I also agree that a greater emphasis should be placed on these cheaper options. It's not always easy to be able to tell when too many corners have been cut.
Particularly with power consumption going down the way it has, all the companies are rather overselling VRMs for overclocking. For a moderate 24/7 overclock on air, enough to satisfy say a gamer wanting to grind something out of the SC2 engine or somebody wanting to speed up some calculations, where's the cutoff point of quality in how low you can reasonably go? (Yeah, more phases and higher switching frequency can mean lower ripple, and lower temps and power losses are better, but how much of a big difference does that really make?) Of course, it's still hard to tell about longevity.
I feel like Ian is stretching when he critiques this board for not having onboard power/reset buttons and error code displays. I guess he assembles and disassembles systems all day long, but having these features on my current motherboard, I never use them (I only have them because I needed to replace my 1156 board and only high-end parts are still readily available when I ordered).
I guess he has finally seen the light when it comes to overclocking though. The motherboard makers stretch as much as they can to justify the extra $50=$100 to up-sell enthusiasts. However, Intel has done an incredible job designing their chipsets and most users don't need 8+ SATA, 12+ power phases, or debug codes, and few use SLI/Crossfire.
And I forgot to mention "this board is probably aimed at the internet café market in China" is pretty shameful and below the belt Ian. As you have shown yourself, it is just as good at gaming as the $200+ boards unless extreme overclocking or multi-GPU. Go look at a Steam survey to see what actual gamers have installed - this board is quite capable of power a system in the top 1% of Steam users.
I honestly don't know what the point of this review is. So having a HE GPU running in a PCIe x4 slot is not a good idea. Really? Well I don't think that in 2013 anyone needed a review to know that. Seems like that is the main focus of the review though.
For most people running PCs on hardware aimed at chinese internet cafes it would probably be much more interesting how well thought trough the layout is. Are the fan connectors positioned in a way that makes sense? How about the slot layout: Can you use a graphics card (2 or 3slot) along with 2 or 3 other pci and/or pcie cards without problems? (and no, i am not talking about another gpu -.-).
But atleast the reviewer was honest at the beginning when he stated that he doesn't have a clue. And it shows. I really like anandtech but this review aggravated me enough to register and comment.
p.s.: I hope my chinese internet cafe hardware manages to send this comment in a way that makes it readable on you guys using the regular sniperelite and rog gaming elite stuff.
Well - the review was useful for me. These are the types of boards I buy, and I might have missed the fact that it uses a 4x slot for the second card. I effectively spent $59 for my My GA-Z77X-UD3H, but didn't think to look at what happens when you run 2 GPUs. Thankfully my board runs them at 8x/8x, which gives better performance, but I hadn't thought to even check that when I bought it. Not that I've ever used 2 GPUs...
I'm just going to tell you now that your assessment is completely off -- a good amount of people can tell the difference in regards to the audio. Plenty of people like the option to XF/SLI later in custom builds. And some of those performance differences were shocking. That was an audio demonstration, but could mouse polling face that, too?
Anyway, don't get me started on the audio, but there is reason for better solutions than this board.
the "this board is probably aimed at the internet café market in China" is pretty shameful and below the belt Ian..
I agree as well... Don't be so elitest! It's refreshing to see a decent $120 motherboard that sacrifices nothing that 95% of buyers require. Ian you are getting spoiled reviewing too many high end motherboards jammed with features that only 2% of the buyers require. Come down out of the stratosphere and join the rest of us.
And its what I build for myself, friends, family, and all the computers I build for my company, and anyone else who wants a great gaming experience without breaking the bank.
I have to admit I never use the on-board buttons on my motherboard, and find beep codes to be just as useful as an error code display. At the end of the day, you still need to swap out parts to troubleshoot an error, regardless of an error code display.
I agree with you I can't see a need for onboard power and reset switches on any motherboard. If the computer is set up they're worthless and if you're working on it you have your screwdriver right there to short out the front panel header. There really is no need at all for onboard power buttons.
I have to agree. I don't need dragons or ninjas on the box.
I don't need heatsinks fashioned in some faux novelty bullet or landmine design.
I don't need LED lit BIOS reset buttons (I've used mine twice in 5 years, so no, not needed).
I don't need LED error notifications. I've had them and never needed them.
I don't need umpteen video out options, I have a GPU card.
I don't need built in audio, I have a sound card.
I don't need built in ethernet, I have a Intel CT nic.
I don't need a PS2 socket.
I don't need more then 4 SATA ports (three if I'm honest is all I ever need)
I don't need extra USB/Serial/Firewire expansion on the board.
I don't need glow in the dark sockets or custom motherboard colours.
I don't need 8 fan controller sockets.
What do I need? A good quality stripped down board that without all that unnecessary crud would probably cost $50. Unfortunately no one seems to think anyone wants such a board.
If most here were honest it's all they really need/want also.
Sorry, I'll leave you to your motherboards and GPUs with dragons, neons and bullets on them.
Was just stating that a lot of the features that motherboard manufacturers have loaded on 'as standard' are not really needed and only there to increase their slim profit margins.
After 20+ years of PC building I'm kind of fed up paying for crud I don't need in order to purchase a 'quality' board.
Why can't we have a good quality overclocking board without all the stuff we never use? Without all that stuff on there we could have much better signal paths, less noise and better power regs.
That's a bit extreme. Most of us need/use the built in Network and Sound, and at least a DVI output is useful, even if you have a separate card. And practically everyone can use a lot of USB ports and headers.
I also don't need heatsinks, or LEDs, or buttons, or anything glow in the dark (now, tritium, on the other hand...).
But, a video card? I've spent more on motherboards so as not to buy a video card ever since good IGPs started coming out around 2004-2005, and chose AMD platforms when Intel's were faster, for the superior IGP. Most of the time, I'm buying a video card today, due to either Intel's drivers not being up to the task, or due the motherboard lacking output options. The more of those the board has, the better, doubly so if they can all be used simultaneously (which, oddly, seems to be common on notebooks, but not desktops). I have a video card, but most people don't, and that's including more overclockers, too, every time IGP improves. Multimonitor is getting more common all the time, and most users do not need more performance than the IGP offers.
Most people do not have or want a sound card. That's a lot of money to be saved.
I haven't used a card NIC, outside of PC firewalls, to replace a blown Ethernet port, or to use if Linux does not support the integrated chip, since they got integrated into the board, ages ago.
I'm typing on a PS/2 keyboard right this second. A have USB converter as a plan B, but I would prefer to keep it native.
I need all the USBs I can get, and I want them all to be USB 3.0 ASAP, so that I can reduce the cards I need to add to get them. Why should I have to get another card just so that I can have a card reader and front case USBs plugged in at the same time? Worse, last generation, because some of the USB add-on chips gave more ports, there were cheaper motherboards with more USB 3.0 ports, and several with 2 sets of headers, than you see today.
Firewire, I've never used, though.
More SATAs are basically free, and they offer flexibility. I can have a couple plain SATAs free, a couple eSATAs, and still have plenty for internal drives. They are usually wasted, but there's no way they can cost much, with $50 boards having had 6 or more for years, now, so let's just keep plenty of them the norm.
I don't know about 8 fan connectors, but I simply do not buy boards without at least 2 non-CPU 4-pin fan headers, today. If they want to not expose those to save a penny or two, screw 'em. 3 of them, on top of CPU, tends to handle most any good case. It's the crazy cases with 6-8 fans that they want more for, but there is no real reason for it, except aesthetics.
I've got no problem with having as many USB ports as you need. They are good to have.
I'd prefer the removal of the legacy/redundant stuff and say 8-10 USB ports on the back instead.
I know my taste in motherboards my not be to everyones liking but it would be nice for some of us to have the choice of buying a serious high quality stripped down board so we can tailor it to our exact needs and use our existing better quality gear in it.
or you could get the extreme4 which has all those for either $134 right with a free 8GB of memory on newegg. or wait until one of the weekly/monthly sales when it goes down to the $115 range.
With Haswell just around the corner requesting specific models for a budget board roundup now seems counterproductive. "I need a board with U, V, Y; W would be nice but only if doesn't drive up the cost" seems like it would be more useful for selecting which boards to request samples of.
This is pretty much the perfect board - around $100, 6 SATA ports, internal USB 3 header, HDMI out in cases of no discrete GPU used, 3 fan headers, 4 RAM slots, Z-chipset for dual video usage and Intel Q-sync, stable voltage and heat spreaders on the voltage regulators...and 4 SATA cables.
I have a similar low end gigabyte board. I found the dpc latency problem to be caused by the overclocking / system monitor software that came with the board. Soon as I stopped it loading, the problem went away.
I actually think some of the ASRock boards are a better deal in this price range. I have the Z77 Extreme 4 which features the following at around the same price point:
4 x Sata 3 and 2 in raid PCI-E x 16 + x4 + x4 or PCI-E x8 + x8 + x4 1 x HDMI 1 x DVI 1 x VGA 1 x SPDIF 1 x eSata 3
I am extremely proud of the Anandtech readers that commented here. I typed out what would have been the first post on this review and at the last minute canceled it. I thought it too harsh and possibly wasn't fair to post it on a specific review when in fact it was about the editorial leaning of Anandtech as a whole.
Go read the About page and you'll see this site is dedicated to reviewing computers, phones and components from consumer to enterprise. However, as of late it seems that all the reviews on the consumer side are completely bent toward some stereo-typical gamer building water cooled overclocked triple GPU gaming rigs. While nothing wrong with these types of builds and they are fun to read and think about, there has to be some respect for those that want other builds. I just spent $1500 building a mITX gaming and workstation rig with a core i7 3770. It has a $300 GPU, $300 CPU, $350 SSD, $120 case and a $80 MB running a stock Intel cooler. I couldn't be happier and NEVER intend to overclock it. As strange as my choices are, I bet I'm closer to 90% of the readership than a $600-$900 dual or triple GPU and $200 MB rig that seems to be implied as required equipment around here.
The worst of it is that there is a huge movement to smaller, cooler and quieter rigs that doesn't seem to have a voice on the inside at Anandtech. A full ATX tower running 3 GPUs and 5 HDDs is no longer the sought after box for a growing base of enthusiasts. The small cool looking mITX that can also play games is what's hot.
Yes indeed, also quite a few of us here are over the age of 30 so a lot of the toys and whistles and flashing lights don't really appeal so much.
We prefer durability, stability and value for money more.
I think a lot of the high-end manufacturers have forgotten that a lot of their consumer base has got a lot older. Buying boxes with dragons and wonderwomen on them doesn't have quite the appeal it might have 15 years ago.
LOL. Age doesn't have a thing to do with it. Money often does though. Remember, this site is oriented towards enthusiasts first. So don't hate because others like more expensive components than you can afford.
It not about being able to afford the high end stuff - but why pay %100 more for maybe a 10% gain in performance. I like to see all the reviews - high and and low end, so this review was great. At the end of the day, the parts I buy will be whatever gives the best bang-for-buck, at the performance level (and noise level) I can accept. I don't hate the reviews of high end parts, but I want reviews like this to balance things out.
It isn't even for a 10% gain in performance. I, and a many users like me, are not going to use more than one SSD, aren't going to use more than one GPU, aren't going to use more than a couple of USB 3.0 ports (I don't own a single USB 3.0 device), won't overvolt/aggressively overclock and I even use the digital audio out on top of that (although the analog audio on this board is very disappointing). In that case, $120 boards like this are nearly identical in performance to one of the top end offerings. I think that, in thinking this is a low end offering, Ian misses where the sweat spot of the market is entirely. $120 motherboards are solidly midrange. You can get a low-end motherboard for less than $70 on Newegg. Compared to what Dell uses in its desktops, this board is feature packed!
Oh and the PC enthusiast market is slowly diminishing. Sites like this need to diversify to appeal to types that don't think the peak of a good day is spent running Prime95 on a new PC for 24 hours.
Every SATA 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0 port is handled by the Z77 chipset on that board. Actually, all the SATA 3 Gb/s and USB 2.0 are as well.
If you want more of the faster SATA and USB, you need to pay for extra 3rd-party controller chips, which increases board costs. It's a legitimate form of product differentiation to leave those out on the cheaper products. But supposedly 8-series chipsets with Haswell (or at least most of them?) will support six SATA 6 Gb/s and six USB 3.0 natively.
I find USB3 still isn't quite a solid in terms of "it just works" like USB2 does. I think the USB3 chipsets still haven't got bedded down in the OS as solidly as USB2.
Give it another year or two and it should be...I hope.
Sata 6GB and USB3 both take significantly more die space on the chipset to implement; since most users only have at most a few devices that need the extra bandwidth most of ports offered on the chipset are still the older models. Haswell will probably be all Sata6GB on the chipset, although i wouldn't be surprised if some budget mobos add sata3gb ports via external controllers.
The USB2/3 mix will probably last for a few more years on the desktop; this is both because of the much larger total number of ports involved, and because the internal headers aren't directly compatible (afaik you can buy adapters) and there're lots of cases which only have USB2 on the front panel; and lots of people with USB2 based cardreaders in a drive bay. I suspect one or two mobo headers for those will be with us for a long time; and wouldn't be surprised if a few linger as onboard/embedded device connects too like the pair of USB1 ports AMD chipsets still have (notionally for laptop keyboard/touchpad connects; but in both the desktop and mobile chipsets). I doubt the next generation of laptops will have any external USB2 ports; but might continue to use them internally.
Since the second x16 slot is powered from the x4 from the southbridge, I think they did this because they ran out of PCIe lanes. Also, some people use PCI for legacy devices. For example, I have a PCI TV tuner that I still use because a 4 year old tuner is just as good at HD as a new one.
FireWire cards are actually still a good choice for using PCI slots, because most PCI-E FW cards cost 2x more and are essentially a PCI-to-PCI-E bridge chip + the PCI card's components. The few natively PCI-E FW cards are 3x more expensive than their PCI counterparts.
Yes, FW still matters since most of the better audio interfaces use it so a big thing for studios or home recording, now that most motherboards don't come with a built-in FW chip.
It's the x4 full size PCI-E slots that make no sense to me.
raid cards, or a second gpu for extra (non gaming) monitor outputs all need more than a single 1x lane; but 4 is plenty for anything they'd be asked to do. Some 4 port USB3 adapter cards on newegg are more than just 1x (though not explicitly marked I think they're 2x); presumably if you tried loading all 4 ports at once on the 1x cards you'd be bottlenecking on the PCIe bus.
You can install a PCIe x16 card in an x16 physical slot that is electrically PCIe x4. You also can install an PCIe x4 card in a x16 physical slot that is electrically x4. You cannot install a PCIe x16 card in a physical x4 slot. This is why they put an x16 physical slot for an x4 interface. An x16 physical slot is always at least as good.
X4 slots are hard to come by (I havent had a board with one fitted in years) so it may be they don't really make them anymore and just use a standard 16x slot instead.
I think the second PCI slot is as much about the limited number of PCIe lanes available as anything else. IIRC 7 series chipsets don't have native PCI support instead requiring a bridge chip, and only 8 PCIe lanes on the SB. That's 4 for the x4 slot, 2 for the 2x slots, 1 for the bridge, and 1 for the realtek nic (if I'm reading the specsheet right, the audio connects to the chipsets audio out and not over PCIe). That uses up all 8 available lanes; leaving the choice of only having 5 expansion slots filled, or spending more for a PCIe mux to add more available lanes. The latter is what I think many higher end boards do, but is cost-prohibitive in the value segment where every dollar counts.
Awhile ago, I came across some audio books on cassette tape, and wanted to transfer them. My best input choice, by far, was an existing PCI sound card, with an external ADC. There you have it. For someone else, it may be an old but high quality plotter or scanner using SCSI, or a special serial card, or firewire card, or some other little thing.
Like serial and parallel ports, PCI will be with us for awhile yet, though there is no good reason to need more than 1 of them, except that they would have had an unfilled slot, otherwise.
That 2nd slot is there, almost certainly, to fill space, due to using up the PCIe lanes available. Even MicroATX boards do this, giving 2 PCI slots, but an extra PCIe with more lanes, instead of several 1x PCIe slots.
Yeah - that's a bit frusterating. I bought the DS3H knowing it didn't have Vcore setting, as my plan was to overclock as high as I could at stock voltage. However, while I was hoping to get to 4.5 Ghz (as a few other were able to do), mine crapped out at 4.3 Ghz, and I run it at 4.2 to be safe. More than enough performance really, and not a bad overclock from 3.4 Ghz, but I'm curious to see what it could do a VCore adjustment.
I did the same and also ran into similar problems, though mine would boot at 4.5 but crash on benchmarks. I exchanged the board for a UD3H and now running 4.5 stable at lower voltage than what the DS3H would set, the CPU boots at 4.7 but didn't bother working to make it stable at that speed.
What annoys me is that Gigabyte doesn't disclose the lack of VCore adjustment anywhere and there are other strange things like how the DS3H uses all-Intel USB ports whereas the UD3H is a combination of VIA and Intel controllers (with the VIA not working unless a driver is installed). I really sometimes wonder what is going thru mobo developers' heads.
It's nice that you're reviewing more commodity hardware, but this board is already being liquidated by the computer shops in my area. Intel has a new line of chips just around the corner. This review would have been a lot more helpful this time last year.
Hopefully it's just an indication of more things to come. But yeah, coverage of the AsRock Pro3/Pro4, MSI G4x, Asus LX/LK, Gigabyte HD/D(S)3, etc. of the world would be nice. And the stuff under that as well. You know, the stuff you put in or recommend to friends, family, etc.
Though to nitpick, this /particular/ board wasn't available until relatively late in Z77's reign.
I'm probably one of the older folks who reads these reviews. I haven't played a computer game (not counting Free Cell) since the Tex Murphy series ended way back when. Clearly one can spend a lot or a little on a build. I just finished a new build for photography and found reviews on this site particularly valuable (I ended up getting a Fractal Designs Arc Midi case in part because of the good overview). I needed a build that would run quiet (computer sits about 18 inches away from me) and would perform. Interestingly, my main software Adobe Lightroom really doesn't require a GPU and would run satisfactorily just using the Ivy Bridge on board graphics; Photoshop is a different matter and some operations do take advantage of a good GPU. Many reviewers of GPUs may not be aware of this and tend to focus only on the gaming community.
Motherboards such as this one do have a place in builds for specialty purposes when price might be a key point. I can build a killer photo editing PC for under $700 and not sacrifice any performance. Adding some bells and whistles is nice but not necessary.
Why is it out of place? Because it references China?
Do you realize how large the Chinese Internet cafe market is? Manufacturers often design products to meet specific market needs, and then end up selling those same products to other market segments.
I really don't understand the level of consternation over that one innocuous comment in a 7-page review. I honestly think that some commenters' negative reactions to that statement are more telling about their own insecurities or prejudices than they are a statement of the author's perspective. JMHO.
Your audio test are of very limited value. 16bit test is not enough to show performance of better chips and loop-back test shows limitation of audio input, when usually audio output quality is what is interesting.
You have presented 6 test for USB transfer. Imagine that you have posted only USB 2.0 copy test. This would be an equivalent of what have you done to audio testing.
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lever_age - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
I also agree that a greater emphasis should be placed on these cheaper options. It's not always easy to be able to tell when too many corners have been cut.Particularly with power consumption going down the way it has, all the companies are rather overselling VRMs for overclocking. For a moderate 24/7 overclock on air, enough to satisfy say a gamer wanting to grind something out of the SC2 engine or somebody wanting to speed up some calculations, where's the cutoff point of quality in how low you can reasonably go? (Yeah, more phases and higher switching frequency can mean lower ripple, and lower temps and power losses are better, but how much of a big difference does that really make?) Of course, it's still hard to tell about longevity.
klmccaughey - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
Been using Gigabyte boards for ten years now almost exclusively. They're always good with decent overclock options. Never had a bad one yet.Wall Street - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
I feel like Ian is stretching when he critiques this board for not having onboard power/reset buttons and error code displays. I guess he assembles and disassembles systems all day long, but having these features on my current motherboard, I never use them (I only have them because I needed to replace my 1156 board and only high-end parts are still readily available when I ordered).I guess he has finally seen the light when it comes to overclocking though. The motherboard makers stretch as much as they can to justify the extra $50=$100 to up-sell enthusiasts. However, Intel has done an incredible job designing their chipsets and most users don't need 8+ SATA, 12+ power phases, or debug codes, and few use SLI/Crossfire.
Wall Street - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
And I forgot to mention "this board is probably aimed at the internet café market in China" is pretty shameful and below the belt Ian. As you have shown yourself, it is just as good at gaming as the $200+ boards unless extreme overclocking or multi-GPU. Go look at a Steam survey to see what actual gamers have installed - this board is quite capable of power a system in the top 1% of Steam users.A5 - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
Seriously. There are so few use cases that justify the $200+ boards.I know the $300 boards are more fun to review, but I think AT users are better served with reviews of these sub-$150 Z-series boards.
ForstAmt - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
What those guy said.I honestly don't know what the point of this review is. So having a HE GPU running in a PCIe x4 slot is not a good idea. Really? Well I don't think that in 2013 anyone needed a review to know that. Seems like that is the main focus of the review though.
For most people running PCs on hardware aimed at chinese internet cafes it would probably be much more interesting how well thought trough the layout is.
Are the fan connectors positioned in a way that makes sense? How about the slot layout: Can you use a graphics card (2 or 3slot) along with 2 or 3 other pci and/or pcie cards without problems? (and no, i am not talking about another gpu -.-).
But atleast the reviewer was honest at the beginning when he stated that he doesn't have a clue. And it shows. I really like anandtech but this review aggravated me enough to register and comment.
p.s.: I hope my chinese internet cafe hardware manages to send this comment in a way that makes it readable on you guys using the regular sniperelite and rog gaming elite stuff.
ForstAmt - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
Please excuse the typos.kmmatney - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
Well - the review was useful for me. These are the types of boards I buy, and I might have missed the fact that it uses a 4x slot for the second card. I effectively spent $59 for my My GA-Z77X-UD3H, but didn't think to look at what happens when you run 2 GPUs. Thankfully my board runs them at 8x/8x, which gives better performance, but I hadn't thought to even check that when I bought it. Not that I've ever used 2 GPUs...jonjonjonj - Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - link
why the techpowerup article only shows a 5% difference between 3.0 x16 and 2.0 x4 with a 7970. terrible crossfire drivers?http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridg...
Jambe - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
I agree but I'd also like to see reviews of boards with other chipsets, namely Z75 and H77.lmcd - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
I'm just going to tell you now that your assessment is completely off -- a good amount of people can tell the difference in regards to the audio. Plenty of people like the option to XF/SLI later in custom builds. And some of those performance differences were shocking. That was an audio demonstration, but could mouse polling face that, too?Anyway, don't get me started on the audio, but there is reason for better solutions than this board.
HardwareDufus - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
the "this board is probably aimed at the internet café market in China" is pretty shameful and below the belt Ian..I agree as well... Don't be so elitest! It's refreshing to see a decent $120 motherboard that sacrifices nothing that 95% of buyers require. Ian you are getting spoiled reviewing too many high end motherboards jammed with features that only 2% of the buyers require. Come down out of the stratosphere and join the rest of us.
kmmatney - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
I also think this comment was way off ""this board is probably aimed at the internet café market in China"If anything, the board is for this market:
http://www.microcenter.com/site/brands/intel-proce...
And its what I build for myself, friends, family, and all the computers I build for my company, and anyone else who wants a great gaming experience without breaking the bank.
Razorbak86 - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
"Shameful" and "below the belt"? o.ODo you always get your panties in a twist over such innocuous opinions?
/seewhatididthere
kmmatney - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
I have to admit I never use the on-board buttons on my motherboard, and find beep codes to be just as useful as an error code display. At the end of the day, you still need to swap out parts to troubleshoot an error, regardless of an error code display.Flunk - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
I agree with you I can't see a need for onboard power and reset switches on any motherboard. If the computer is set up they're worthless and if you're working on it you have your screwdriver right there to short out the front panel header. There really is no need at all for onboard power buttons.jabber - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
I have to agree. I don't need dragons or ninjas on the box.I don't need heatsinks fashioned in some faux novelty bullet or landmine design.
I don't need LED lit BIOS reset buttons (I've used mine twice in 5 years, so no, not needed).
I don't need LED error notifications. I've had them and never needed them.
I don't need umpteen video out options, I have a GPU card.
I don't need built in audio, I have a sound card.
I don't need built in ethernet, I have a Intel CT nic.
I don't need a PS2 socket.
I don't need more then 4 SATA ports (three if I'm honest is all I ever need)
I don't need extra USB/Serial/Firewire expansion on the board.
I don't need glow in the dark sockets or custom motherboard colours.
I don't need 8 fan controller sockets.
What do I need? A good quality stripped down board that without all that unnecessary crud would probably cost $50. Unfortunately no one seems to think anyone wants such a board.
If most here were honest it's all they really need/want also.
Razorbak86 - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Good God, man, give it a rest. I hate it when someone starts ranting and then presumes to speak for the rest of us.jabber - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Sorry, I'll leave you to your motherboards and GPUs with dragons, neons and bullets on them.Was just stating that a lot of the features that motherboard manufacturers have loaded on 'as standard' are not really needed and only there to increase their slim profit margins.
After 20+ years of PC building I'm kind of fed up paying for crud I don't need in order to purchase a 'quality' board.
Why can't we have a good quality overclocking board without all the stuff we never use? Without all that stuff on there we could have much better signal paths, less noise and better power regs.
kmmatney - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
That's a bit extreme. Most of us need/use the built in Network and Sound, and at least a DVI output is useful, even if you have a separate card. And practically everyone can use a lot of USB ports and headers.Cerb - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
I also don't need heatsinks, or LEDs, or buttons, or anything glow in the dark (now, tritium, on the other hand...).But, a video card? I've spent more on motherboards so as not to buy a video card ever since good IGPs started coming out around 2004-2005, and chose AMD platforms when Intel's were faster, for the superior IGP. Most of the time, I'm buying a video card today, due to either Intel's drivers not being up to the task, or due the motherboard lacking output options. The more of those the board has, the better, doubly so if they can all be used simultaneously (which, oddly, seems to be common on notebooks, but not desktops). I have a video card, but most people don't, and that's including more overclockers, too, every time IGP improves. Multimonitor is getting more common all the time, and most users do not need more performance than the IGP offers.
Most people do not have or want a sound card. That's a lot of money to be saved.
I haven't used a card NIC, outside of PC firewalls, to replace a blown Ethernet port, or to use if Linux does not support the integrated chip, since they got integrated into the board, ages ago.
I'm typing on a PS/2 keyboard right this second. A have USB converter as a plan B, but I would prefer to keep it native.
I need all the USBs I can get, and I want them all to be USB 3.0 ASAP, so that I can reduce the cards I need to add to get them. Why should I have to get another card just so that I can have a card reader and front case USBs plugged in at the same time? Worse, last generation, because some of the USB add-on chips gave more ports, there were cheaper motherboards with more USB 3.0 ports, and several with 2 sets of headers, than you see today.
Firewire, I've never used, though.
More SATAs are basically free, and they offer flexibility. I can have a couple plain SATAs free, a couple eSATAs, and still have plenty for internal drives. They are usually wasted, but there's no way they can cost much, with $50 boards having had 6 or more for years, now, so let's just keep plenty of them the norm.
I don't know about 8 fan connectors, but I simply do not buy boards without at least 2 non-CPU 4-pin fan headers, today. If they want to not expose those to save a penny or two, screw 'em. 3 of them, on top of CPU, tends to handle most any good case. It's the crazy cases with 6-8 fans that they want more for, but there is no real reason for it, except aesthetics.
jabber - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
I've got no problem with having as many USB ports as you need. They are good to have.I'd prefer the removal of the legacy/redundant stuff and say 8-10 USB ports on the back instead.
I know my taste in motherboards my not be to everyones liking but it would be nice for some of us to have the choice of buying a serious high quality stripped down board so we can tailor it to our exact needs and use our existing better quality gear in it.
jonjonjonj - Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - link
or you could get the extreme4 which has all those for either $134 right with a free 8GB of memory on newegg. or wait until one of the weekly/monthly sales when it goes down to the $115 range.DanNeely - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
With Haswell just around the corner requesting specific models for a budget board roundup now seems counterproductive. "I need a board with U, V, Y; W would be nice but only if doesn't drive up the cost" seems like it would be more useful for selecting which boards to request samples of.A5 - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
Agreed. I'd like a review of whatever the cheapest board with an Intel NIC is :PBeyond that, any sub-$150 mATX is a good place to start.
Ananke - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
This is pretty much the perfect board - around $100, 6 SATA ports, internal USB 3 header, HDMI out in cases of no discrete GPU used, 3 fan headers, 4 RAM slots, Z-chipset for dual video usage and Intel Q-sync, stable voltage and heat spreaders on the voltage regulators...and 4 SATA cables.The Perfect board!
Zeroed - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
I have a similar low end gigabyte board. I found the dpc latency problem to be caused by the overclocking / system monitor software that came with the board. Soon as I stopped it loading, the problem went away.Razorbak86 - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Ian actually addresses that in the article, but the 500+ is a max reading, even with EasyTune 6 uninstalled!scottish_usa - Sunday, May 19, 2013 - link
I actually think some of the ASRock boards are a better deal in this price range. I have the Z77 Extreme 4 which features the following at around the same price point:4 x Sata 3 and 2 in raid
PCI-E x 16 + x4 + x4
or
PCI-E x8 + x8 + x4
1 x HDMI
1 x DVI
1 x VGA
1 x SPDIF
1 x eSata 3
spooky2th - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Gigabyte boards rock! I luv builds with Gigabyte boards! This board is kind of low end but it can be made into a fairly decent gaming rig.Grok42 - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
I am extremely proud of the Anandtech readers that commented here. I typed out what would have been the first post on this review and at the last minute canceled it. I thought it too harsh and possibly wasn't fair to post it on a specific review when in fact it was about the editorial leaning of Anandtech as a whole.Go read the About page and you'll see this site is dedicated to reviewing computers, phones and components from consumer to enterprise. However, as of late it seems that all the reviews on the consumer side are completely bent toward some stereo-typical gamer building water cooled overclocked triple GPU gaming rigs. While nothing wrong with these types of builds and they are fun to read and think about, there has to be some respect for those that want other builds. I just spent $1500 building a mITX gaming and workstation rig with a core i7 3770. It has a $300 GPU, $300 CPU, $350 SSD, $120 case and a $80 MB running a stock Intel cooler. I couldn't be happier and NEVER intend to overclock it. As strange as my choices are, I bet I'm closer to 90% of the readership than a $600-$900 dual or triple GPU and $200 MB rig that seems to be implied as required equipment around here.
The worst of it is that there is a huge movement to smaller, cooler and quieter rigs that doesn't seem to have a voice on the inside at Anandtech. A full ATX tower running 3 GPUs and 5 HDDs is no longer the sought after box for a growing base of enthusiasts. The small cool looking mITX that can also play games is what's hot.
jabber - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Yes indeed, also quite a few of us here are over the age of 30 so a lot of the toys and whistles and flashing lights don't really appeal so much.We prefer durability, stability and value for money more.
I think a lot of the high-end manufacturers have forgotten that a lot of their consumer base has got a lot older. Buying boxes with dragons and wonderwomen on them doesn't have quite the appeal it might have 15 years ago.
Razorbak86 - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
LOL. Age doesn't have a thing to do with it. Money often does though. Remember, this site is oriented towards enthusiasts first. So don't hate because others like more expensive components than you can afford.kmmatney - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
It not about being able to afford the high end stuff - but why pay %100 more for maybe a 10% gain in performance. I like to see all the reviews - high and and low end, so this review was great. At the end of the day, the parts I buy will be whatever gives the best bang-for-buck, at the performance level (and noise level) I can accept. I don't hate the reviews of high end parts, but I want reviews like this to balance things out.Wall Street - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
It isn't even for a 10% gain in performance. I, and a many users like me, are not going to use more than one SSD, aren't going to use more than one GPU, aren't going to use more than a couple of USB 3.0 ports (I don't own a single USB 3.0 device), won't overvolt/aggressively overclock and I even use the digital audio out on top of that (although the analog audio on this board is very disappointing).In that case, $120 boards like this are nearly identical in performance to one of the top end offerings. I think that, in thinking this is a low end offering, Ian misses where the sweat spot of the market is entirely. $120 motherboards are solidly midrange. You can get a low-end motherboard for less than $70 on Newegg. Compared to what Dell uses in its desktops, this board is feature packed!
jabber - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
It does actually. When you get a bit older you find out.Enjoy your youth while you have it!
jabber - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Oh and the PC enthusiast market is slowly diminishing. Sites like this need to diversify to appeal to types that don't think the peak of a good day is spent running Prime95 on a new PC for 24 hours.Rob94hawk - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Anyone want to explain to me why they're still putting USB 2.0 and SATA 3Gb/s when everything's backwards compatible?lever_age - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Every SATA 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0 port is handled by the Z77 chipset on that board. Actually, all the SATA 3 Gb/s and USB 2.0 are as well.If you want more of the faster SATA and USB, you need to pay for extra 3rd-party controller chips, which increases board costs. It's a legitimate form of product differentiation to leave those out on the cheaper products. But supposedly 8-series chipsets with Haswell (or at least most of them?) will support six SATA 6 Gb/s and six USB 3.0 natively.
jabber - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
I find USB3 still isn't quite a solid in terms of "it just works" like USB2 does. I think the USB3 chipsets still haven't got bedded down in the OS as solidly as USB2.Give it another year or two and it should be...I hope.
DanNeely - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Sata 6GB and USB3 both take significantly more die space on the chipset to implement; since most users only have at most a few devices that need the extra bandwidth most of ports offered on the chipset are still the older models. Haswell will probably be all Sata6GB on the chipset, although i wouldn't be surprised if some budget mobos add sata3gb ports via external controllers.The USB2/3 mix will probably last for a few more years on the desktop; this is both because of the much larger total number of ports involved, and because the internal headers aren't directly compatible (afaik you can buy adapters) and there're lots of cases which only have USB2 on the front panel; and lots of people with USB2 based cardreaders in a drive bay. I suspect one or two mobo headers for those will be with us for a long time; and wouldn't be surprised if a few linger as onboard/embedded device connects too like the pair of USB1 ports AMD chipsets still have (notionally for laptop keyboard/touchpad connects; but in both the desktop and mobile chipsets). I doubt the next generation of laptops will have any external USB2 ports; but might continue to use them internally.
maximumGPU - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
haha those spam comments actually made me laugh.cjs150 - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
This is a weird board.Full ATX but with 2x PCI slots. What do people use 1 for now, nevermind 2.
SATA sockets upright and in just the place that will ensure you lose the use of one of the SATA 6G sockets as soon as you put in a graphics card.
Spend a bit more a get a decent M-atx board with better layout
Wall Street - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Since the second x16 slot is powered from the x4 from the southbridge, I think they did this because they ran out of PCIe lanes. Also, some people use PCI for legacy devices. For example, I have a PCI TV tuner that I still use because a 4 year old tuner is just as good at HD as a new one.kasakka - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
FireWire cards are actually still a good choice for using PCI slots, because most PCI-E FW cards cost 2x more and are essentially a PCI-to-PCI-E bridge chip + the PCI card's components. The few natively PCI-E FW cards are 3x more expensive than their PCI counterparts.Yes, FW still matters since most of the better audio interfaces use it so a big thing for studios or home recording, now that most motherboards don't come with a built-in FW chip.
It's the x4 full size PCI-E slots that make no sense to me.
DanNeely - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
raid cards, or a second gpu for extra (non gaming) monitor outputs all need more than a single 1x lane; but 4 is plenty for anything they'd be asked to do. Some 4 port USB3 adapter cards on newegg are more than just 1x (though not explicitly marked I think they're 2x); presumably if you tried loading all 4 ports at once on the 1x cards you'd be bottlenecking on the PCIe bus.Wall Street - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
You can install a PCIe x16 card in an x16 physical slot that is electrically PCIe x4. You also can install an PCIe x4 card in a x16 physical slot that is electrically x4. You cannot install a PCIe x16 card in a physical x4 slot. This is why they put an x16 physical slot for an x4 interface. An x16 physical slot is always at least as good.jabber - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
X4 slots are hard to come by (I havent had a board with one fitted in years) so it may be they don't really make them anymore and just use a standard 16x slot instead.DanNeely - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
I think the second PCI slot is as much about the limited number of PCIe lanes available as anything else. IIRC 7 series chipsets don't have native PCI support instead requiring a bridge chip, and only 8 PCIe lanes on the SB. That's 4 for the x4 slot, 2 for the 2x slots, 1 for the bridge, and 1 for the realtek nic (if I'm reading the specsheet right, the audio connects to the chipsets audio out and not over PCIe). That uses up all 8 available lanes; leaving the choice of only having 5 expansion slots filled, or spending more for a PCIe mux to add more available lanes. The latter is what I think many higher end boards do, but is cost-prohibitive in the value segment where every dollar counts.Cerb - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
Awhile ago, I came across some audio books on cassette tape, and wanted to transfer them. My best input choice, by far, was an existing PCI sound card, with an external ADC. There you have it. For someone else, it may be an old but high quality plotter or scanner using SCSI, or a special serial card, or firewire card, or some other little thing.Like serial and parallel ports, PCI will be with us for awhile yet, though there is no good reason to need more than 1 of them, except that they would have had an unfilled slot, otherwise.
That 2nd slot is there, almost certainly, to fill space, due to using up the PCIe lanes available. Even MicroATX boards do this, giving 2 PCI slots, but an extra PCIe with more lanes, instead of several 1x PCIe slots.
kasakka - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
WTF, does this actually have a manual VCore setting when the similarly priced DS3H didn't? Damn Gigabyte and their gazillion different models.kmmatney - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Yeah - that's a bit frusterating. I bought the DS3H knowing it didn't have Vcore setting, as my plan was to overclock as high as I could at stock voltage. However, while I was hoping to get to 4.5 Ghz (as a few other were able to do), mine crapped out at 4.3 Ghz, and I run it at 4.2 to be safe. More than enough performance really, and not a bad overclock from 3.4 Ghz, but I'm curious to see what it could do a VCore adjustment.kasakka - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
I did the same and also ran into similar problems, though mine would boot at 4.5 but crash on benchmarks. I exchanged the board for a UD3H and now running 4.5 stable at lower voltage than what the DS3H would set, the CPU boots at 4.7 but didn't bother working to make it stable at that speed.What annoys me is that Gigabyte doesn't disclose the lack of VCore adjustment anywhere and there are other strange things like how the DS3H uses all-Intel USB ports whereas the UD3H is a combination of VIA and Intel controllers (with the VIA not working unless a driver is installed). I really sometimes wonder what is going thru mobo developers' heads.
Flunk - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
It's nice that you're reviewing more commodity hardware, but this board is already being liquidated by the computer shops in my area. Intel has a new line of chips just around the corner. This review would have been a lot more helpful this time last year.lever_age - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Hopefully it's just an indication of more things to come. But yeah, coverage of the AsRock Pro3/Pro4, MSI G4x, Asus LX/LK, Gigabyte HD/D(S)3, etc. of the world would be nice. And the stuff under that as well. You know, the stuff you put in or recommend to friends, family, etc.Though to nitpick, this /particular/ board wasn't available until relatively late in Z77's reign.
rangerdavid - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Yeah, $5,600 / year is just about right for someone if they "sit at home, music playing while they 'work' in front of my iMac."Alan G - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
I'm probably one of the older folks who reads these reviews. I haven't played a computer game (not counting Free Cell) since the Tex Murphy series ended way back when. Clearly one can spend a lot or a little on a build. I just finished a new build for photography and found reviews on this site particularly valuable (I ended up getting a Fractal Designs Arc Midi case in part because of the good overview). I needed a build that would run quiet (computer sits about 18 inches away from me) and would perform. Interestingly, my main software Adobe Lightroom really doesn't require a GPU and would run satisfactorily just using the Ivy Bridge on board graphics; Photoshop is a different matter and some operations do take advantage of a good GPU. Many reviewers of GPUs may not be aware of this and tend to focus only on the gaming community.Motherboards such as this one do have a place in builds for specialty purposes when price might be a key point. I can build a killer photo editing PC for under $700 and not sacrifice any performance. Adding some bells and whistles is nice but not necessary.
jabber - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
Indeed, I have a lot of customers that really don't care about day glow slots and surround sound but they want a serious spec machine for heavy tasks.nathanddrews - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gSQg1i_q2gcrashtech - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
The internet cafe comment seems out of place in an article with global readership.Razorbak86 - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
Why is it out of place? Because it references China?Do you realize how large the Chinese Internet cafe market is? Manufacturers often design products to meet specific market needs, and then end up selling those same products to other market segments.
I really don't understand the level of consternation over that one innocuous comment in a 7-page review. I honestly think that some commenters' negative reactions to that statement are more telling about their own insecurities or prejudices than they are a statement of the author's perspective. JMHO.
popej - Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - link
Your audio test are of very limited value. 16bit test is not enough to show performance of better chips and loop-back test shows limitation of audio input, when usually audio output quality is what is interesting.You have presented 6 test for USB transfer. Imagine that you have posted only USB 2.0 copy test. This would be an equivalent of what have you done to audio testing.
RoslynWan12 - Wednesday, May 22, 2013 - link
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