When Intel release their Ivy Bride processor, every motherboard manufacturer launching their products with some thing special. The z77 chipset is basically Intel chipset for the Ivy Bridge processors. People are attracted towards it that is why market is full of motherboards these days.
EVGA is not known for motherboards but they made very good motherboards as well with 3 way / 4 way SLI or Crossfire support. EVGA has released few motherboards with the release of Intel Ivy bridge processors. Today we are going to take a look at EVGA Z77 FTW motherboard.
EVGA Z77 FTW looks really cool with its red and black color scheme as ASUS extreme motherboards had. EVGA Z77 FTW has USB 3.0 ports, triple BIOS and power, reset and Clear CMOS buttons. EVGA Z77 FTW has 5x PCIe slots and 4x USB 3.0 ports at the back. It has 4x PCIe 3.0 slot of 5x PCIe slot.
The memory slots use a single sided latch design, for easy insertion and removal (especially when space for hands is at a premium). Down the right hand side of the motherboard, EVGA start with a pair of power and reset buttons, with a ClearCMOS red button above followed by a two-digit debug display below. While not anything special when the motherboard is in a gaming rig, they do aid reviewers, extreme overclockers, and diagnosing faults alike. EVGA Z77 FTW has solid state capacitor for high performance and heat resistance. EVGA Z77 FTW supports 4 way SLI/ Crossfire. EVGA Z77 FTW supports usage of 2x PCIe 3.0 x16 or 4x PCIe 3.0 x8 so the bandwidth for multi GPU setup is more than the previous z68 chipset because of the new Intel Ivy Bridge processors which can also be used on series 6 motherboards with just BIOS updating, if manufacturer allow, The new 7 series motherboards also support previous Sandy Bridge processor as well. The EVGA Z77 FTW has a very comprehensive list of key features, only a couple of them were mentioned in the above video. The few mentioned include the triple BIOS Support, 4-way SLI support, and 300% more gold inside the LGA1155 CPU socket. That barely scratches the surface though. Check out the bullet lists below of the key features and specifications. The EVGA z77 FTW looks more like as ASUS extreme family motherboards and following are the feature of EVGA z77 FTW...
300% more gold content in the CPU socket.
4-Way SLI Support.
USB 3.0 Support.
SATA 6G Support.
Supports Intel Core i5 and i7 Socket 1155 Processors.
8 Channel High Definition Audio.
100% Solid State Capacitors.
EVGA Vdroop Control.
EVGA Dummy OC.
EVGA E-LEET Tuning Support.
EVGA EZ Voltage read points.
Onboard Clear CMOS, Power and Reset Buttons.
Onboard CPU Temperature Monitor.
Triple BIOS Support.
PCI Express 3.0 Support.
Lets take a look at BenchMarks results……
The EVGA z77 FTW is very nice motherboard from EVGA as they stick with their old design and the EVGA z77 FTW is slightly bigger than normal ATX motherboards as its EATX board so check the chassis compatibility before purchasing. EVGA z77 FTW support great overclocking and the people who loves overclocking whether CPU or GPUs are going to love it. EVGA z77 FTW has plenty of USB 3.0/2.0 ports and SATA 3 Gbps/6 Gbps connectivity as well. EVGA z77 FTW has triple UEFI BIOS which is a bit like old ones as no mouse support. it has many plus point but a problem with high frequency RAM management is there as it does not detect Corsair Dominator 16GB kit @2666Mhz. The EVGA z77 FTW has plenty of features as 4x PCIe 3.0 slot running @ 8x which is great multi GPU setup. Overall EVGA z77 FTW has great feature but it is not cheap at all.
- Good Design.
- USB 3.0 and PCIe 3.0 slots.
- Nice overclocking.
- Triple UEFI BIOS.
- Solid Capacitors.
- PLX IX chip improve performance of PCIe 3.0 slots.
- Expensive.
- Management problem with RAMs of high frequencies.
