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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Zoomer - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
So when is AMD buying them out and integrating this in their gfx cards / platform?neo55 - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Will Z77 support two or three monitors simultaneously?GreenEnergy - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
You mean from the Ivy Bridge IGP?Well depends. (Its the same btw for H77, Z75 and Z77 etc.). You need to have 2 displayport if I remember correctly. So if you got for example DVI, HDMI and DP. Then 2 screens only. If you got DVI, DP, DP then 3. Or if you daisychain the DP?
dubyadubya - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Listing fan header count and layout is useless if you do not test the functionality. Do they report RPM? Can they control fan speed? Does the fan control work with Speedfan etc. or only the software from the motherboard manufacturer? Several years ago many people including myself brought this to Anandtech's attention. At the time Anandtech stated they would include this missing info which they did. Trouble is the info was only included in one or two reviews before it was dropped. When I purchase a new motherboard I want to know this info. I have spent many hours searching for this info for each new build as most manufactures do not give detailed info even in the motherboard manual.IMO if a fan header exists it must have full functionality. If not the header should not be on the board. Motherboard manufactures need to pull their heads out of their asses. If Anandtech reported this info in reviews and gave negative reviews on boards with poor fan support the manufacturers would get the hint.
Nje - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
Yeah I would love to know this, particularly if the fan headers can control 3 pin fans as well (ie vary the voltage).ASUSTechMKT - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
Primary CPU headers ( CPU and CPU OPT are fully controllable for 4 pin ) as the majority of CPU coolers are PWM for chassis headers ( 1-4 all allow for 3 pin and 4 pin fan control ).Zoomer - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
Asus, can they be used with speedfan or is it BIOS/Asus software only?ASUSTechMKT - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
This has been noted in the last couple of reviews. Specifically for ASUS we have spent considerable time putting quality fan controls on our boards all headers allow for 3 presets as well as min and max rotation and target temperatures. In addition with our software for this generation we offer full calibration per each header that can sense the min and max rotation and provide this information as well as sync this data to the profiles. Overall it is quite extensive make sure to check out our videos coming up which shows it in great depth.Arbie - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
@dubyadubya - Look on the bright side: at least one manufacturer (Asus) takes fans seriously, and at least one reviewer (Anandtech) is even mentionng the fact.I have the same wants as you do, and have made the same requests, but be reasonable. These aren't full motherboard reviews! They don't even have the boards operable, much less any hands-on time with BIOS details.
And when they do have all that, a higher priority will be PCIe lanes and how many graphics cards can be stuffed in. That's because you can't run any modern games with only one board.
But then they might talk a little more about the fan controls... Let's hope. Again - be glad that even one vendor is paying attention and has included some controls to be talked about.
Cavalcade - Sunday, April 8, 2012 - link
With a slightly more than passing knowledge of rendering, and having spent a fair amount of time handling input in a game engine, I'm curious as to how Lucid came to the responsiveness numbers in the chart on page 3. The concept seems valid at first glance, but the numbers strike me as pure marketing fodder as opposed to solid and testable results.Also, this sort of technology seems far better suited to residing in the driver layer as opposed to yet another piece of middleware for PC gamers to contend with. We're already effectively blocked from the hardware, and forced to go through third-party graphics APIs (Direct3D/OpenGL).
Maybe it's a "you have to see it (feel it)" kind of thing, but from here you can color me skeptical.