Product Showcase
Product Showcase
Alright let's start up this article. Above The Maximus V Z77 motherboard and it's package content. Included are the motherboard, SATA cables, manual SLI bridge and well all defaults really.
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.
You'll need to get used to it a tiny bit -- yet motherboard certainly is a good looking one 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.
Ivy Bridge will have an IGP embedded into the processor die hence you'll spot monitor connectors in the form of a HDMI and display port connector. Furthermore you'll spot a S/PDIF audio output connector, a USB BIOS flashback button, ROG connnect button, eSATA 6GBPs ports, 1 Gigabit LAN RJ-45 connector (Intel 82579V Gigabit controller), four USB 3.0 ports and four USB 2.0 ports (one is used for rog connect). All the way to the right you'll spot the 8-channel analog audio outputs.
Audio is managed by the good old Realtek ALC892 8-channel audio codec that falls within the SupremeFX III Sound - Audio That Takes SNR To The 110dB threshold thanks to new shielding.
When we tilt the motherboard a little we see all quality components. Upgraded is the Extreme Engine DIGI+ II that includes 8+4+2 phase (CPU, iGPU, DRAM) and digital power control from two DIGI+ controllers combined with ROG UEFI BIOS functions, such as the new pre-configured memory IC profiles, handy for tweakers and enthusiasts.
The Maximus V GENE also comes with 10k Black Metallic capacitors offer a 5x longer lifespan with 10k hours at 105C, and 20% better low temperature endurance - specifically selected for extreme cooling scenarios. The DRAM trace layout has also been further optimized over the previous Maximus IV generation to allow even higher frequencies as well.
To the right you can see an 8-pin power connector for the CPU. As mentioned above the board has a 8+4+2 power phase design. As for memory, it is a dual channel memory architecture. The board itself supports a maximum of 4 DIMM up-to 32GB of DDR3-1866/1600/1333/1066MHz. XMP profiles are supported of course. Unofficially even 2666 Mhz DDR memory is supported through XMP profiles as well. We'll show you that today with some snazzy G.Skill Trident X memory.
