Reviews - Intel Z77 chipset and Gigabyte Z77-D3H motherboard

[HEXUS]

We take a good look at Intel's new chipset.

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[13thmonkey]

how good is the fan control, what can be controlled how many etc. surely you can talk about this prior to IVB release?

[007]

I am not so sure about the chipset taking care of the fans.

[13thmonkey]

I am not so sure about the chipset taking care of the fans.

why not? better than software, less likely to fail to account for a 'locked up' situation as it sits below windows, also consumes less resources because of that. Looking at some mobo's you can now graph the temp-speed curve, yes it'll be fiddly to get it right, but once set leave it alone.

[TastyPC]

why not? better than software, less likely to fail to account for a 'locked up' situation as it sits below windows, also consumes less resources because of that. Looking at some mobo's you can now graph the temp-speed curve, yes it'll be fiddly to get it right, but once set leave it alone.

Yep, sounds like an improvement to me. Time to decide if its worth the upgrade...hmmm

[davesom555]

Trying to figure out whether to upgrade to Ivy bridge, or wait for the next step... Got an I5 760 currently. I just wonder if i'll be kicking myself in about a year when they release the next tick...

[Richh]

13th Monkey/007: The fan control on these is not done by "the chipset" (i.e. the Intel southbridge). The SuperIO (and hence fan controller) chip on these appears to be from ITE - and is thus the same family, if not the same part, as that used on Gigabyte's Z68 series boards. Seems from the Z77-D3H's manual that the CPU fan plus three of the four system fan headers can be speed controlled with rudimentary slope settings in BIOS + further tuning in the Windows utility. In addition the ITE chip is SpeedFan friendly so there are plenty of options for tweaking the fan management.

[d032sh]

Yay, I'm super happy there will be Z77 boards with standard PCI slots (I've never heard them called PCIc before today though!). I was getting a bit worried when they announced the chipset wouldn't have native support... I am a bit worried about potential stability problems though after the dodgy IDE controller on my previous p965 board. Do you think it's worth just accepting progress and getting rid of my PCI cards and getting a board without support?

[shayr1992]

I'm looking to put this one in my next build, it is easily the cheapest Z77 board out there and ebuyer are giving away free coolers with it too.

[drewos1]

I have this motherboard and its great. I really could ask for more as it has very thing I need and more! I completely agree with everything that has been said in this review as the only con with this board is the lack of SLI but this is not the end of this world for most people.

[crysis1989]

oh so no SLI is only a dealbreaker....else it is good