ASUS is one of the largest and most well known motherboard manufacturers on the planet. ASUS has boards at virtually every price point, for every niche, need, market, and configuration we can think of. ASUS puts out a ton of boards and as a result we see a lot of these. But rarely do we see boards that are both this feature rich, and this expensive. Besides premium features it also has a premium price.
The battle between Asus and Gigabyte has traditionally been a heavyweight contest, though in recent years it's become more of a ritualised beating, as the Asus boards have consistently out-punched Gigabyte at every level.
With the release of Intel's Ivy Bridge setup and the Z77 platform, however, Gigabyte has made a dramatic return to form. Now the head-to-head is once more a battle of the giants, and nowhere more so than between the two premium Z77 motherboards we're checking out.
They are both around the £250 mark - a fortune compared to most of the fairly reasonable Z77 boards we've previously tested - and come with more ringing and whistly things than you could shake a thin piece of dead tree at. They also both come with connections for the new Intel/Apple love child, Thunderbolt.
Of course one could argue that no one is forcing the Premium buy on you, but the point is, if you want a cache drive, the Premium is forced on you, and the Deluxe doesn’t come with one, and at $319, the Deluxe is far better targeted towards the kind of users who would actually make use of the drive.
One useful little kit ASUS has included (although it is on many other models) is the USB3 front panel. If your current case doesn’t have USB3 connectivity, simply plug this little panel into the Floppy bay, or use a converter. Two ports are then easily accessible on the front of your case, and it couldn’t be simpler.
We’re not saying this board is bad, in fact it’s just the opposite, it’s too feature rich. We’d suggest ASUS take a deep breath, think about exactly who it’s targeting with this motherboard, and readjust accordingly; at the moment all of this technology is simply too much.
The battle between Asus and Gigabyte has traditionally been a heavyweight contest, though in recent years it's become more of a ritualised beating, as the Asus boards have consistently out-punched Gigabyte at every level.
With the release of Intel's Ivy Bridge setup and the Z77 platform, however, Gigabyte has made a dramatic return to form. Now the head-to-head is once more a battle of the giants, and nowhere more so than between the two premium Z77 motherboards we're checking out.
They are both around the £250 mark - a fortune compared to most of the fairly reasonable Z77 boards we've previously tested - and come with more ringing and whistly things than you could shake a thin piece of dead tree at. They also both come with connections for the new Intel/Apple love child, Thunderbolt.
Of course one could argue that no one is forcing the Premium buy on you, but the point is, if you want a cache drive, the Premium is forced on you, and the Deluxe doesn’t come with one, and at $319, the Deluxe is far better targeted towards the kind of users who would actually make use of the drive.
One useful little kit ASUS has included (although it is on many other models) is the USB3 front panel. If your current case doesn’t have USB3 connectivity, simply plug this little panel into the Floppy bay, or use a converter. Two ports are then easily accessible on the front of your case, and it couldn’t be simpler.
We’re not saying this board is bad, in fact it’s just the opposite, it’s too feature rich. We’d suggest ASUS take a deep breath, think about exactly who it’s targeting with this motherboard, and readjust accordingly; at the moment all of this technology is simply too much.
- Great General Features.
- 32GB mSATA SSD inluded which help to make HDDs faster.
- Thunderbolt, cretified from INTEL is also a best and greast feature.
- Good performance in benchmarks.
- 4 way SLI/ Crossfire running ability.
- Thunderbolt directly integrated onto the mobo.
- It has 4 ssd caching sata3 ports, 2 more sata3 ports, and 3 sata2 ports as well.
- It has the newer PLX gen 3 chip.
- Only has 2 usb3 ports at the back.
- Only has 2 pcie x1 slots.
- Costy about $459 where as Z77 extreme is about $400 and Z77 extreme mATX is about $200 of price at AMAZON.
