GIGABYTE Z77X-UP4 TH - with the power of lightning
There is a raging heat these days, in which case it is also more difficult for the article writer to put the letters in the right order one after the other. The world of hardware has now been overtaken by a kind of “summer silence,” with little big announcement, little defining novelty. Of course, a fresh curiosity can always be found, as manufacturers try to bring something to market even during dead periods, which they can draw the attention of buyers to. In the world of motherboards, a new interface, Intel's Thunderbolt, has moved the stagnant water a bit, along with the major manufacturers, of course, GIGABYTE has also introduced models with this connector.
Thunderbolt (formerly codenamed Light Peak) is the name given to high-speed optical cable technology developed by Intel. Its purpose is to connect electronic devices, various peripherals and displays on a computer bus. Its bandwidth is currently 10 Gbps, but it is expected that this rate may increase to 100 Gbps in the future. The design of a universal interface was the basic concept, which can replace the interface and cabling of current SCSI, SATA, USB, FireWire and HDMI buses (the bus driver protocol does not necessarily need to be replaced as Thunderbolt is designed to be protocol neutral).
Compared to the interfaces known today and their bus system, Thunderbolt is much faster, has a longer range, takes up less space, and can be considered more flexible due to its protocol neutrality. Thunderbolt has enough bandwidth to meet the needs of data and multimedia (image + voice) systems, in many cases with daisy chain devices using multiple protocols at the same time, with two-way data traffic.
GIGABYTE Thunderbolt motherboards have an Intel-certified Thunderbolt port. The ports are located directly on the back of the motherboard (I / O) and are capable of two-way data transfer at the same time, up to a maximum speed of 10 Gbps. In addition, GIGABYTE's new motherboards allow you to use up to 12 different devices at the same time without slowing down the 10 Gbps data transfer rate.
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Thunderbolt motherboards combine PCI Express-based and DisplayPort-based communication over a single cable, allowing the user to operate many different device types in parallel, with 10 Gbps of bandwidth per channel available for both PCI Express-based and DisplayPort-based communication , however, in Daisy Chain mode, a connecting cable must be used between the devices. In addition, GIGABYTE now places two such interfaces on the printed circuit board, which it calls Dual Thunderbolt, and has recently submitted three such types to the competition, the Z77X-UP5 TH, the Z77X-UP4 TH, and the Z77MX-D3H TH. We received the Z77X-UP4 TH, we will get to know it better.
The board is based on a standard ATX size printed circuit board, i.e. 30,5 × 24,4 cm. The PCB is black, which is a feature of the more serious GIGABYTE models. The LGA1155 socket is in the usual location, and the phases of the 3D Power supply are surrounded by an L shape, for a total of 10, and the memory rails have been added to 2. GIGABYTE has introduced the IOR PowerStage IR3550 control circuit with a current of 60 amps , meanwhile, its loss is minimal, so its efficiency is better and it produces less heat.
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Of the DIMM slots, we get the 4 typical of this platform, which receives up to 32 GB of DDR3 in dual-channel mode, officially up to 1600 MHz, but of course it is possible to achieve higher speeds and to use XMP profiles. In addition to the memory rails, the 24-pin power connector is located in the usual place, which is complemented by an 8-pin power connector next to the phases. Under the LGA1155 socket, we can discover an mSATA connector that is unusual for the first time, but can already be considered an element within GIGABYTE, into which we can insert an SSD with an mSATA interface, such as the Intel SSD 310.
If you choose a larger size, you can also use it as a standalone system drive, say around 20GB, and you may want to use Intel Smart Response Technology to speed up your existing hard drive and speed up your system. The Z77 PCH features a flattened, fairly robust black-tinted aluminum cooling in the same style as the rib in the PWM area, taking care not to interfere with the installation of long video cards.
At the edge of the page, we get the SATA connectors by turning them, which practically covers the offer of the Z77: 6 SATA connectors, of which 2 support the speed of 6 Gb / s, and four support the speed of 3 Gb / s. To the right of the two white ports, we also find a pin terminal from which we can route USB 3.0 connectors to the back or front panel. An 8-channel Realtek HD audio (ALC 898) chip with S / PDIF IN and OUT support has been integrated into the PCB, this is a standard model in this category. At the bottom of the PCB are the standard pin terminals, including the USBs, which are also capable of On / Off Charge charging.
There will be no shortage of PCI Express rails, a total of three full-width slots are available, and three short (× 1) surfaces have been added to the PCB. The first two full-width ports are capable of operating in × 16 and × 8 / × 8 modes, with NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX also supported. If we still have an old PCI card, we won't get in trouble either, as we also get a piece of traditional PCI bus.
Let's look at the back cover offer! The line starts with a combined PS / 2 connector (can be used for both mouse and keyboard) and two USB 3.0, followed by VGA (d-sub) and DVI ports, ie integrated graphics, and Lucid Virtu MVP is also supported. Two more USB 3.0s follow, and the existence of native HDMI is no question. Then we can see the RJ45 connector powered by a Realtek gigabit ethernet controller. Below that, again, there are only two USB 3.0, so we can say that now all USB comes with the newer standard on the back. Then you can see the two new connectors, Thunderbolt, which still need to get used to, controlled by the Intel DSL3510L chip. They can even be used as mini-DisplayPorts, capable of 10 Gbps speed. Finally, the analog audio terminals and an optical digital output are shown on the panel.
In the box we get the usual things, manual, installation disk, SATA cables, SLI and CFX bridges, although it is important to note that in-store copies may have richer content!
Now we have taken over the most important things, let’s see the tests!
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