Product Showcase
Product Showcase
Alright let's start up this article. Above is the Maximus V Forumula Z77 motherboard packaging and below its package content. Included are the motherboard, SATA cables, manual SLI bridge and well all defaults really. ASUS released two SKUs. One is bundled with the ThunderFX USB sound card and amplifier, while the other will be sold only with the dual-band mini PCI Express 802.1a/b/g/n Wi-Fi/Bluetooth 4.0 card (this is the SKU we reviewed today).
The Intel Z77 Express chipset supports 3rd generation 22nm and 2nd generation core i7/i5/i3 LGA1155 socket type processors. It will also support Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0. Included you will also find a mPCIe Combo card which is combining the dual functions of mPCIe with mSATA into a single, extensible add-in card that still allows full use of the PCI-Express slots for multi-GPU graphics. Included are:
- User's manual
- I/O Shield
- 2 x SATA 3Gb/s cable(s)
- 4 x SATA 6Gb/s cable(s)
- 1 x SLI bridge(s)
- 1 x Q-connector(s) (2 in 1)
- 1 x ROG Connect cable(s)
- 1 x 12 in 1 ROG Cable Label(s)
- 1 x mPCIe Combo card(s) with dual band WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n module + Bluetooth v4.0/3.0+HS module
- 1 x 2-in-1 RF Cable(s)
- 2 x Wi-Fi Ring Moving Antenna(s)
- 1 x ROG Logo Sticker(s)
- 1 x 2.5mm Xbox 360 voice input cable(s)
- 1 x dual-head USB cable(s)
- 1 x ThunderFX Xbox 360 AV + 3.5 mm to RCA cable(s)
A nice looking piece of hardware alright, the traditional black-red ROG style, passive cooling. Yeah it's a sweet thing to look at. Let's zoom in a little and have a look at the feature set. Talking about the feature set, the main advantages for Z77 are in fact native USB 3.0 and PCIe 3.0 support. Looking at the backside we can spot the back panel connectivity and of course the PCIe slots. We'll address these in detail later on.
If you look at the CPU area heatsinks you can notice two fittings, here you 'could' connect a water-cooling loop. ASUS calls these Fusion Thermo and basically is an integrated copper heatpipe within which allows for watercooling. Overall we recognize the distinct ROG black and red color scheme across the board and a lot of LEDs.
