I know that Ivy Bridge will come out with the i5 and i7 lines first. But I can't afford that much power nor the OC capabilities, so I'm looking to cheap out on just the i3 version instead. When will that get released?
from what i have heard there was supposed to be a 30% increase in performance and i also heared they were getting 7 some odd ghz overclock on liquid nitrogen on these new chips
Mind you it's been a while since I've read the reviews and my memory is a little fuzzy. I just thought this was a tock cycle that had minor speed improvement (though, still an improvement), but better power efficiencies.
Does ASUS have any plans to release something crazy, like say a cylindrical motherboard, or one that has two separate pieces? Or to put it another way, what are the current limitations faced in having a rectangular/square 2D motherboard? Would it be possible to increase memory/PCI performance with a different form factor?
How about OPTICAL communication channels on the motherboard?
You could route fiber optics along any path, and they could overlap one another, similar to when circuit board manufacturers used to solder on an extra wire to two here and there.
You could also, in theory, transmit in open air - say from one interior side of a cylinder to the opposite side - without any fibers, and the signals could cross without interference. Just enclose the cylinder or cube to keep dust out, and put the chips on the outside.
Intel is working on their optical thunderbolt tech as a CMOS process. Once that gets there, optics INSIDE a computer will be more common, but only really useful as a backplane replacement
The potential of massively increased bandwidth along with form-factor flexibility makes it very interesting to me.
ONE VISION: Imagine, for a moment, if your motherboard could actually be 3 or 4 smaller boards. One just for the CPU, one just for memory, one just for graphics cards, and another for everything else. You could put them in separate enclosures, or in different areas of your case. Image your cooling options, etc.
ANOTHER VISION: The other aspect is to simply replace some of the electrical tracings on a circuit board with optical signals. What might that do to the latency and power issues of your CPU-to-RAM signals?
ASUS Response - We are always looking at alternative formats. This is especially true with upcoming products as the constant integration of increasingly advanced features and performance (iGPU/CPU, WiFi/BT, etc) onto fewer and fewer chipsets will allow for some truly unique form factors in the coming years.
As to current products, our design decision on the P8Z77-I Deluxe to move the CPU socket towards the center of the board with the PWM on a riser card has resulted in some truly spectacular performance results from an m-ITX board (6.7+ CPU and DDR3-3000 Memory speeds). In addition our design decisions (socket location, traces, memory design, etc) on the micro-ATX layout of the Maximus V Gene has resulted in a board that currently outperforms anything on the market (memory, CPU, GPU), except for situations where more than two GPUs are required.
We will continue to push the boundaries in motherboard design and expect further design/layout changes with Haswell and the product release after Trinity where I firmly believe we can offer some very interesting small form factor board concepts along with high speed interconnects.
ASUS Response - We cannot comment on unreleased products but let's just say that typically after a GENE and Formula board is released in a chipset series that an Extreme board is the next likely option. ;) Actually, depending on the chipset reception and results with the Formula board (already generating Intel chipset records for clocking and memory performance in beta form) we will gauge the need for an Extreme board to go from currently in the labs to production.
How many interesting boards can we expect from Asus that take full advantage of mSATA and mini pci-express? What form factors have they considered exploring?
Will their notebooks be taking advantage of these?
Also the popularity of Asus notebooks as enthusiast machines has been dwindling due to their lack of powerful graphics options (no higher than GTX560M) is this due to their propriety MXM form factor making validation of new chips more difficult? Have they maybe considered going standard MXM and embracing the enthusiast community such as the one on notebookreview who would like to go with Asus due to their design and cooling ability.
What's the ideal (fastest, most useful) RAM configuration and ideal amount for these new systems? Is 16GB the sweet spot, is dual-channel the best route, what speed, etc? Take into consideration RAM availability, pricing and future expansion.
And while on the RAM topic, ask why their new tech allowing them to access RAM in parallel rather than serial provides no tangible performance increase in current (Sandy Bridge CPU on a Z77 chipset) benchmarks of ASUS boards.
Actually I would be interested in an overview of this new arrangement, a review of performance advantage (if any) and comments on whether it is something we can expect from other manufacturers or solely an ASUS technology going forward.
1. As to the sweet spot for RAM on IVB, it totally depends on your application usage and of course budget. I highly suggest 8GB as the starting point, mainly since the cost for quality 4GBx2 kits is very inexpensive right now (at least in North America) and it allows you to run most applications or games while multitasking without real problems.
As to speed for this base selection, 1600C9 is the minimum I would go on IVB, unless of course you are benchmarking for a living then start with the 2666/2800 kits. ;)
Personally, I like running tighter CAS rates before increasing memory speeds so for the few extra dollars I would go with the 1600 C7 or 1866 C8 kits for optimal performance on a modest budget unless you can find a good deal on C9 2133.
If you are into digital content creation, 3D imaging, or heavy multitasking then the more memory the better so 16GB is my minimum and 32GB for the WS level audience, although at this point if you have the funds, SBe or BD makes more sense for the core counts and PCIe lanes. I like 16GB or 32GB and setting up a persistent RAM drive to run applications (into 3D imaging and encoding) from as the speed increase is like switching from a HD to SSD in most situations.
That said, without appearing to be a sounding board for the memory manufacturers I usually suggest 16GB at DDR3-2133 or DDR3-2400 for those that can afford it on IVB. The higher memory speeds will certainly provide improved benchmarks but in reality, we have noticed improved USB throughput (especially with Intel's USB 3 ports and to some degree our ASMedia ports) due to the RST driver design that uses memory cache, not quite as noticeable on the HD/SSD storage side. Plus, if for whatever reason you are just using the iGPU, performance increases up to ~25% have been recorded going from DDR3-1333 to DDR3-2400 in games and even benefits in Quick-Sync routines. There are also benefits in frame rates when using Lucid (depends on setup). In fact, Intel recommends 1600/1866 for iGPU systems as the base memory speed to ensure improved performance, especially with HD4000 equipped processors.
In addition, this is hard to quantify but overall system performance seems "snappier" with 16GB and some internal blind tests have proved that as well, provided the system is setup to take advantage of the extra memory. Overall, memory capacity and speed will be determined first by your budget and secondarily by your applications. Regardless of the situation, 8GB of DDR3-1600 C9 is my minimum suggestion at this point taking all things into consideration.
2. As to our T-Topology technology on the Z77 boards, this is an Intel initiative for their next generation platform. We decided to implement it now as IVB is able to take advantage of higher memory speeds and densities compared to SB. In addition, it allows us to be a generation ahead to take advantage of improvements in IVBe when it launches.
I have noticed improved memory speeds and loads with SB on our Z77 boards. Of course your mileage may vary but I am able to run 16GB of DDR3-2666 on a 2700K that otherwise was stuck at 2400 on Z68.
Ian should have a followup on T-Topology shortly and we will include some additional details in future users guides. As to the general advantages, with IVB it allows users to run larger memory densities at higher speeds than serial based setup. How Much? It is difficult to tell at this time as we have run out of BCLK headroom and memory kit speed already while the boards were still scaling (16GB at 3300+).
In addition, we have noticed improvements in memory voltages and timings at like settings (16GB, 2800+, 32GB 2400+) compared to several competing boards along with the ability to run some crazy CAS timings at high speeds (with reasonable voltages) that were not possible in the past.
Overall, this is the future of memory trace design and we have additional tuning left to complete that will extract higher levels of memory performance from this platform in several different ways. As to our competitors, T-Topology will be suggested/required in the next generation platform and we understand that two manufacturers will release new Z77 boards with this technology later this year. Of course, considering the amount of engineering work and design we put into this technology for Z77, it will be interesting to see how well it works on the clone boards.
Which Asus motherboards with Ivy Bridge chipsets will be good for HTPC computers that need precise BIOS controls for all connected fans, CPU undervolting, IGP HDMI output, etc.
Along the same lines I noticed that a few of the motherboards have "Dual Intelligent Processors 3" and can apparently cut the TDP by half. Is this done in the BIOS or does it require an application? Does it require an Ivy Bridge processor? How different is it from undervolting and underclocking? Why is it not available on the ROG mini-ITX board?
You can certainly set different power profiles in the EFI, but the 35W/45W selection is only available through AI Suite II in the Digi+ control panel. The Maximus V Gene (ROG mATX) fully supports this function. These to Smart CPU options are like undervolting/underclocking but the Watt requirement selection is controlled automatically by the board so there is no guess work or dialing in of settings in the EFI for the user.
For casual to moderate gamers on 24"+ monitors larger who appreciate good graphics (but maybe not super-high settings) is the integrated graphics at all competitive? Is it possible to get by on the integrated graphics, or is that a pipe dream and for even average performace we'll still need dedicated GPUs?
Only if you like gaming at 800x600 on your 24" screen.
LOL
Seriously, IVB may be a 50% increase over SB in the iGPU department but it's still not going to be anywhere even close to adequate for 1080p or higher gaming. 50% more than 2 fps is still slow as crap...
Give me more details about the special RAM design you've come up with for your Z77 boards. What types of applications will benefit from this?
What advantages do Asus boards have (what's special about them) compared to other vendors? It seems like to me the prices for Asus boards are quite high, and I do not see the reason.
Does ASUS have any plans to release a motherboard with a thunderbolt connector? Will such a board be released with the other Z77 boards? If not when is ASUS aiming to launch such a board?
ASUS Response - Our Maximus Gene V, P8Z77 - V, - Pro, Deluxe and Sabertooth boards have the TB header on the board along with the P8H77-V and P8H77-M Pro boards. We will have two skus in the near future with TB built onto the board. The adapter cards for the TB header equipped boards will be available once the NDA lift occurs for this version of TB.
Will there be Thunderbolt version of current previewed line-up of Asus board, especially boards like Sabertooth Z77 or Maximum/Gene lineup? If not alternate version, will there be an accessory like a daughter card that will enable thunderbolt interface?
Also, regarding the UEFI BIOS... will the interface still focus more on mouse-driven interactions or will be fully keyboard navigable like classic BIOS?
Why there isn't a Micro ATX version of Sabertooth/TUF lineup? ROG/Maximum line-up has a pretty solid mATX offerings, why not the TUF (specially Sabertooth) version?
ASUS Response - 1. The Sabertooth Z77 and GENE V have TB header ports for an adapter card that will be released at a later date. As stated above other boards in our lineup have the TB header and two future skus will have TB installed on the board. 2. Our UEFI is optimized for both mouse and keyboard interaction, in fact at times I like the keyboard better but then again I am old. ;) 3. Our Sabertooth team is constantly looking at the micro-ATX segment and we have some ideas on how to best design a TUF board for that sector. However, based upon current selling trends it is difficult to justify several unique micro-ATX boards within the product lineup. Of course we are always listening to our customers, media, and resellers so if enough "buzz" starts occurring I am sure we could respond rather quickly. :) 4. That said, with the power of upcoming processors and further chipset integration it is certainly a market that we believe will start growing at rapid rate, finally. As such I would not be surprised if you see a TUF product in the smaller form factors in the not too distant future.
The Z75 and Z77 are very similar chipsets. The additional features of the Z77 seem to only be Intel SRT and support for more than 2 video cards in Crossfire or SLI.
What was the primary driving factor in the decision to choose the Z77 for most of the ASUS lineup rather than splitting the lineup between the Z75 and Z77?
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Also, neither the Z75 nor Z77 chipsets provide PCI support, yet most motherboards seem to have PCI slots on them. Can you discuss what adding PCI slots entails in terms of additional hardware, cost and power consumption?
Any plans for something similar to Intel's DH61AG (or Dq77KB) that's more tuned for HTPC setups? CIR header, gets rid of the ATX PSU in favor of DC in from a laptop style AC-DC brick...
From your lineup, it looks like there are more mATX and mITX boards going forward. There's a fairly small but growing niche of HTPC builders that would like to see mITX boards come with DC-DC circuitry to use with an external power brick rather than having the standard 24-pin + 4/8-pin connectors. It makes little sense to be using full ATX PSUs with a platform that will pull only 20W most of the time and peak around 60-80W, not to mention that the PSU itself can occupy 2/3rds of the volume of such a build. Intel and Zotac have released a few boards with DC input on the back of the board, does Asus plan to release any such mITX boards in the future?
I'd like to see a discussion on best ways to deal with the idle power hit we take when using 2 monitors and a discrete gaming card. Impact of using Virtu MVP modes, etc...
Digi+ VRM is marketed as improving system stability especially when overclocking. Your higher-end motherboards have more Digi+ VRM phases. For a system that will be overclocked 24/7, is there a minimum number of phases you would recommend for a stable overclocked system?
I'm a lover of mITX gaming machines... But the current line up up mITX boards have the socket right next to the PCIe slot, which makes it hard to buy a heatsink that won't hit the graphics card.
The Asus Z77-I Deluxe has been shown off and it has the chipset in between the socket and the PCIe slot, which is good. But will other mITX boards be like this, or will I be forced to buy the top of the range mITX board just so I can use my PCIe slot with an aftermarket cooler?
I agree. Asus makes excellent equipment but often there's no way to get that quality in a more affordable motherboard. Is there any plan to offer Asus quality in products with fewer features and less price?
Our current micro-ITX lineup for Z77 only consists of the P877-I Deluxe. While the board has numerous features usually reserved for our Deluxe ATX board, the pricing on it will be competitive for the feature set. At this time we do not plan on another micro-ITX design at launch but we are investigating a Pro version of the board depending upon the success of the Deluxe.
Some early rumors indicate that Ivy Bridge processors run hotter and have less headroom for overclocks compared to Sandy Bridge, with the exception of using LN2. In your experience, how overclockable is Ivy Bridge compared Sandy Bridge.
1. If you are using a high quality air cooler or a self contained water cooler like the Corsair H100 or Antec 920, the current ES E1 stepping (retail release) is hitting 4.6~4.9GHz on average. This is at 1.325~1.35V (CPU VID) and that is the recommended maximum voltage with this type of cooling. We are basing this on using a program like Prime 95 or Linpack for stress testing, although I actually recommend not using either in this situation for very long due to temperature loads (easily see 95C~102C) and to be honest these programs do not provide a true measure of system stability.
With a multitask benchmark that still loads all cores but also performs heavy stress testing on the memory, storage and GPU subsystems we are seeing a 4.8GHz average with a couple of processors hitting 5GHz at 1.325V for CPU VID. In gaming, hitting 4.8~5GHz on average with CPU VID around 1.3V, although raising VID for additional core clock speeds still places us around 5.1GHz on average before hitting the temperature wall.
2. As with Sandy Bridge, we expect the retail stepping to clock slightly better than the ES samples but as always your mileage will vary. However, based on current SB 2500K~2700K processors averaging 5~5.2GHz with several lots hitting 5.4GHz or even higher with the gems, IVB will take a slight step backwards for the air/water cooling crowd. Hopefully this improves over time as the process matures but right now expect 4.8GHz or so at launch for an average processor and fingers crossed the better retail processors will hit 5Ghz with like settings.
3. For the phase/ln2 crowd, IVB will be a dream come true again on the Intel side with benchable processors hitting 6.4~7GHz depending on the benchmark utilized.
Asus has been a leader in offering UASP drivers, but determining whether a controller/device combination can take advantage of this mode is still a bit murky. Is there a matrix for determining which combinations of host controllers and device silicon are UASP capable?
What factors determine which transfer mode is selected under USB 3.0 Boost?
How much of an advantage does USB 3.0 Boost really provide with popular storage devices, and how much longer is it before we can expect native Windows support for UASP?
Also, integrated USB 3.0 is a major feature of Panther Point, however many Ivy Bridge platforms will also include additional USB 3.0 hub and third-party host controller chips to offer more than 4 SuperSpeed ports. How much of a performance difference are we going to see depending on which port we plug a device into?
None of the ASUS Z77 boards support Coreboot, but then again the chipset is not supported by Coreboot either. In fact, if memory serves me the last Intel chipset fully supported was the 945 or E72525.
On a related note, can they go into more detail on how they are able to achieve this (memory read in parallel)? And how much more performance can be expected from this? With the parallel memory read, can you use slower rated memory (which would be less expensive - not that the price of memory would be a big concern if going with IB) using lower voltage while still having more performance over consecutive memory read?
"If you happen to purchase ASUS for Ivy Bridge, there is also a little treat in store, as they have reworked the memory sub-system. Their new method stunned Intel engineers, but should provide distinct memory speed advantages. Simply put, instead of memory banks being read consecutively, the memory is read in parallel. We are awaiting more detail regarding how this feature works."
What is ASUS doing to help mainstream advanced features? Specifically, can ASUS include features such as thunderbolt, additional USB 3.0 ports, and mSATA ports on mainstream non-enthusiast boards in order to speed adoption of these technologies?
A related question is if ASUS will be able to push quality components such as intel NICs, high quality wifi, and higher quality sound chips down to mainstream boards. The technology has evolved and there are already some clear winners, so why do today's mobos still hang on to older "junk" technology like USB 2.0? Like ditching the floppy drive interface, USB 2.0 ought to be a secondary consideration with may be 2 ports total on the mobo. With intel's SSD caching technology and cheap mSATA drives now available, an mSATA port is really attractive even on the lower end for a huge boost in system responsiveness. And thunderbolt... It's here and it's good, so let's jump on the bandwagon and put it on every board already. You can take away the ps2 port and serial port header if you need room...
Put thunderbolt on everything. Why do desktops have to wait for things all laptops are getting?
And yes, we don't need many USB 2.0 ports if there are 6+ USB 3.0 ports. Just make sure that there are 2 USB 3.0 and 2-4 USB 2.0 headers on the motherboard for cases and internal uses.
But keep the TWO PS/2 ports on the higher-end boards (at least some ATX models) because they work with millions of KVM's already in use. Not for personal machines, but for labs and racks built for workstations and small servers.
+1 - I have an Apple Thunderbolt Display which only supports Thunderbolt (not Display port). Thunderbolt output of video from e.g. a GTX 680 would be a killer feature
ASUS Response - I cannot comment on the specifics of how the TB header, TB on-board, and Adapter cards will work until the Intel NDA lift date. Sorry, but any discussion about hardware configurations, chipset, performance and cost are under NDA at the moment.
Reading the previous four pages, there seems to be a common thread of wanting higher-quality, newer tech in smaller form factors for HTPC use, etc. We want our Audi A3, BMW 1-series, etc. I can only agree. I want my future builds to be smaller, quieter, and cooler without taking a hit on performance.
I am interested to know what the power rating's are for different supplier's CPU socket's used on 7 series motherboards. Will there be anyway to find out if a motherboard uses a socket optimised for a 77W processor, a 125W processor or an overclocked processor. Which ratings will Asus use on their 7 series motherboards.
Are Asus considering building an Ivy Bridge quad core tablet taking advantage of Intel's configurable TDP?
I was surprised to see only a matx maximus gene board. I'm assuming there are plans to create a full sized beast as well? What made ASUS decide on just releasing an matx board out of the gate?
Dear Asus, you have been known for quality stable motherboards for years.
Is there hope that ASUS does produce a quality Laptop that caters to mainstream (business) users and is affordable. With that I mean: * High res screen 1600x900 or 1920x1080 in 14" or 15" or 15.6" - no gloss - good viewing angles (color accuracy is only second priority) * Solid chassis, no flex in the keyboard, incl. a solid hinge that does not fall apart (or get loose) after 2 years and opens wide enough * Solid keyboard with full size keys, no 10 block and a dedicated trackpad with dedicated buttons * No gloss plastic * i3 or low end i5 * No dedicated graphics (we are mainstream not gamers or 3D enthusiasts, it's wasted money) * 3 USB ports, (ideally one usb2, two usb3) * Cooling that does work, is easy to clean and not clog up after a couple of years * Middle of the road battery life * Good Wifi reception and bluetooth (for wireless mouse) * mSata SSD and a hard drive bay * ~$800 (with 128 GB SSD and 500GB disk and 4 GB)
I bet there is a huge market for laptops that are solid in construction and spend the money on the two things that matter for the user experience of a web-surf/business person * Screen quality (and ergonomics) * Keyboard/Chassis (ergonomics) and trackpad
Processors and dedicated graphics deliver today more than most people need. However the screens and chassis flex and overall durability of most laptop products lack enormously.
Note, I'm not going for max portability (low weight) or small form factor. All that can be optimized for cost. This is for a customer that uses the laptop mostly at home but wants to have the option to sit on a couch or on the porch. Or it is for people that move the laptop from and to the office. However there is no need for all the expensive business features like finger print reader and manageability, etc.
If Apple can deliver a Mac Air for ~$1,000 then a larger less costly chassis should be possible for a lower price point. If need be, build the solid construction and offer the option to upgrade to a better screen for $75 or $100.
amen! Also... "No DVD drive... give me the option to use this space for an HDD or SSD" If I want a drive, I can get a USB cable.
Battery life of 4-5 hours would be great but 3-4 is fine (covers 85% of all meetings, plus 85% of all plane trips) Gimme an option to "hot swap" a spare battery if I need another few hours
I wouldn't sacrifice on the panel tho... color and brightness needs to be "decent enough to make sure marketing materials look okay"
FPS should be able to handle BOTH minesweeper and Solitare...
100% the business laptop I'd buy (up to $1000 with Windows/Office installed)
I'm excited about the Ivy craze coming but what about the enthusiasts? Are we put on the back burner again, our reward for buying the best of the best, or will we see some expensive extreme things to come at the start of the Ivy launch?
With processors like Ivy Bridge becoming more power-optimized and able to do more with less, it would seem there would be an inclination to reduce power phase design on the motherboard end, as "sufficient" overclocking could be had with less overhead. However, with the iGPU on both Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge, this could be a counterweight.
What does ASUS have to say about this, and how have improvements in transistor technology been played in new designs?
If the thermal armor is so special, why does none of other platforms (AMD and intel X79) doesn't have it? If the thermal armor is removed, will the vital parts of the board get really hot as compared to a Deluxe which has a permanent heatsink along with heat pipe? Why does the Tuf seems to lack a lot in features compare to the Deluxe such as a clear cmos switch, diagnostic code LEDS, and onboard reset and power switch? If the CMOS battery has to be changed or you need to remove it for troubleshooting reasons, then I expect you have to remove the thermal armor to just to access it. Why can't you guys build a sliding cover where the CMOS battery is so it save us a lot of time and make it more convenient? It's like trying to replace a HDD on a laptop where you can't just open a simple cover and you have to like take the whole thing apart just to do so.
why cant Ivy Bridge do dual 16x Crossfire / SLI when the previous generation could? there are literally no noticeable improvements over Z68 aside from native USB3.
Socket 1156 doesn't go CFX or SLI at x16/x16 it's still x8/x8 Only the high end gets x16/x16 like 1366 and 2011. There are x16/x16 on 1155, but they have a Nvidia NF200 chip that provides additional PCIe lanes.
I will be buying an Asus Z77 board, mostly because my experience with Asus has been very good, and also because they are miles ahead in fan controls. I'd like to hear about how many and what type of fan headers there are; and how the BIOS uses them. For example, where are temperatures sensed, what fan speed vs temperature settings are available, and is there any provision for "Optional" sensors (RTDs). Also, what Windows monitoring / adjustment software will be included?
Do the top one or two models differ in this regard?
I'd also like to know about board idle power, and how the top one or two models differ.
Actually, I was not happy with the fan controls on my Maximus 4 Gene Z. The included software has only two adressable channels, and makes the PWM only directly dependant from the CPU-temperature. I can't tell if thatäs the software being at fault (for the latter, it probably is) or the actual chip used. I'd certainly like to know if fan controls will evolve, two a multichannel setup, and with more flexible software, which allows basing rpm on GPU or HDD temperature or at least case temperature.
The reason it seems the PWM is in line with CPU temp is because their "mobo" temp is the VRM blocks, which of course heats almost proportionally to the cpu... dumb as hell from the user's perspective I know, but they did this to reduce the number of warranty claims because too many people are leaving their case fans too low with 1.3+ volt overclocks... (they also now have the case fan minimum allowed duty cycle at 60% in bios, 40% in software)
Ive been buying asus mobos for years and this mobo is the first ive seen operate like this, so my question is do they have a better alternative for this problem in the works? Improved vrm heatsink designs or even active cooling?
And yes, please allow 2+ channels for controlling the case fans. I like setting my intakes at a higher rpm than exhaust to ensure all air entering the case passes through filters...
Will any of these motherboards support greater than 2TB in RAID 0 with Intel RST? Will we finally see more USB 3.0 port? Specifically USB 3.0 headers on the motherboard.
My intention is to have 2 3TB hard drives in RAID 0. Install the OS on a 150GB partition and accelerate that with Intel RST. Then have 2 additional partitions for storage of files; totally 6TB. Then I'll need a USB 3.0 header for the USB 3.0 port of the front of the case as well as another header for the USB 3.0 memory card reader.
On Z68 Micro ATX I can't find a motherboard that has any USB 3.0 headers inside, had to get an add in card, and the RAID controller is limited to two RAID stripes so I can't configure the hard drives the way I want either.
If you are going to have a 150GB partition for C: you might as well get a 160GB SSD and be done with it - much faster reads, no noise, more reliable and will allow the RAID drives to go to sleep. (The OS never lets the C: drive idle enough to sleep)
It would be really nifty to offer the Sabertooth series with different color options. Make the PCB and all connectors on it black and allow customers to purchase different colored "armors" or "skins".
I would love to have a solid black board with red "armor". That options could really make that motherboard THE board to get for modders.
what i would LOVE to see from intel is a k-series, dual core ivy bridge chip with hyper threading! really, considering that the dual core non-HT sandy bridge chips give amd's entire quad core lineup a run for their money, a dual core HT ivy bridge with an unlocked multi would be godly. i really and truly wouldn't need the additional cores at that point; honestly i'd prefer the power savings of a dual core, because i live in texas and it already gets hot as FUCK in my room.
perfect HTPC chip too - run undervolted 24/7, reboot to overclocked for video crunching marathons (about the only thing I really need my i7 920 3.6 GHz for anyway).
More details on the new Workstation motherboard lineup would be nice.
Will the Z77 work as well with Xeon CPUs like the C2xx chipsets do?
What about ECC RAM support? The website of the P8Z77 WS does not mention anything about ECC RAM, does it support ECC?
One of the critiques on ASUS' motherboards is that it's very hard to tell if ECC is enabled or not, will there be any clearer indication (something like a line in the BIOS telling the ECC status) ?
If Z77 does not support ECC, will ASUS create another WS motherboard based upon C2xx ?
In the previous comments I've seen a few talking about thunderbolt. Intel is about to ship the second generation controller (cactus?). When will it be available on your motherboard? Only Z77 or it will it be available on H77? Will it use copper wires only, or can we hope fiber optics cable to remove the 10ft/3m limit? The Z77 has igp, will we be able to connect to a thunderbolt screen? The question has been asked before, but is there a way to use external GPU? What would be the overtcost of thunderbolt availability?
I have also questions on reliability: I suppose all asus cards are reliable, but is there a serie which is clearly designed to be the more reliable/stable board? (Performance is not my first criteria) Does overclocking reduce stability?
"If you happen to purchase ASUS for Ivy Bridge, there is also a little treat in store, as they have reworked the memory sub-system. Their new method stunned Intel engineers, but should provide distinct memory speed advantages. Simply put, instead of memory banks being read consecutively, the memory is read in parallel. We are awaiting more detail regarding how this feature works."
Why didnt intels engineers think of this and how difficult was it to achieve this? Also how much of an improvement should this give?
When will we see Asus provide all-USB 3.0 implementations on the desktop and laptop?
LAPTOP
When I go on the road for a month or more at a time, I take a laptop and industrial hubs that give me 8 x USB 3.0 ports.
Of those 8 USB 3.0 ports, I currently use 6 of them for USB 3.0 devices. Two ports are for very large Patriot thumbdrives (primary data) and four are for Seagate HDDs (nearline data and automated backups).
This essentially lets me more or less replicate my desktop setup on the road. I use USB 3.0 to get SATA-ish performance and redundancy, along with time-machine like retrieval of previous versions of files.
8 ports USB 3.0 on a laptop would be a nice number to have to future-proof things for an enthusiast.
At least until 8 ports of Thunderbolt is widespread ;)
DESKTOP
12 ports USB 3.0 would be a minimum (at least 4 ports for out on the front panel and 8 ports in the back).
I often use my machines for a decade and the thought of buying a motherboard in 2012 that has USB 2.0 ports still leftover from April 2000 gives me grief.
I remember the bad old days of boards with mixed set-ups of USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 ports. Let me just reach around here and put this cable in... the wrong port.
THE BLAME GAME
I realize that this is likely Intel's fault, but it would be great if Asus can help out by adding on enough third-party controllers to go with the meager 4 ports native USB 3.0 that Intel is rationing out.
In other words, can Asus help kill off the moldy standard known as USB 2.0?
This is literally the only thing that held me back from rushing out and getting the Asus Z9PE-D8-WS.
SATA 3.0Gbs - THE AFTER THOUGHT
Ohh... might as well take the axe to the SATA 3.0Gbs ports as well.
In spite of wishing good riddance for those SATA 3.0Gbs ports, I must admit that I am more willing to install an add-on drive controller card to get more SATA 6.0Gbs if absolutely necessary. But it would be better if we didn't need to resort to that.
CONCLUSION
In these tough times, it's a lot easier to justify buying hardware when you know that your investment has this decade's technology in it - not last decade's.
No disrespect to integrators like Asus. I do fully understand that the source of this problem was Intel.
But, since the problem exists both for enthusiasts (lack of supply) and for Asus (reduced enthusiasm for products means reduced sales demand), I have to ask: Can you please kill off USB 2.0?
ASAP, please. No mercy.
If you swing hard enough, you might lop off the head of SATA 3.0Gps, too. I don't think anyone will really shed a tear. Their time has passed.
I predict that enthusiasts would be very grateful for your efforts. Some would probably even open up their long closed wallets.
Will ASUS be manufacturing any Dual Socket Ivy boards? If so, is there an ETA? I've read that some mfgs will eventually release these, but it looked like they will be for the Xeon counterparts. Any chance we might see a board for use with 2x i5/i7 chips?
Asus makes allot of products for enthusiasts. However, nobody makes products with white PCB's. I want a white motherboard, graphics card, sound card, the works to match with my White case, LEDS, Fans etc.
Sapphire did release a white motherboard years ago, but it pretty much ended there. Some more colour options for us enthusiasts would be nice.
Or another option is to use the full-motherboard armour found on the Asus Sabertooth P67 but release the armour in different colour variations, that is something I would be willing to buy with a small price premium. Enthusiasts like to dress up their cases in all sorts of colours, just unfortunately most of the market seems to be fixated on Black, Reds and Blues.
Are there any plans for MATX boards with more than six internal SATA ports? Given the new smaller cases and the HTPC market having eight ports can be useful allowing one for the ODD, one for a front eSATA connection, one for SSD boot drive, and five for data drives.
I am currently using a Lian-Li MATX case that has support for this many drives with a hot swap backplane and would like to migrate my Sandy Bridge cpu to it when I upgrade my main machine to Ivy Bridge with a new ASUS Z77 motherboard. I am a huge fan of the ASUS UEFI bios replacement and currently have the P8P67 Deluxe SB board in my main rig.
I'd also like to know if there are plans to update the bios to on the P8P67 boards to support Ivy Bridge.
Asus, can we get a mobo that allows us to select which cores to disable in the cpu? Is this even possible? My 2600K's core 0 is the runt of the chip, but because it's core 0, it's impossible to turn it off with the current feature design.
Achieving this would give you a huge +1 from enthusiasts.
In some Z68 boards, there wasn't enough PCIe bandwidth to power all of the PCIe slots and ports on the board simultaneously. If you plugged something into one of the last ports on the board, it disabled other features. Some boards included a PLX chip to counteract this.
On Z77 and Z75, is there more bandwidth in the chipset to prevent this from happening? Will all Z77 boards be able to fully power all their card slots and ports, without the end-user having to cherry-pick what they want to use? Or do we have to look for another board with a PLX chip?
ASUS has consistently enabled ECC on pretty much all of their AMD boards (not just "workstation" and "server" boards). That's a big factor in my continued loyalty. Why not do the same on Intel boards?
(Also, how do we know which boards support things like ECC and VT-d/IOMMU? Is there a list somewhere?)
The reason ASUS enables ECC for AMD and not for Intel is because AMD enables ECC memory support in (almost) all their CPUs to work with just about any chipset, while Intel limits ECC to Xeon CPUs in combination with certain chipsets (X59 / X79 or the Xeon-specific C2xx / C6xx chipsets).
The requested list was for motherboards. ARK is for chips. I was hoping the IMC would open up ECC as a possibility for Intel the way it did for AMD. But why give away built-in functionality when you can charge extra for it?
Desktop chips are becoming more SoC-like with the integration of the north bridge into the CPU die. Do you expect the PCH to be integrated on die, if so, when? In addition, how do you see this move towards SoCs in the desktop space effecting OEM motherboard design and customization?
All Z77 boards are going to perform pretty much the same. What makes ASUS boards worth buying over other manufacturers which sell at lower price point, like ASrock?
Why the big mystery over the availability of the Maximus 5 Extreme and Thunderbolt connectivity? Can we at least have release dates so we can plan out builds accordingly?
will any ivy bridge motherboard support dolby digital live and/or dts connect? it was a great feature on my p5w dh deluxe - i havent seen it on a high end motherboard since the 965x/lga 775 days!
I am a huge fan of the Gene-series of boards. Still the favorite motherboard i ever owned is the DFI Lanparty JR P45, back when they were the only one that offered enthousiast-grade mATX boards. Asus have since taken over that mantle, and each generation we see more attention go to the Gene versions of the spectrum, to the point where ASUS is actually letting the Max 5 Gene lead out at the top end (next to the Sabretooth).
What is the philosophy behind this continued support for enthousiast-grade mATX offerings, while the competition seems to be completely ignoring the niche? (Gigabyte seems to be noticing the succes of the Gene finally, and bring the M-sniper, but it's not featured near as well as the Gene).
What are your ideas going forward? Can we expect ROG ITX boards at some point?
It seems like most of the time anyone mentions Micro-ATX or Mini-ITX motherboards, it's in the context of HTPCs. Which makes some sense since those form factors are a great fit for an HTPC where you want something that is small, draws little power and is relatively inexpensive. Take an H67 mobo, slap an i3 processor on it with built-in graphics, a 1 or 2 TB HDD to hold lots of recorded media, install Windows Media Center or XBMC and you got yourself a nice little media center that will never draw more than 65W or so of power.
The remaining time anyone mentions those form factors, is regarding the opposite end of the spectrum where you have motherboards like the MAXIMUS series that offer all the performance bells and whistles such as SLI/Crossfire support on a Micro-ATX form factor, and are geared towards gamers that want a machine small enough to carry to LAN parties.
Something you rarely see mentioned is the NAS / Home Server market, where those form factors also make a lot of sense. Nobody wants a huge behemoth sitting on their desk serving media or backing up the computers on their home network. However the needs of this segment are fairly different from the HTPC and gaming markets.
One of the main concerns on a NAS is room for expanding storage capacity. You may start with 4 HDDs on your NAS but you would like to have room to add more HDDs in the future as your storage needs increase. Some case manufacturers seem to have noticed this segment of the market and have come out with cases such as the Lian-Li PC-V354 or the Fractal Design R2 that offer 11 and 7 bays on a Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX form factor, respectively. However, try as you might, you won't easily find any motherboards on these form factors that offer more than 6 SATA connectors.
So I guess my question to Asus is if they have considered the home NAS market and if they have any plans for launching any H77 Micro-ATX motherboards with 8 or more SATA connectors geared for this segment.
The WiFi Go! module was shown with several options, including an WiFi/SSD plugin module. Will these different modules so on sale individually? Could I buy a WiFi/SSD module by itself?
As thrilled as I am by consumer IBs and the Z77 chipset, what I'd really like to know is when we will see something based around the C216 chipset (or whatever the high-end Xeon E3 chipset will be called).
Ideally I'd love to see something like the P8Z77 WS, but with ECC support. I'd buy that in a heartbeat.
I'm a system builder, and do a fair number of high-end builds, and find that color is honestly a big selling point of motherboards. In a nice Red / Black themed system the ROG boards are absolutely perfect, but I find customers sometimes will opt for a worse Green / Blue / Black etc. board just to make it match with their system. Do you have any plans to change the colors up on any Z77 or future ROG boards?
It's so frustrating to see only 2 SATA 6GB/s on intel based boards.. even the higher end ones. When can we expect to see more like what AMD currently does and has for sometime.
Asus offers it's ROG series which comes with SB emulated sound software, higher end Intel ethernet and utilities like CPUZ rog variants and what not. I've noticed that Gigabyte decided to go into that as well but they sort of one upped you guys with their G1 Series. Any plans to counter that? I think there is a market for it. Plus is so frustrating to see generic chips on high end boards. Your allready forking out a premium so you kinda want it all you know?
My question/topic for the live Q&A: Are there any changes or new features to the southbridge, and if so, what are they? I'm specifically interrested in USB 3, thunderbolt, how many SATA 6Gbps ports, and total bandwidth avalible over SATA (RAID and JBOD accumulative).
Is ASUS going to release any 7-Series motherboards with thunderbolt. I would definitely be interested in a micro-atx z77 board with thunderbolt or an x79 micro-atx with thunderbolt.
I would like to better understand why switchable graphics is handled differently on mobile and desktop platforms. Nvidia Optimus is a mature technology that has been around for years. AMD has something similar. The hardware and software work fine on notebooks but for some reason desktops require a clunky Lucid Virtu chip with additional layers of software. Why is it so complicated?
Are there any plans to not only just apply nice color schemes to the motherboards but maybe go a step beyond and give the people a way to create their own color schemes?
Eg. Slap some translucent platic parts on the MBs and have a multi LED light them up to whatever color we want. Maybe even some pulse options for cool effect.
Eg2. Several heatsink color caps come with the motherboard.
as stated above, will I get anything out of using the Z77 chipset's Rapid Storage Technology when I have a new (Samsung 830 256gb class) SSD for my OS and primary games?
I know I can buy an small caching SSD in combination with the Rapid Storage Technology and I can then speed up the files I load from my large 2 TB storage hdd - but that isn't worth while when I already own a fairly large primary SSD, right? I mean, my OS and games are there, not much won by speeding up the photo album :)
None of their desktop boards support the ATA user password (also known as the drive password) for SSD encryption. I can't imagine it's TOO hard to implement (most notebooks I've seen have the option), so why no desktop support? I like my desktop data protected as well as my laptop data, thank you very much!
Tom's Hardware did an interesting interview with Intel's power design engineers last year (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hawthorn-farm-... in which the Intel engineers openly mocked the idea that a high number of phases is required for a stable (even overclocked) motherboard. Their statements indicated that 6 or 8 was good enough even OC if you designed it right.
Some of their testing methodology when examining high phase count boards (from other manufacturers) included using FLIR to examine heat distribution on the boards and look for hotspots created. Their analysis found most high phase count PWM designs resulted in significant hotspots, lack of power where needed, etc.
How does Asus approach power phase requirements engineering and what sort of testing is done along the way?
Also, separate question regarding memory slots and support. I am a gamer, but also a systems engineer. I don't like having to build separate "gaming" and "workstation" machines when most of the components would be similar. I'm currently running 24 GB of RAM (in a Rampage III Extreme), but can't really go any higher with this board (and would like to for some of the non-gaming work I do at home).
In comments on the support for quad-channel memory controllers, most focused on the fact that 4 DIMMs versus 6 would be an improvement in reducing board crowding. I found myself hoping for 8 slots however. What are the chances that Asus will be introducing quad-channel solutions with 8 (or even 12) slots in the future?
See ASUS P9X79 Deluxe with 8 slots. Ivy Bridge does not currently support quad channel, however Sandy Bridge-E does. This is CPU bound, not motherboard bound at this point, due to the CPU-integrated memory controller. If you're actually utilizing that much memory, you may benefit from the updated high-end platforms. Otherwise, wait until early next year for Ivy Bridge-E. Ivy Bridge is aimed at consumer level and the lower part of "Premium Performance" per Intel's roadmap.
Will ASUS ever offer a motherboard layout that puts the two 8x capable slots further from each other? Is there a technical reason we can't have 3 open slots between SLI/Xfire cards? This would really help keep the "crowded" GPU from running so hot compared to the GPU furthest from the CPU.
Please explain PCI-Ex1 lanes configuration on Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe board. The board has 4 PCI-Ex1 slots. Do PCI-E lanes come via PLX chip or directly from Z77 chipset to these slots? For example, I want to install a sound card on P8Z77-V Deluxe, and of course I'd like that the card is fed with PCI-E lane directly from chipset, not via PLX chip (due to latency, compatibility, etc). Unfortunately, Asus manual doesn't explain this (unlike Gigabyte).
Asus is innovative ! If Asus motherboard has a dedicated USB port ( something like their Asus Rog connect usb port) for USB boot. Whatever connected to this port would be set as Default boot without changing the UEFI setting and jamming f12 for boot order. I think it simple , very marketable and Convenient for users.
How do they expect anyone to figure out how their motherboard lineup looks like?
Both ASUS and Gigabyte have about a dozen models out for Z77 alone, with more coming down the pipeline. With Gigabyte, each letter of the model stands for some feature, with a higher number (eg; 3, 5, 7) denoting its placement along the full lineup.
Glancing over ASUS' models, I have to say I am completely confused. How does ASUS expect new customers, or those unfamiliar with their naming conventions to figure out it? For the record, I have owned ASUS boards in the past, and I STILL have no idea what the various suffixes stand for (-V, LE, LX, LK, Pro, Deluxe, etc.)
Is there a guide to decoding ASUS' model numbers, or is there any plan in the future to come up with a more intuitive naming scheme?
I agree on model numbers however, from what I can see, most of the boards with the same chipsets are all the same except for features such as Wi-Fi, 4 USB ports vs. 6, IDE vs. no IDE, form factor and so forth. I think they all have the same performance specs.
It would be fair to say Asus could post a chart of the various boards with the same chipsets showing what the major and minor differences are for us customers.
Like many other posts here, I was a bit disappointed in the lack of Thunderbolt support in Z77 boards. When I looked over the Z77 product briefs on Intel's site, however, it looks like adding that support would require using 4 of the 16 lanes from the processor. As such, my question is whether or not my reading of that is correct or if there is there is a way to use PCI-E lanes from the southbridge for this task? If not, I'm guessing that some sort of PLX setup would be required to add both x16 graphics and Thunderbolt?
On a related note, is it at all possible to make an aftermarket Thunderbolt solution or is the only option to buy a motherboard with explicit support? Naturally, it would be impossible to exploit the third graphics channel from the Z77 in this configuration - however I'd imagine that most people are more interested in the external PCI-E aspect of the bus so that's not a huge liability. I've got to replace a dieing motherboard pretty soon so I don't have the luxury to wait for TB-equipped motherboards (especially if creative solutions will be required), but I'd love the capacity to add it down the road.
My confusion with the P67/H67 VS the Z68 and now, Z77 chipset. I'm keen on the differences between he P and H series in that the H is video ready and cannot overclock the CPU but I think that is about it.
Since the H67 will overclock video only, I'm confused on what the differences are with the Z 6 and 7 series are since they also have GPU ports. I'm unsure if the H67 or Z chipsets are worth using in the event a graphics card is chosen over the Intel HD 3000 graphics.
It would be nice to see a chart with commentary showing the differences between these chipsets as Intel's website has changed so much and no longer has this in simple language.
Things Z77 supports that Z68 does not: native USB 3.0 controller, support for low-voltage memory and/or higher clocks (up to 2800 have been reported stable, with some reaching over 3000). If you're using them for gaming, the integrated GPU's are typically not sufficient for most that would call themselves PC gamers. They're a big improvement over previous attempts at GPU integration, but they are still just that: integrated GPU's. Even most basic discrete GPU's are going to trounce the Intel GPU. Also, the Z boards all support smart SSD caching, whereas the H series do not. (folks, please correct me or add on, I'm doing this off the top of my head).
I'm wondering why there are usb2 present in ASUS motherboards at all?
I would have expected usb3 ports to replace them once native intel chipset support is available since that would eliminate the extra cost of an external usb3 controller.
A. Is this just a transition phase, or are there still going to be usb2 host ports 3 years from now in new designs?
B. Is there any advantage of usb2 over usb3 ? Maybe there are concerns usb3 host ports will not interoperate as well as usb2 host ports with legacy usb2/1 peripherals ?!
I realize that Ivy Bridge should run cooler than Sandy Bridge, but in general aftermarket HSF solutions are getting larger and larger. 120mm fans are much quieter than smaller fans. Also modern memory sticks used for any kind of high end or OC system come standard with heatsinks, some of which are quite tall.
When reading reviews of HSFs a majority of complaints are that the HSF extends over one of the Memory slots and prevents the use of that slot with any memory stick with a heatsink. I can only imagine that in the future this will be more a of problem and not less.
Does ASUS (or for that matter Intel with their sample motherboard designs) have any plans to remedy this proximity situation. I realize that motherboard real estate is a premium and that at high frequencies even the smallest distances can create timing issues, but I don't believe that an additional half inch or so between CPU and Memory would hurt. And it would definitely make many if not most OCers very happy.
And it might even encourage Intel to bundle real HSF solutions with their K series CPUs! ha!
This is an email I sent an enthusiast friend of mine after viewing the PCperspective ASUS video:
In the video @00:45:45, JJ says "We will definitely also have another sku that will be coming to the market a little bit after that for both the channel side and the ROG side that will have native (on-board) thunderbolt connectivity."
I think JJ means a super P8 board and a super ROG board, hoping the Maximus 5 Extreme, I watched the salients about 10 times, thanks for the link, the wait for the M5E will be hard if its more than a quarter, maybe Anand can dig deeper and get more out of the Asus rep, let's hope!
IVB is the ideal HTPC platform, but it's about time that someone produced a digital amplifier card so that no separate receiver/amplifier/sound system is required - just wire the 5.1 or 7.1 speakers direct to the back of the HTPC.
AMD did this a while ago with their Maui initiative (see http://www.silentpcreview.com/article918-page1.htm... but iirc only MSI ever produced a board - the MSI Diva, which was supplied with digital amplifier cards using D2Audio ICs.
Will Asus please consider doing something similar? I just want one box under my TVs around the house. I'd bite their arms off for an IVB board that came with a similar card, or a standard PCIe sound card with built-in digital amplifier (thereby being suitable for any system).
Could you use the onboard mini-PCI-e for anything else other than wifi? I wish they would make these boards with the idea that they will be used for HTPC / RAID devices and therefore need another slot of a RAID controller.
Couple questions that come to mind after watching the video. I'm more into the entertainment/gaming/overclocking side of things. Nothing extremely technical.
1.) The new Lucid Virtu MVP with Ivy Bridge and performance boost with discrete GPU's, i.e. GTX 680. Will this be more software/game dependent or is this a boost we will see across many applications?
2.) Coming from an i7 920 @ 4.2 ghz 1.26v on a Rampage III Extreme, I'm looking to save a lot on energy use while achieving performance. Will I notice quite a big difference through Digi+ with power efficiency while overclocking an i5 3570k for example? Not looking to fry the chip as I've already seen the high temperatures on benchmarks.
3.) Torn on a decision between ASUS boards with the P8Z77 PRO and the Sabertooth Z77. I'm seeing a lot of reviews leaning towards the Sabertooth Z77 as a gaming platform due to the thermal armor and the heat monitoring system. I suppose my concern is, how noticeable is the heat dissipation versus the P8Z77 PRO since that is what would be important to me? Will I get the same efficient power distribution through the Sabertooth Z77 as the P8Z77 PRO considering both overclock well?
I know I don't fit into everyone's category of everyday use, but when you game, you definitely don't want two things: Heat and High Power Consumption.
probably already given away, but in case not, i'd really love to get an Asus mobo. winning one would help me do my first ever build! i hope to do a dual boot audio production hackintosh/ windows gaming PC, that will moonlight as an HTPC as well. :D
As a video gamer, can we rest solely on the dependability and reliability of the integrated graphic performance of an ivy bridge processor or should we continue to use a dedicated graphics card for most of our gaming until the next gen Haswell architecture comes out for a more robust graphics performance?
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Traum - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
I know that Ivy Bridge will come out with the i5 and i7 lines first. But I can't afford that much power nor the OC capabilities, so I'm looking to cheap out on just the i3 version instead. When will that get released?SteveTheWalrus - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
I think i remember reading it was closer to the end of the year, November-ish.vol7ron - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but Ivy Bridge isn't supposed to be a huge performance upgrade, right? It's more a energy-savings upgrade?PewPewLasers300 - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
from what i have heard there was supposed to be a 30% increase in performance and i also heared they were getting 7 some odd ghz overclock on liquid nitrogen on these new chipsvol7ron - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
I wouldn't be surprised on the OC's.Mind you it's been a while since I've read the reviews and my memory is a little fuzzy. I just thought this was a tock cycle that had minor speed improvement (though, still an improvement), but better power efficiencies.
HilbertSpace - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Does ASUS have any plans to release something crazy, like say a cylindrical motherboard, or one that has two separate pieces? Or to put it another way, what are the current limitations faced in having a rectangular/square 2D motherboard? Would it be possible to increase memory/PCI performance with a different form factor?justaviking - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
On a related note...How about OPTICAL communication channels on the motherboard?
You could route fiber optics along any path, and they could overlap one another, similar to when circuit board manufacturers used to solder on an extra wire to two here and there.
You could also, in theory, transmit in open air - say from one interior side of a cylinder to the opposite side - without any fibers, and the signals could cross without interference. Just enclose the cylinder or cube to keep dust out, and put the chips on the outside.
Iketh - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
"Ahhhh damn, errors all over the place! Time to blow out the mobo!"vld - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Intel is working on their optical thunderbolt tech as a CMOS process. Once that gets there, optics INSIDE a computer will be more common, but only really useful as a backplane replacementalxx - Monday, April 16, 2012 - link
You mean like the fpga chips with optical interconnects ?http://www.altera.com/literature/wp/wp-01177-AV02-...
http://www.avagotech.com/pages/optical_fpga
Or optical pcie ?
http://www.avagotech.com/pages/optical_pcie_gen3/
justaviking - Monday, April 16, 2012 - link
Yes, that is similar to what I was thinking.The potential of massively increased bandwidth along with form-factor flexibility makes it very interesting to me.
ONE VISION:
Imagine, for a moment, if your motherboard could actually be 3 or 4 smaller boards. One just for the CPU, one just for memory, one just for graphics cards, and another for everything else. You could put them in separate enclosures, or in different areas of your case. Image your cooling options, etc.
ANOTHER VISION:
The other aspect is to simply replace some of the electrical tracings on a circuit board with optical signals. What might that do to the latency and power issues of your CPU-to-RAM signals?
Gary Key - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
ASUS Response -We are always looking at alternative formats. This is especially true with upcoming products as the constant integration of increasingly advanced features and performance (iGPU/CPU, WiFi/BT, etc) onto fewer and fewer chipsets will allow for some truly unique form factors in the coming years.
As to current products, our design decision on the P8Z77-I Deluxe to move the CPU socket towards the center of the board with the PWM on a riser card has resulted in some truly spectacular performance results from an m-ITX board (6.7+ CPU and DDR3-3000 Memory speeds). In addition our design decisions (socket location, traces, memory design, etc) on the micro-ATX layout of the Maximus V Gene has resulted in a board that currently outperforms anything on the market (memory, CPU, GPU), except for situations where more than two GPUs are required.
We will continue to push the boundaries in motherboard design and expect further design/layout changes with Haswell and the product release after Trinity where I firmly believe we can offer some very interesting small form factor board concepts along with high speed interconnects.
danjw - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Are you planning and when can we expect to see a Maximus V Extreme motherboard?Gary Key - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
ASUS Response -We cannot comment on unreleased products but let's just say that typically after a GENE and Formula board is released in a chipset series that an Extreme board is the next likely option. ;) Actually, depending on the chipset reception and results with the Formula board (already generating Intel chipset records for clocking and memory performance in beta form) we will gauge the need for an Extreme board to go from currently in the labs to production.
Meaker10 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
How many interesting boards can we expect from Asus that take full advantage of mSATA and mini pci-express? What form factors have they considered exploring?Will their notebooks be taking advantage of these?
Also the popularity of Asus notebooks as enthusiast machines has been dwindling due to their lack of powerful graphics options (no higher than GTX560M) is this due to their propriety MXM form factor making validation of new chips more difficult? Have they maybe considered going standard MXM and embracing the enthusiast community such as the one on notebookreview who would like to go with Asus due to their design and cooling ability.
Trefugl - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Second the mSATA question. Just had a drive installed in my work laptop... Wish I could for home laptop or HTPC.p05esto - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
What's the ideal (fastest, most useful) RAM configuration and ideal amount for these new systems? Is 16GB the sweet spot, is dual-channel the best route, what speed, etc? Take into consideration RAM availability, pricing and future expansion.Ammaross - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
And while on the RAM topic, ask why their new tech allowing them to access RAM in parallel rather than serial provides no tangible performance increase in current (Sandy Bridge CPU on a Z77 chipset) benchmarks of ASUS boards.Denithor - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Actually I would be interested in an overview of this new arrangement, a review of performance advantage (if any) and comments on whether it is something we can expect from other manufacturers or solely an ASUS technology going forward.Gary Key - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
ASUS Response -Good Questions...
1. As to the sweet spot for RAM on IVB, it totally depends on your application usage and of course budget. I highly suggest 8GB as the starting point, mainly since the cost for quality 4GBx2 kits is very inexpensive right now (at least in North America) and it allows you to run most applications or games while multitasking without real problems.
As to speed for this base selection, 1600C9 is the minimum I would go on IVB, unless of course you are benchmarking for a living then start with the 2666/2800 kits. ;)
Personally, I like running tighter CAS rates before increasing memory speeds so for the few extra dollars I would go with the 1600 C7 or 1866 C8 kits for optimal performance on a modest budget unless you can find a good deal on C9 2133.
If you are into digital content creation, 3D imaging, or heavy multitasking then the more memory the better so 16GB is my minimum and 32GB for the WS level audience, although at this point if you have the funds, SBe or BD makes more sense for the core counts and PCIe lanes. I like 16GB or 32GB and setting up a persistent RAM drive to run applications (into 3D imaging and encoding) from as the speed increase is like switching from a HD to SSD in most situations.
That said, without appearing to be a sounding board for the memory manufacturers I usually suggest 16GB at DDR3-2133 or DDR3-2400 for those that can afford it on IVB. The higher memory speeds will certainly provide improved benchmarks but in reality, we have noticed improved USB throughput (especially with Intel's USB 3 ports and to some degree our ASMedia ports) due to the RST driver design that uses memory cache, not quite as noticeable on the HD/SSD storage side. Plus, if for whatever reason you are just using the iGPU, performance increases up to ~25% have been recorded going from DDR3-1333 to DDR3-2400 in games and even benefits in Quick-Sync routines. There are also benefits in frame rates when using Lucid (depends on setup). In fact, Intel recommends 1600/1866 for iGPU systems as the base memory speed to ensure improved performance, especially with HD4000 equipped processors.
In addition, this is hard to quantify but overall system performance seems "snappier" with 16GB and some internal blind tests have proved that as well, provided the system is setup to take advantage of the extra memory. Overall, memory capacity and speed will be determined first by your budget and secondarily by your applications. Regardless of the situation, 8GB of DDR3-1600 C9 is my minimum suggestion at this point taking all things into consideration.
2. As to our T-Topology technology on the Z77 boards, this is an Intel initiative for their next generation platform. We decided to implement it now as IVB is able to take advantage of higher memory speeds and densities compared to SB. In addition, it allows us to be a generation ahead to take advantage of improvements in IVBe when it launches.
I have noticed improved memory speeds and loads with SB on our Z77 boards. Of course your mileage may vary but I am able to run 16GB of DDR3-2666 on a 2700K that otherwise was stuck at 2400 on Z68.
Ian should have a followup on T-Topology shortly and we will include some additional details in future users guides. As to the general advantages, with IVB it allows users to run larger memory densities at higher speeds than serial based setup. How Much? It is difficult to tell at this time as we have run out of BCLK headroom and memory kit speed already while the boards were still scaling (16GB at 3300+).
In addition, we have noticed improvements in memory voltages and timings at like settings (16GB, 2800+, 32GB 2400+) compared to several competing boards along with the ability to run some crazy CAS timings at high speeds (with reasonable voltages) that were not possible in the past.
Overall, this is the future of memory trace design and we have additional tuning left to complete that will extract higher levels of memory performance from this platform in several different ways. As to our competitors, T-Topology will be suggested/required in the next generation platform and we understand that two manufacturers will release new Z77 boards with this technology later this year. Of course, considering the amount of engineering work and design we put into this technology for Z77, it will be interesting to see how well it works on the clone boards.
gevorg - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Which Asus motherboards with Ivy Bridge chipsets will be good for HTPC computers that need precise BIOS controls for all connected fans, CPU undervolting, IGP HDMI output, etc.shawkie - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Along the same lines I noticed that a few of the motherboards have "Dual Intelligent Processors 3" and can apparently cut the TDP by half. Is this done in the BIOS or does it require an application? Does it require an Ivy Bridge processor? How different is it from undervolting and underclocking? Why is it not available on the ROG mini-ITX board?shawkie - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Correction: Why is it not available on the ROG mATX board (or either of the mini-ITX boards)?Gary Key - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
ASUS Response -You can certainly set different power profiles in the EFI, but the 35W/45W selection is only available through AI Suite II in the Digi+ control panel. The Maximus V Gene (ROG mATX) fully supports this function. These to Smart CPU options are like undervolting/underclocking but the Watt requirement selection is controlled automatically by the board so there is no guess work or dialing in of settings in the EFI for the user.
p05esto - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
For casual to moderate gamers on 24"+ monitors larger who appreciate good graphics (but maybe not super-high settings) is the integrated graphics at all competitive? Is it possible to get by on the integrated graphics, or is that a pipe dream and for even average performace we'll still need dedicated GPUs?Denithor - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Only if you like gaming at 800x600 on your 24" screen.LOL
Seriously, IVB may be a 50% increase over SB in the iGPU department but it's still not going to be anywhere even close to adequate for 1080p or higher gaming. 50% more than 2 fps is still slow as crap...
p3t3th3g33k - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Is Asus preparing an EATX sized motherboard for the 7-series, and if so, what will be the big advantages of them?Gary Key - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
We are not preparing an EATX board for Z77. Quite frankly, there is no real need on this chipset for this design.lbeyak - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Give me more details about the special RAM design you've come up with for your Z77 boards.What types of applications will benefit from this?
What advantages do Asus boards have (what's special about them) compared to other vendors? It seems like to me the prices for Asus boards are quite high, and I do not see the reason.
GameLifter - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
How will T-Topology affect the performance and overclocking abilities of the RAM? Will it be a significant gain over other Z77 motherboards?Caderyn - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Does ASUS have any plans to release a motherboard with a thunderbolt connector? Will such a board be released with the other Z77 boards? If not when is ASUS aiming to launch such a board?Etern205 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
There was a YT video posted by NCIX and they the Asus Z77 boards does have a thunderbolt connector expect for the WS.Gary Key - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
ASUS Response -Our Maximus Gene V, P8Z77 - V, - Pro, Deluxe and Sabertooth boards have the TB header on the board along with the P8H77-V and P8H77-M Pro boards. We will have two skus in the near future with TB built onto the board. The adapter cards for the TB header equipped boards will be available once the NDA lift occurs for this version of TB.
iGo - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Will there be Thunderbolt version of current previewed line-up of Asus board, especially boards like Sabertooth Z77 or Maximum/Gene lineup? If not alternate version, will there be an accessory like a daughter card that will enable thunderbolt interface?Also, regarding the UEFI BIOS... will the interface still focus more on mouse-driven interactions or will be fully keyboard navigable like classic BIOS?
Why there isn't a Micro ATX version of Sabertooth/TUF lineup? ROG/Maximum line-up has a pretty solid mATX offerings, why not the TUF (specially Sabertooth) version?
Gary Key - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
ASUS Response -1. The Sabertooth Z77 and GENE V have TB header ports for an adapter card that will be released at a later date. As stated above other boards in our lineup have the TB header and two future skus will have TB installed on the board.
2. Our UEFI is optimized for both mouse and keyboard interaction, in fact at times I like the keyboard better but then again I am old. ;)
3. Our Sabertooth team is constantly looking at the micro-ATX segment and we have some ideas on how to best design a TUF board for that sector. However, based upon current selling trends it is difficult to justify several unique micro-ATX boards within the product lineup. Of course we are always listening to our customers, media, and resellers so if enough "buzz" starts occurring I am sure we could respond rather quickly. :)
4. That said, with the power of upcoming processors and further chipset integration it is certainly a market that we believe will start growing at rapid rate, finally. As such I would not be surprised if you see a TUF product in the smaller form factors in the not too distant future.
danjw - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Are any of your Z77 motherboards going to feature Thunderbolt?Concillian - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
The Z75 and Z77 are very similar chipsets. The additional features of the Z77 seem to only be Intel SRT and support for more than 2 video cards in Crossfire or SLI.What was the primary driving factor in the decision to choose the Z77 for most of the ASUS lineup rather than splitting the lineup between the Z75 and Z77?
-----
Also, neither the Z75 nor Z77 chipsets provide PCI support, yet most motherboards seem to have PCI slots on them. Can you discuss what adding PCI slots entails in terms of additional hardware, cost and power consumption?
Ytterbium - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
When can we expect to see SATA Express or other high speed interface?casteve - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Any plans for something similar to Intel's DH61AG (or Dq77KB) that's more tuned for HTPC setups? CIR header, gets rid of the ATX PSU in favor of DC in from a laptop style AC-DC brick...hybrid2d4x4 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
From your lineup, it looks like there are more mATX and mITX boards going forward. There's a fairly small but growing niche of HTPC builders that would like to see mITX boards come with DC-DC circuitry to use with an external power brick rather than having the standard 24-pin + 4/8-pin connectors. It makes little sense to be using full ATX PSUs with a platform that will pull only 20W most of the time and peak around 60-80W, not to mention that the PSU itself can occupy 2/3rds of the volume of such a build. Intel and Zotac have released a few boards with DC input on the back of the board, does Asus plan to release any such mITX boards in the future?casteve - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
I'd like to see a discussion on best ways to deal with the idle power hit we take when using 2 monitors and a discrete gaming card. Impact of using Virtu MVP modes, etc...dmarkham421 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Digi+ VRM is marketed as improving system stability especially when overclocking. Your higher-end motherboards have more Digi+ VRM phases. For a system that will be overclocked 24/7, is there a minimum number of phases you would recommend for a stable overclocked system?HaydenOscar - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
I'm a lover of mITX gaming machines... But the current line up up mITX boards have the socket right next to the PCIe slot, which makes it hard to buy a heatsink that won't hit the graphics card.The Asus Z77-I Deluxe has been shown off and it has the chipset in between the socket and the PCIe slot, which is good. But will other mITX boards be like this, or will I be forced to buy the top of the range mITX board just so I can use my PCIe slot with an aftermarket cooler?
LStoops - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
I agree. Asus makes excellent equipment but often there's no way to get that quality in a more affordable motherboard. Is there any plan to offer Asus quality in products with fewer features and less price?Gary Key - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
ASUS Response -Our current micro-ITX lineup for Z77 only consists of the P877-I Deluxe. While the board has numerous features usually reserved for our Deluxe ATX board, the pricing on it will be competitive for the feature set. At this time we do not plan on another micro-ITX design at launch but we are investigating a Pro version of the board depending upon the success of the Deluxe.
ImSpartacus - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
What kind of microATX motherboards will be offered by ASUS and how will they be different from similarly priced ATX motherboards from ASUS?dmarkham421 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Some early rumors indicate that Ivy Bridge processors run hotter and have less headroom for overclocks compared to Sandy Bridge, with the exception of using LN2. In your experience, how overclockable is Ivy Bridge compared Sandy Bridge.Gary Key - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
ASUS Response -1. If you are using a high quality air cooler or a self contained water cooler like the Corsair H100 or Antec 920, the current ES E1 stepping (retail release) is hitting 4.6~4.9GHz on average. This is at 1.325~1.35V (CPU VID) and that is the recommended maximum voltage with this type of cooling. We are basing this on using a program like Prime 95 or Linpack for stress testing, although I actually recommend not using either in this situation for very long due to temperature loads (easily see 95C~102C) and to be honest these programs do not provide a true measure of system stability.
With a multitask benchmark that still loads all cores but also performs heavy stress testing on the memory, storage and GPU subsystems we are seeing a 4.8GHz average with a couple of processors hitting 5GHz at 1.325V for CPU VID. In gaming, hitting 4.8~5GHz on average with CPU VID around 1.3V, although raising VID for additional core clock speeds still places us around 5.1GHz on average before hitting the temperature wall.
2. As with Sandy Bridge, we expect the retail stepping to clock slightly better than the ES samples but as always your mileage will vary. However, based on current SB 2500K~2700K processors averaging 5~5.2GHz with several lots hitting 5.4GHz or even higher with the gems, IVB will take a slight step backwards for the air/water cooling crowd. Hopefully this improves over time as the process matures but right now expect 4.8GHz or so at launch for an average processor and fingers crossed the better retail processors will hit 5Ghz with like settings.
3. For the phase/ln2 crowd, IVB will be a dream come true again on the Intel side with benchable processors hitting 6.4~7GHz depending on the benchmark utilized.
repoman27 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Asus has been a leader in offering UASP drivers, but determining whether a controller/device combination can take advantage of this mode is still a bit murky. Is there a matrix for determining which combinations of host controllers and device silicon are UASP capable?What factors determine which transfer mode is selected under USB 3.0 Boost?
How much of an advantage does USB 3.0 Boost really provide with popular storage devices, and how much longer is it before we can expect native Windows support for UASP?
repoman27 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Also, integrated USB 3.0 is a major feature of Panther Point, however many Ivy Bridge platforms will also include additional USB 3.0 hub and third-party host controller chips to offer more than 4 SuperSpeed ports. How much of a performance difference are we going to see depending on which port we plug a device into?Exodite - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
This.Consider my vote going towards more information regarding USB Boost and UASP especially.
ClockHound - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
+1 for USB Boost and UASP - and will it offer latency improvements for multi-channel USB audio interfaces while requiring lower CPU usage?unrulycow - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Do any of the ASUS boards support Coreboot BIOS?Gary Key - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
ASUS Response -None of the ASUS Z77 boards support Coreboot, but then again the chipset is not supported by Coreboot either. In fact, if memory serves me the last Intel chipset fully supported was the 945 or E72525.
landerf - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
I want to know if their parallel memory reading will be on all their boards, from deluxe to mini itx, or just a few top end boards?realjetavenger - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
On a related note, can they go into more detail on how they are able to achieve this (memory read in parallel)? And how much more performance can be expected from this? With the parallel memory read, can you use slower rated memory (which would be less expensive - not that the price of memory would be a big concern if going with IB) using lower voltage while still having more performance over consecutive memory read?"If you happen to purchase ASUS for Ivy Bridge, there is also a little treat in store, as they have reworked the memory sub-system. Their new method stunned Intel engineers, but should provide distinct memory speed advantages. Simply put, instead of memory banks being read consecutively, the memory is read in parallel. We are awaiting more detail regarding how this feature works."
milo62 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Will there be a C216-based replacement for the P8B WS, or was that a one-time experiment?pegounet - Sunday, April 22, 2012 - link
It seems so: Have a look to: http://serversdirect.com/product.asp?pf_id=MB1378"ASUS P8C WS C216, Ivy Bridge, PCIe G3, USB3.0 / SATA 6G server motherboard "
kaz2020 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
If the sabertooth is all about high end protections and such why does it have the lowest number of power phases out of their higher end boards?Does this mean more phases can be less stable/reliable?
flensr - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
What is ASUS doing to help mainstream advanced features? Specifically, can ASUS include features such as thunderbolt, additional USB 3.0 ports, and mSATA ports on mainstream non-enthusiast boards in order to speed adoption of these technologies?A related question is if ASUS will be able to push quality components such as intel NICs, high quality wifi, and higher quality sound chips down to mainstream boards. The technology has evolved and there are already some clear winners, so why do today's mobos still hang on to older "junk" technology like USB 2.0? Like ditching the floppy drive interface, USB 2.0 ought to be a secondary consideration with may be 2 ports total on the mobo. With intel's SSD caching technology and cheap mSATA drives now available, an mSATA port is really attractive even on the lower end for a huge boost in system responsiveness. And thunderbolt... It's here and it's good, so let's jump on the bandwagon and put it on every board already. You can take away the ps2 port and serial port header if you need room...
Iketh - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
UGH, let the SSD caching die peacefully pleasekwrzesien - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
This.Put thunderbolt on everything. Why do desktops have to wait for things all laptops are getting?
And yes, we don't need many USB 2.0 ports if there are 6+ USB 3.0 ports. Just make sure that there are 2 USB 3.0 and 2-4 USB 2.0 headers on the motherboard for cases and internal uses.
But keep the TWO PS/2 ports on the higher-end boards (at least some ATX models) because they work with millions of KVM's already in use. Not for personal machines, but for labs and racks built for workstations and small servers.
KoolAidMan1 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
When using the Thunderbolt connector on the motherboard to a monitor, does it output video from the IGP or from the GPU in the PCI-E slot?Thanks!
larssg - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
+1 - I have an Apple Thunderbolt Display which only supports Thunderbolt (not Display port). Thunderbolt output of video from e.g. a GTX 680 would be a killer featureGary Key - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
ASUS Response -I cannot comment on the specifics of how the TB header, TB on-board, and Adapter cards will work until the Intel NDA lift date. Sorry, but any discussion about hardware configurations, chipset, performance and cost are under NDA at the moment.
GTaudiophile - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Reading the previous four pages, there seems to be a common thread of wanting higher-quality, newer tech in smaller form factors for HTPC use, etc. We want our Audi A3, BMW 1-series, etc. I can only agree. I want my future builds to be smaller, quieter, and cooler without taking a hit on performance.This Guy - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Hello Anand,I am interested to know what the power rating's are for different supplier's CPU socket's used on 7 series motherboards. Will there be anyway to find out if a motherboard uses a socket optimised for a 77W processor, a 125W processor or an overclocked processor. Which ratings will Asus use on their 7 series motherboards.
Are Asus considering building an Ivy Bridge quad core tablet taking advantage of Intel's configurable TDP?
Cheers,
This Guy
awktane - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
I was surprised to see only a matx maximus gene board. I'm assuming there are plans to create a full sized beast as well? What made ASUS decide on just releasing an matx board out of the gate?Conficio - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
Dear Asus,you have been known for quality stable motherboards for years.
Is there hope that ASUS does produce a quality Laptop that caters to mainstream (business) users and is affordable. With that I mean:
* High res screen 1600x900 or 1920x1080 in 14" or 15" or 15.6" - no gloss - good viewing angles (color accuracy is only second priority)
* Solid chassis, no flex in the keyboard, incl. a solid hinge that does not fall apart (or get loose) after 2 years and opens wide enough
* Solid keyboard with full size keys, no 10 block and a dedicated trackpad with dedicated buttons
* No gloss plastic
* i3 or low end i5
* No dedicated graphics (we are mainstream not gamers or 3D enthusiasts, it's wasted money)
* 3 USB ports, (ideally one usb2, two usb3)
* Cooling that does work, is easy to clean and not clog up after a couple of years
* Middle of the road battery life
* Good Wifi reception and bluetooth (for wireless mouse)
* mSata SSD and a hard drive bay
* ~$800 (with 128 GB SSD and 500GB disk and 4 GB)
I bet there is a huge market for laptops that are solid in construction and spend the money on the two things that matter for the user experience of a web-surf/business person
* Screen quality (and ergonomics)
* Keyboard/Chassis (ergonomics) and trackpad
Processors and dedicated graphics deliver today more than most people need. However the screens and chassis flex and overall durability of most laptop products lack enormously.
Note, I'm not going for max portability (low weight) or small form factor. All that can be optimized for cost. This is for a customer that uses the laptop mostly at home but wants to have the option to sit on a couch or on the porch. Or it is for people that move the laptop from and to the office. However there is no need for all the expensive business features like finger print reader and manageability, etc.
If Apple can deliver a Mac Air for ~$1,000 then a larger less costly chassis should be possible for a lower price point. If need be, build the solid construction and offer the option to upgrade to a better screen for $75 or $100.
Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
+1 to this question. Let's see more laptops available in retail channels with 1600x900 screens at 14.0" or 15.6".albiglan - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
amen! Also... "No DVD drive... give me the option to use this space for an HDD or SSD" If I want a drive, I can get a USB cable.Battery life of 4-5 hours would be great but 3-4 is fine (covers 85% of all meetings, plus 85% of all plane trips) Gimme an option to "hot swap" a spare battery if I need another few hours
I wouldn't sacrifice on the panel tho... color and brightness needs to be "decent enough to make sure marketing materials look okay"
FPS should be able to handle BOTH minesweeper and Solitare...
100% the business laptop I'd buy (up to $1000 with Windows/Office installed)
Quantumbytes - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
I'm excited about the Ivy craze coming but what about the enthusiasts? Are we put on the back burner again, our reward for buying the best of the best, or will we see some expensive extreme things to come at the start of the Ivy launch?Jorgisven - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
With processors like Ivy Bridge becoming more power-optimized and able to do more with less, it would seem there would be an inclination to reduce power phase design on the motherboard end, as "sufficient" overclocking could be had with less overhead. However, with the iGPU on both Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge, this could be a counterweight.What does ASUS have to say about this, and how have improvements in transistor technology been played in new designs?
Etern205 - Thursday, April 12, 2012 - link
If the thermal armor is so special, why does none of other platforms (AMD and intel X79) doesn't have it?If the thermal armor is removed, will the vital parts of the board get really hot as compared to a Deluxe which has a permanent heatsink along with heat pipe?
Why does the Tuf seems to lack a lot in features compare to the Deluxe such as a clear cmos switch, diagnostic code LEDS, and onboard reset and power switch?
If the CMOS battery has to be changed or you need to remove it for troubleshooting reasons, then I expect you have to remove the thermal armor to just to access it. Why can't you guys build a sliding cover where the CMOS battery is so it save us a lot of time and make it more convenient? It's like trying to replace a HDD on a laptop where you can't just open a simple cover and you have to like take the whole thing apart just to do so.
Shadowized - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
why cant Ivy Bridge do dual 16x Crossfire / SLI when the previous generation could? there are literally no noticeable improvements over Z68 aside from native USB3.Etern205 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Socket 1156 doesn't go CFX or SLI at x16/x16 it's still x8/x8Only the high end gets x16/x16 like 1366 and 2011.
There are x16/x16 on 1155, but they have a Nvidia NF200 chip that provides additional PCIe lanes.
repoman27 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
And Ivy does PCIe 3.0 x8/x8 which is more or less the equivalent of 2.0 x16/x16 if you're using PCIe 3.0 cards.Arbie - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
I will be buying an Asus Z77 board, mostly because my experience with Asus has been very good, and also because they are miles ahead in fan controls. I'd like to hear about how many and what type of fan headers there are; and how the BIOS uses them. For example, where are temperatures sensed, what fan speed vs temperature settings are available, and is there any provision for "Optional" sensors (RTDs). Also, what Windows monitoring / adjustment software will be included?
Do the top one or two models differ in this regard?
I'd also like to know about board idle power, and how the top one or two models differ.
Rick83 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Actually, I was not happy with the fan controls on my Maximus 4 Gene Z.The included software has only two adressable channels, and makes the PWM only directly dependant from the CPU-temperature.
I can't tell if thatäs the software being at fault (for the latter, it probably is) or the actual chip used.
I'd certainly like to know if fan controls will evolve, two a multichannel setup, and with more flexible software, which allows basing rpm on GPU or HDD temperature or at least case temperature.
Iketh - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
The reason it seems the PWM is in line with CPU temp is because their "mobo" temp is the VRM blocks, which of course heats almost proportionally to the cpu... dumb as hell from the user's perspective I know, but they did this to reduce the number of warranty claims because too many people are leaving their case fans too low with 1.3+ volt overclocks... (they also now have the case fan minimum allowed duty cycle at 60% in bios, 40% in software)Ive been buying asus mobos for years and this mobo is the first ive seen operate like this, so my question is do they have a better alternative for this problem in the works? Improved vrm heatsink designs or even active cooling?
And yes, please allow 2+ channels for controlling the case fans. I like setting my intakes at a higher rpm than exhaust to ensure all air entering the case passes through filters...
primonatron - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Interested in hearing more about the new tech to read RAM faster.Also why do they still use extra USB 3.0 controllers when IVY Bridge includes them now? No-one needs more than 4 USB 3.0 ports.
kwrzesien - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
depends how many are on the back and how many are internal headers.gramboh - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
I have 3 questions about the P8PZ77-V Pro::1) Using FanXpert 2, can you control the speed of non-PWM fans plugged into the motherboard fan headers using the 3-wire type connectors?
2) Do all 6 fan headers support controlling fan speeds in FanXpert?
3) Since the Pro model board does not have an eSATA port on the rear I/O (disappointed by this in a $235 board), is a riser card included?
Thanks
Hrel - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Will any of these motherboards support greater than 2TB in RAID 0 with Intel RST?Will we finally see more USB 3.0 port? Specifically USB 3.0 headers on the motherboard.
My intention is to have 2 3TB hard drives in RAID 0. Install the OS on a 150GB partition and accelerate that with Intel RST. Then have 2 additional partitions for storage of files; totally 6TB. Then I'll need a USB 3.0 header for the USB 3.0 port of the front of the case as well as another header for the USB 3.0 memory card reader.
On Z68 Micro ATX I can't find a motherboard that has any USB 3.0 headers inside, had to get an add in card, and the RAID controller is limited to two RAID stripes so I can't configure the hard drives the way I want either.
Iketh - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
asus maximus 4 gene-z/gen3 is a z68 matx with a usb3 header on the boardkwrzesien - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
If you are going to have a 150GB partition for C: you might as well get a 160GB SSD and be done with it - much faster reads, no noise, more reliable and will allow the RAID drives to go to sleep. (The OS never lets the C: drive idle enough to sleep)OVerLoRDI - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
It would be really nifty to offer the Sabertooth series with different color options. Make the PCB and all connectors on it black and allow customers to purchase different colored "armors" or "skins".I would love to have a solid black board with red "armor". That options could really make that motherboard THE board to get for modders.
f4phantom2500 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
what i would LOVE to see from intel is a k-series, dual core ivy bridge chip with hyper threading! really, considering that the dual core non-HT sandy bridge chips give amd's entire quad core lineup a run for their money, a dual core HT ivy bridge with an unlocked multi would be godly. i really and truly wouldn't need the additional cores at that point; honestly i'd prefer the power savings of a dual core, because i live in texas and it already gets hot as FUCK in my room.kwrzesien - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
+1kwrzesien - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
perfect HTPC chip too - run undervolted 24/7, reboot to overclocked for video crunching marathons (about the only thing I really need my i7 920 3.6 GHz for anyway).JackM - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
More details on the new Workstation motherboard lineup would be nice.Will the Z77 work as well with Xeon CPUs like the C2xx chipsets do?
What about ECC RAM support? The website of the P8Z77 WS does not mention anything about ECC RAM, does it support ECC?
One of the critiques on ASUS' motherboards is that it's very hard to tell if ECC is enabled or not, will there be any clearer indication (something like a line in the BIOS telling the ECC status) ?
If Z77 does not support ECC, will ASUS create another WS motherboard based upon C2xx ?
kwrzesien - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
This is a sure way they can separate themselves from all the other board vendors - and take a bite out of SuperMicro.Many customers want Workstations with ECC memory (16/32 GB) and a fast i7 for number crunching - but need the ECC support and a quality (Intel) NIC.
pegounet - Sunday, April 22, 2012 - link
It seems so: Have a look to: http://serversdirect.com/product.asp?pf_id=MB1378"ASUS P8C WS C216, Ivy Bridge, PCIe G3, USB3.0 / SATA 6G server motherboard "
Ngeo - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
In the previous comments I've seen a few talking about thunderbolt. Intel is about to ship the second generation controller (cactus?).When will it be available on your motherboard?
Only Z77 or it will it be available on H77?
Will it use copper wires only, or can we hope fiber optics cable to remove the 10ft/3m limit?
The Z77 has igp, will we be able to connect to a thunderbolt screen? The question has been asked before, but is there a way to use external GPU?
What would be the overtcost of thunderbolt availability?
I have also questions on reliability:
I suppose all asus cards are reliable, but is there a serie which is clearly designed to be the more reliable/stable board? (Performance is not my first criteria)
Does overclocking reduce stability?
JackM - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
the WS range of boards are meant for Workstations and are normally built with focus on reliability and stability.anevmann - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
In Ians motherboard preview there was this qoute:"If you happen to purchase ASUS for Ivy Bridge, there is also a little treat in store, as they have reworked the memory sub-system. Their new method stunned Intel engineers, but should provide distinct memory speed advantages. Simply put, instead of memory banks being read consecutively, the memory is read in parallel. We are awaiting more detail regarding how this feature works."
Why didnt intels engineers think of this and how difficult was it to achieve this? Also how much of an improvement should this give?
hrrmph - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
When will we see Asus provide all-USB 3.0 implementations on the desktop and laptop?LAPTOP
When I go on the road for a month or more at a time, I take a laptop and industrial hubs that give me 8 x USB 3.0 ports.
Of those 8 USB 3.0 ports, I currently use 6 of them for USB 3.0 devices. Two ports are for very large Patriot thumbdrives (primary data) and four are for Seagate HDDs (nearline data and automated backups).
This essentially lets me more or less replicate my desktop setup on the road. I use USB 3.0 to get SATA-ish performance and redundancy, along with time-machine like retrieval of previous versions of files.
8 ports USB 3.0 on a laptop would be a nice number to have to future-proof things for an enthusiast.
At least until 8 ports of Thunderbolt is widespread ;)
DESKTOP
12 ports USB 3.0 would be a minimum (at least 4 ports for out on the front panel and 8 ports in the back).
I often use my machines for a decade and the thought of buying a motherboard in 2012 that has USB 2.0 ports still leftover from April 2000 gives me grief.
I remember the bad old days of boards with mixed set-ups of USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 ports. Let me just reach around here and put this cable in... the wrong port.
THE BLAME GAME
I realize that this is likely Intel's fault, but it would be great if Asus can help out by adding on enough third-party controllers to go with the meager 4 ports native USB 3.0 that Intel is rationing out.
In other words, can Asus help kill off the moldy standard known as USB 2.0?
This is literally the only thing that held me back from rushing out and getting the Asus Z9PE-D8-WS.
SATA 3.0Gbs - THE AFTER THOUGHT
Ohh... might as well take the axe to the SATA 3.0Gbs ports as well.
In spite of wishing good riddance for those SATA 3.0Gbs ports, I must admit that I am more willing to install an add-on drive controller card to get more SATA 6.0Gbs if absolutely necessary. But it would be better if we didn't need to resort to that.
CONCLUSION
In these tough times, it's a lot easier to justify buying hardware when you know that your investment has this decade's technology in it - not last decade's.
No disrespect to integrators like Asus. I do fully understand that the source of this problem was Intel.
But, since the problem exists both for enthusiasts (lack of supply) and for Asus (reduced enthusiasm for products means reduced sales demand), I have to ask: Can you please kill off USB 2.0?
ASAP, please. No mercy.
If you swing hard enough, you might lop off the head of SATA 3.0Gps, too. I don't think anyone will really shed a tear. Their time has passed.
I predict that enthusiasts would be very grateful for your efforts. Some would probably even open up their long closed wallets.
-
kenthaman - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Will ASUS be manufacturing any Dual Socket Ivy boards? If so, is there an ETA? I've read that some mfgs will eventually release these, but it looked like they will be for the Xeon counterparts. Any chance we might see a board for use with 2x i5/i7 chips?kwrzesien - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
I think you need a Xeon CPU for dual-socket, the consumer versions have the second (QPI?) connection disabled.Besides - if you need more cores go Sandy Bridge-E until IB-E comes out. Windows runs better on a single CPU due to L2/L3 caching.
StevoLincolnite - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Asus makes allot of products for enthusiasts.However, nobody makes products with white PCB's. I want a white motherboard, graphics card, sound card, the works to match with my White case, LEDS, Fans etc.
Sapphire did release a white motherboard years ago, but it pretty much ended there.
Some more colour options for us enthusiasts would be nice.
Or another option is to use the full-motherboard armour found on the Asus Sabertooth P67 but release the armour in different colour variations, that is something I would be willing to buy with a small price premium.
Enthusiasts like to dress up their cases in all sorts of colours, just unfortunately most of the market seems to be fixated on Black, Reds and Blues.
Is any such thing possible or even on the table?
Cheers.
Moden - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Are there any plans for MATX boards with more than six internal SATA ports? Given the new smaller cases and the HTPC market having eight ports can be useful allowing one for the ODD, one for a front eSATA connection, one for SSD boot drive, and five for data drives.I am currently using a Lian-Li MATX case that has support for this many drives with a hot swap backplane and would like to migrate my Sandy Bridge cpu to it when I upgrade my main machine to Ivy Bridge with a new ASUS Z77 motherboard. I am a huge fan of the ASUS UEFI bios replacement and currently have the P8P67 Deluxe SB board in my main rig.
I'd also like to know if there are plans to update the bios to on the P8P67 boards to support Ivy Bridge.
Iketh - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Asus, can we get a mobo that allows us to select which cores to disable in the cpu? Is this even possible? My 2600K's core 0 is the runt of the chip, but because it's core 0, it's impossible to turn it off with the current feature design.Achieving this would give you a huge +1 from enthusiasts.
BVKnight - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
In some Z68 boards, there wasn't enough PCIe bandwidth to power all of the PCIe slots and ports on the board simultaneously. If you plugged something into one of the last ports on the board, it disabled other features. Some boards included a PLX chip to counteract this.On Z77 and Z75, is there more bandwidth in the chipset to prevent this from happening? Will all Z77 boards be able to fully power all their card slots and ports, without the end-user having to cherry-pick what they want to use? Or do we have to look for another board with a PLX chip?
weewoo87 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
1) What does it really have to offer over Z68?2) What is your (Anand) favorite feature of the ASUS line of Z77 boards that sets them apart?
videogames101 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Are we going to have dual PCI-E 3.0 16x lanes available, or are we again relegated to 8x/8x for dual-gpu (and greater) configurations?CrispySilicon - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Details on the two features above please! Formula board really looks like one I can sink my teeth into so to speak.ncrubyguy - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
ASUS has consistently enabled ECC on pretty much all of their AMD boards (not just "workstation" and "server" boards). That's a big factor in my continued loyalty. Why not do the same on Intel boards?(Also, how do we know which boards support things like ECC and VT-d/IOMMU? Is there a list somewhere?)
JackM - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Yes there is, it's called Intel's ARKhttp://ark.intel.com/
The reason ASUS enables ECC for AMD and not for Intel is because AMD enables ECC memory support in (almost) all their CPUs to work with just about any chipset, while Intel limits ECC to Xeon CPUs in combination with certain chipsets (X59 / X79 or the Xeon-specific C2xx / C6xx chipsets).
Compare the Core i7 2600K (http://ark.intel.com/products/52214) with the Xeon E3 1275
(http://ark.intel.com/products/52277). Same speed, same cache, but difference in the little details, such as ECC support.
ncrubyguy - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
The requested list was for motherboards. ARK is for chips. I was hoping the IMC would open up ECC as a possibility for Intel the way it did for AMD. But why give away built-in functionality when you can charge extra for it?obsidian009 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
What improvements have been made to onboard sound with the new Asus motherboards?obsidian009 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Will Thunderbolt work with Asus Z77 motherboards and when do you expect it to be available?azjeep81 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Does Asus Plan to release something similar to the Gene IV for Ivy Bridge?I just purchased a Gene IV 2 months ago and it is simply amazing.
I love the SFF trend that is going on and I would love to see them continue that trend to IB.
blandge - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Desktop chips are becoming more SoC-like with the integration of the north bridge into the CPU die. Do you expect the PCH to be integrated on die, if so, when? In addition, how do you see this move towards SoCs in the desktop space effecting OEM motherboard design and customization?SalientKing - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
All Z77 boards are going to perform pretty much the same. What makes ASUS boards worth buying over other manufacturers which sell at lower price point, like ASrock?MeanBruce - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Why the big mystery over the availability of the Maximus 5 Extreme and Thunderbolt connectivity? Can we at least have release dates so we can plan out builds accordingly?secretanchitman - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
will any ivy bridge motherboard support dolby digital live and/or dts connect? it was a great feature on my p5w dh deluxe - i havent seen it on a high end motherboard since the 965x/lga 775 days!ReverendDC - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
What will be the major differences between the two chipsets? Could you provide a side-by-side chart or something of that nature?vlado08 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
If z77 is officially released is it possible to test it with sandy bridge processor?Xtrafresh - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
I am a huge fan of the Gene-series of boards. Still the favorite motherboard i ever owned is the DFI Lanparty JR P45, back when they were the only one that offered enthousiast-grade mATX boards. Asus have since taken over that mantle, and each generation we see more attention go to the Gene versions of the spectrum, to the point where ASUS is actually letting the Max 5 Gene lead out at the top end (next to the Sabretooth).What is the philosophy behind this continued support for enthousiast-grade mATX offerings, while the competition seems to be completely ignoring the niche? (Gigabyte seems to be noticing the succes of the Gene finally, and bring the M-sniper, but it's not featured near as well as the Gene).
What are your ideas going forward? Can we expect ROG ITX boards at some point?
hpascoa - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
It seems like most of the time anyone mentions Micro-ATX or Mini-ITX motherboards, it's in the context of HTPCs. Which makes some sense since those form factors are a great fit for an HTPC where you want something that is small, draws little power and is relatively inexpensive. Take an H67 mobo, slap an i3 processor on it with built-in graphics, a 1 or 2 TB HDD to hold lots of recorded media, install Windows Media Center or XBMC and you got yourself a nice little media center that will never draw more than 65W or so of power.The remaining time anyone mentions those form factors, is regarding the opposite end of the spectrum where you have motherboards like the MAXIMUS series that offer all the performance bells and whistles such as SLI/Crossfire support on a Micro-ATX form factor, and are geared towards gamers that want a machine small enough to carry to LAN parties.
Something you rarely see mentioned is the NAS / Home Server market, where those form factors also make a lot of sense. Nobody wants a huge behemoth sitting on their desk serving media or backing up the computers on their home network. However the needs of this segment are fairly different from the HTPC and gaming markets.
One of the main concerns on a NAS is room for expanding storage capacity. You may start with 4 HDDs on your NAS but you would like to have room to add more HDDs in the future as your storage needs increase. Some case manufacturers seem to have noticed this segment of the market and have come out with cases such as the Lian-Li PC-V354 or the Fractal Design R2 that offer 11 and 7 bays on a Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX form factor, respectively. However, try as you might, you won't easily find any motherboards on these form factors that offer more than 6 SATA connectors.
So I guess my question to Asus is if they have considered the home NAS market and if they have any plans for launching any H77 Micro-ATX motherboards with 8 or more SATA connectors geared for this segment.
Nathanael - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Second this. Would like to see more SATA connections available. Current NAS is maxed out for SATA connections.johnpombrio - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
The WiFi Go! module was shown with several options, including an WiFi/SSD plugin module. Will these different modules so on sale individually? Could I buy a WiFi/SSD module by itself?mbf - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
As thrilled as I am by consumer IBs and the Z77 chipset, what I'd really like to know is when we will see something based around the C216 chipset (or whatever the high-end Xeon E3 chipset will be called).Ideally I'd love to see something like the P8Z77 WS, but with ECC support. I'd buy that in a heartbeat.
mbf - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Oh, and I forgot. An mATX version of a workstation board (again, supporting ECC) would be _really_ neat!jasonw223 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
I'm a system builder, and do a fair number of high-end builds, and find that color is honestly a big selling point of motherboards. In a nice Red / Black themed system the ROG boards are absolutely perfect, but I find customers sometimes will opt for a worse Green / Blue / Black etc. board just to make it match with their system. Do you have any plans to change the colors up on any Z77 or future ROG boards?Rictorhell - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Will any of your new Ivy Bridge motherboards offer native support for thunderbolt peripherals and accessories?Are you currently working on any Windows 8 tablets similiar in form and function to the "yoga" design that has been previously shown?
Are you developing any Windows 8 tablets based on ARM, or are they solely based on the X86 architecture?
just4U - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
It's so frustrating to see only 2 SATA 6GB/s on intel based boards.. even the higher end ones. When can we expect to see more like what AMD currently does and has for sometime.just4U - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Asus offers it's ROG series which comes with SB emulated sound software, higher end Intel ethernet and utilities like CPUZ rog variants and what not. I've noticed that Gigabyte decided to go into that as well but they sort of one upped you guys with their G1 Series. Any plans to counter that? I think there is a market for it. Plus is so frustrating to see generic chips on high end boards. Your allready forking out a premium so you kinda want it all you know?AssBall - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Does ASUS plan to continue the Sabertooth and R.O.G. series boards into the Ivy bridge lineup?GullLars - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
My question/topic for the live Q&A:Are there any changes or new features to the southbridge, and if so, what are they?
I'm specifically interrested in USB 3, thunderbolt, how many SATA 6Gbps ports, and total bandwidth avalible over SATA (RAID and JBOD accumulative).
jasonmccaffrey - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Is ASUS going to release any 7-Series motherboards with thunderbolt. I would definitely be interested in a micro-atx z77 board with thunderbolt or an x79 micro-atx with thunderbolt.pepperoni - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
I would like to better understand why switchable graphics is handled differently on mobile and desktop platforms. Nvidia Optimus is a mature technology that has been around for years. AMD has something similar. The hardware and software work fine on notebooks but for some reason desktops require a clunky Lucid Virtu chip with additional layers of software. Why is it so complicated?Quantumbytes - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
People love pretty and pretty sells.Are there any plans to not only just apply nice color schemes to the motherboards but maybe go a step beyond and give the people a way to create their own color schemes?
Eg. Slap some translucent platic parts on the MBs and have a multi LED light them up to whatever color we want. Maybe even some pulse options for cool effect.
Eg2. Several heatsink color caps come with the motherboard.
Cheers.
rimsha - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Everything changed after the ASUS Transformer Pad 300 began to appear in the price of different retailers.theNiZer - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Hi Anand,as stated above, will I get anything out of using the Z77 chipset's Rapid Storage Technology when I have a new (Samsung 830 256gb class) SSD for my OS and primary games?
I know I can buy an small caching SSD in combination with the Rapid Storage Technology and I can then speed up the files I load from my large 2 TB storage hdd - but that isn't worth while when I already own a fairly large primary SSD, right? I mean, my OS and games are there, not much won by speeding up the photo album :)
Best
Casper
theNiZer - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
Correction: instead of " Rapid Storage Technology " I meant Smart Response Technology (SRT), sorry!Side question: can I use a part of my primary ssd to do the ssd caching or must I buy an intel 313 ssd to make the SRT work?
Best
Casper
buhusky - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
None of their desktop boards support the ATA user password (also known as the drive password) for SSD encryption. I can't imagine it's TOO hard to implement (most notebooks I've seen have the option), so why no desktop support? I like my desktop data protected as well as my laptop data, thank you very much!Nathanael - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Tom's Hardware did an interesting interview with Intel's power design engineers last year (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hawthorn-farm-... in which the Intel engineers openly mocked the idea that a high number of phases is required for a stable (even overclocked) motherboard. Their statements indicated that 6 or 8 was good enough even OC if you designed it right.Some of their testing methodology when examining high phase count boards (from other manufacturers) included using FLIR to examine heat distribution on the boards and look for hotspots created. Their analysis found most high phase count PWM designs resulted in significant hotspots, lack of power where needed, etc.
How does Asus approach power phase requirements engineering and what sort of testing is done along the way?
Also, separate question regarding memory slots and support. I am a gamer, but also a systems engineer. I don't like having to build separate "gaming" and "workstation" machines when most of the components would be similar. I'm currently running 24 GB of RAM (in a Rampage III Extreme), but can't really go any higher with this board (and would like to for some of the non-gaming work I do at home).
In comments on the support for quad-channel memory controllers, most focused on the fact that 4 DIMMs versus 6 would be an improvement in reducing board crowding. I found myself hoping for 8 slots however. What are the chances that Asus will be introducing quad-channel solutions with 8 (or even 12) slots in the future?
Jorgisven - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
See ASUS P9X79 Deluxe with 8 slots. Ivy Bridge does not currently support quad channel, however Sandy Bridge-E does. This is CPU bound, not motherboard bound at this point, due to the CPU-integrated memory controller. If you're actually utilizing that much memory, you may benefit from the updated high-end platforms. Otherwise, wait until early next year for Ivy Bridge-E. Ivy Bridge is aimed at consumer level and the lower part of "Premium Performance" per Intel's roadmap.Hybris21 - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
Any info on ROG's Z77 lineup, particularly the Maximus V Extreme would be awesome.zebibyte - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
Will ASUS ever offer a motherboard layout that puts the two 8x capable slots further from each other? Is there a technical reason we can't have 3 open slots between SLI/Xfire cards? This would really help keep the "crowded" GPU from running so hot compared to the GPU furthest from the CPU.DEFLORATOR - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
Please explain PCI-Ex1 lanes configuration on Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe board. The board has 4 PCI-Ex1 slots. Do PCI-E lanes come via PLX chip or directly from Z77 chipset to these slots? For example, I want to install a sound card on P8Z77-V Deluxe, and of course I'd like that the card is fed with PCI-E lane directly from chipset, not via PLX chip (due to latency, compatibility, etc). Unfortunately, Asus manual doesn't explain this (unlike Gigabyte).ashrafi - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
Asus is innovative ! If Asus motherboard has a dedicated USB port ( something like their Asus Rog connect usb port) for USB boot.Whatever connected to this port would be set as Default boot without changing the UEFI setting and jamming f12 for boot order. I think it simple , very marketable and Convenient for users.
unrulycow - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
Does UASP require OS drivers, or is it solely in hardware. If drivers are required, are they available for linux?DarkRogue - Monday, April 16, 2012 - link
The question I would like to pose to ASUS is..How do they expect anyone to figure out how their motherboard lineup looks like?
Both ASUS and Gigabyte have about a dozen models out for Z77 alone, with more coming down the pipeline. With Gigabyte, each letter of the model stands for some feature, with a higher number (eg; 3, 5, 7) denoting its placement along the full lineup.
Glancing over ASUS' models, I have to say I am completely confused. How does ASUS expect new customers, or those unfamiliar with their naming conventions to figure out it? For the record, I have owned ASUS boards in the past, and I STILL have no idea what the various suffixes stand for (-V, LE, LX, LK, Pro, Deluxe, etc.)
Is there a guide to decoding ASUS' model numbers, or is there any plan in the future to come up with a more intuitive naming scheme?
gsuburban - Monday, April 16, 2012 - link
I agree on model numbers however, from what I can see, most of the boards with the same chipsets are all the same except for features such as Wi-Fi, 4 USB ports vs. 6, IDE vs. no IDE, form factor and so forth. I think they all have the same performance specs.It would be fair to say Asus could post a chart of the various boards with the same chipsets showing what the major and minor differences are for us customers.
ertw - Monday, April 16, 2012 - link
Like many other posts here, I was a bit disappointed in the lack of Thunderbolt support in Z77 boards. When I looked over the Z77 product briefs on Intel's site, however, it looks like adding that support would require using 4 of the 16 lanes from the processor. As such, my question is whether or not my reading of that is correct or if there is there is a way to use PCI-E lanes from the southbridge for this task? If not, I'm guessing that some sort of PLX setup would be required to add both x16 graphics and Thunderbolt?On a related note, is it at all possible to make an aftermarket Thunderbolt solution or is the only option to buy a motherboard with explicit support? Naturally, it would be impossible to exploit the third graphics channel from the Z77 in this configuration - however I'd imagine that most people are more interested in the external PCI-E aspect of the bus so that's not a huge liability. I've got to replace a dieing motherboard pretty soon so I don't have the luxury to wait for TB-equipped motherboards (especially if creative solutions will be required), but I'd love the capacity to add it down the road.
gsuburban - Monday, April 16, 2012 - link
My confusion with the P67/H67 VS the Z68 and now, Z77 chipset. I'm keen on the differences between he P and H series in that the H is video ready and cannot overclock the CPU but I think that is about it.Since the H67 will overclock video only, I'm confused on what the differences are with the Z 6 and 7 series are since they also have GPU ports. I'm unsure if the H67 or Z chipsets are worth using in the event a graphics card is chosen over the Intel HD 3000 graphics.
It would be nice to see a chart with commentary showing the differences between these chipsets as Intel's website has changed so much and no longer has this in simple language.
Jorgisven - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
Things Z77 supports that Z68 does not: native USB 3.0 controller, support for low-voltage memory and/or higher clocks (up to 2800 have been reported stable, with some reaching over 3000). If you're using them for gaming, the integrated GPU's are typically not sufficient for most that would call themselves PC gamers. They're a big improvement over previous attempts at GPU integration, but they are still just that: integrated GPU's. Even most basic discrete GPU's are going to trounce the Intel GPU. Also, the Z boards all support smart SSD caching, whereas the H series do not. (folks, please correct me or add on, I'm doing this off the top of my head).gsuburban - Monday, April 16, 2012 - link
Sure do like the idea Asus made for flashing and updating the bios via a dedicated USB port and the push of a button. They call it USB BIOS Flashback.tkafafi - Wednesday, April 18, 2012 - link
I'm wondering why there are usb2 present in ASUS motherboards at all?I would have expected usb3 ports to replace them once native intel chipset support is available since that would eliminate the extra cost of an external usb3 controller.
A. Is this just a transition phase, or are there still going to be usb2 host ports 3 years from now in new designs?
B. Is there any advantage of usb2 over usb3 ? Maybe there are concerns usb3 host ports will not interoperate as well as usb2 host ports with legacy usb2/1 peripherals ?!
Thanks
1c3b0x - Wednesday, April 18, 2012 - link
I realize that Ivy Bridge should run cooler than Sandy Bridge, but in general aftermarket HSF solutions are getting larger and larger. 120mm fans are much quieter than smaller fans. Also modern memory sticks used for any kind of high end or OC system come standard with heatsinks, some of which are quite tall.When reading reviews of HSFs a majority of complaints are that the HSF extends over one of the Memory slots and prevents the use of that slot with any memory stick with a heatsink. I can only imagine that in the future this will be more a of problem and not less.
Does ASUS (or for that matter Intel with their sample motherboard designs) have any plans to remedy this proximity situation. I realize that motherboard real estate is a premium and that at high frequencies even the smallest distances can create timing issues, but I don't believe that an additional half inch or so between CPU and Memory would hurt. And it would definitely make many if not most OCers very happy.
And it might even encourage Intel to bundle real HSF solutions with their K series CPUs! ha!
MeanBruce - Saturday, April 21, 2012 - link
This is an email I sent an enthusiast friend of mine after viewing the PCperspective ASUS video:In the video @00:45:45, JJ says "We will definitely also have another sku that will be coming to the market a little bit after that for both the channel side and the ROG side that will have native (on-board) thunderbolt connectivity."
I think JJ means a super P8 board and a super ROG board, hoping the Maximus 5 Extreme, I watched the salients about 10 times, thanks for the link, the wait for the M5E will be hard if its more than a quarter, maybe Anand can dig deeper and get more out of the Asus rep, let's hope!
jah1subs - Saturday, April 21, 2012 - link
IB has new IGP versions 2500, 4000.Are there graphics perfomance differences when pairing an IGP 2500 CPU with Z77, H77, Z68 or H67 chipsets?
Also, please answer the same question for IGP 4000 paired with Z77, H77, Z68 or H67.
jah1subs - Saturday, April 21, 2012 - link
What improvements are there in SRT between Z77, H77 vs Z68 chipsets?How does that translate to improved user experience?
pegounet - Sunday, April 22, 2012 - link
It seems so: Have a look to: http://serversdirect.com/product.asp?pf_id=MB1378"ASUS P8C WS C216, Ivy Bridge, PCIe G3, USB3.0 / SATA 6G server motherboard "
NeBlackCat - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
IVB is the ideal HTPC platform, but it's about time that someone produced a digital amplifier card so that no separate receiver/amplifier/sound system is required - just wire the 5.1 or 7.1 speakers direct to the back of the HTPC.AMD did this a while ago with their Maui initiative (see http://www.silentpcreview.com/article918-page1.htm... but iirc only MSI ever produced a board - the MSI Diva, which was supplied with digital amplifier cards using D2Audio ICs.
Will Asus please consider doing something similar? I just want one box under my TVs around the house. I'd bite their arms off for an IVB board that came with a similar card, or a standard PCIe sound card with built-in digital amplifier (thereby being suitable for any system).
johan851 - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
I'm not trying to troll or anything, but I have a lot of trouble justifying the purchase of an Asus board, no matter how fancy, after reading this report: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?...I've been a big Asus fan in the past - they've made some great boards - but if that's how they support their customers I'm not buying.
o1die2 - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
Will asus offer any B75 chipset boards by the time ivy bridge gets to the venders such as newegg?kungfuach0 - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
Wishin' and a hopin'GrumpyOldPgmr - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
Just keep up with the good reviewsbobiii - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
Been using Asus motherboards for more than 20 years!MasterTactician - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
The poor q6600 wants to be put to rest...MasterTactician - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
crap, wrong thread. sorry,tomstatham - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
I don't have any questions. I've been reading about these beautiful boards all over.I would love to win one of them!
--TomS
zer0gravity - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
Could you use the onboard mini-PCI-e for anything else other than wifi? I wish they would make these boards with the idea that they will be used for HTPC / RAID devices and therefore need another slot of a RAID controller.Other than this....such a great looking board!
mkovac - Thursday, April 26, 2012 - link
Couple questions that come to mind after watching the video. I'm more into the entertainment/gaming/overclocking side of things. Nothing extremely technical.1.) The new Lucid Virtu MVP with Ivy Bridge and performance boost with discrete GPU's, i.e. GTX 680. Will this be more software/game dependent or is this a boost we will see across many applications?
2.) Coming from an i7 920 @ 4.2 ghz 1.26v on a Rampage III Extreme, I'm looking to save a lot on energy use while achieving performance. Will I notice quite a big difference through Digi+ with power efficiency while overclocking an i5 3570k for example? Not looking to fry the chip as I've already seen the high temperatures on benchmarks.
3.) Torn on a decision between ASUS boards with the P8Z77 PRO and the Sabertooth Z77. I'm seeing a lot of reviews leaning towards the Sabertooth Z77 as a gaming platform due to the thermal armor and the heat monitoring system. I suppose my concern is, how noticeable is the heat dissipation versus the P8Z77 PRO since that is what would be important to me? Will I get the same efficient power distribution through the Sabertooth Z77 as the P8Z77 PRO considering both overclock well?
I know I don't fit into everyone's category of everyday use, but when you game, you definitely don't want two things: Heat and High Power Consumption.
a5cent - Friday, April 27, 2012 - link
What NIC does this board use? Intel 82574L? Intel 82579V? Asus' website isn't very specific here, it just states it's an intel NIC - nothing more.Daggarhawk - Tuesday, May 1, 2012 - link
probably already given away, but in case not, i'd really love to get an Asus mobo. winning one would help me do my first ever build! i hope to do a dual boot audio production hackintosh/ windows gaming PC, that will moonlight as an HTPC as well. :DJDOG1 - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
As a video gamer, can we rest solely on the dependability and reliability of the integrated graphic performance of an ivy bridge processor or should we continue to use a dedicated graphics card for most of our gaming until the next gen Haswell architecture comes out for a more robust graphics performance?