Introduction
We would like to thank EVGA for providing this feature filled monster – for our scrutiny. Yeah; many say – “over kill”, we say “Ports?” – “Can we use them?” – Well yes we can! Where others see brag factor, we see utility, functionality and purpose. Well, right about now you may be thinking that this board comes with all those lovely x16 slots and dual CPU 8 pin power inputs and… So what?
We have seen the limits of the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge pushed. We know you can get 5 Gigahertz on air with sandy bridge and 4.7 Gigahertz+ on air with the Ivy Bridge. We know that other than minor differences that fall within the margin of error but the fact is – Z77 on air, is Z77 on air. There is no competition from other companies so Z77 is it for the mainstream. We have a board with all of its papers and a proven pedigree that really never really gets to show off all of its other parts so there will be no real overclocking (everyone else can do that) this time around. We will instead focus on the strengths of the construction and component integration
This board comes with the standard four SATA II ports and two SATA III provided via the Intel chipset and two more internal SATA III via Marvell internal ports, two eSATA, raid functionality based on the Intel chip, software raid through Windows and if that is not enough there are ten USB ports on the rear (4 USB 3.0 Spec) with an additional six provided by the expansion bracket (2 USB 3.0 Spec) and Dual GB LAN! We will use most of them after we get finished with the basics of the review.
