mini-DisplayPort, optical port, and five audio jacks; there are physical power, reset, and clear CMOS buttons on the board, as well. Other physical features include a “dark mode” jumper that lets you easily shut off all the LEDs as well as a toggle switch to select between up to three BIOS versions.
Overall, the EVGA Z77 FTW is very well marked, which is a small but welcome design element. For example, there’s a sticker over the DIMM slots indicating which ones to use depending on your memory configuration, and most of the headers have a black plastic cover with clear red lettering so you can tell at a glance which are for USB 3.0, USB 2.0, or FireWire. The large visual guide poster included in the box is most helpful for figuring out which components are what, too.
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EVGA kept the software and utilities list short and sweet, keeping it primarily limited to the EVGA E-LEET tuning tool. Not so with the included accessories though--as usual, EVGA provided a cornucopia that consists of a manual, an installation guide, drivers and utilities installation disc, rear I/O shield, four SATA cables, two SATA power adapters, 2- and 3-way SLI bridges, a FireWire port bracket, USB 2.0 bracket, and USB 3.0 bracket.
