Z77

Nevertheless, EVGA in Orange County, Southern California has just announced its first motherboard powered by the Z77 chipset, dubbed the EVGA Z77 FTW (151-IB-E699-KR). This is the company's flagship Z77 board, denoted by its "For The Win" branding, and features support for both second-gen 32nm Sandy Bridge and third-gen 22nm Ivy Bridge mainstream chips based on Socket LGA 1155.

ZOTAC unveiled a monster LGA1155 motherboard aimed at professional overclockers, and based on the new Intel Z77 Express chipset, the ZT-Z77-U1D. Pictured below, the designers' focus was evidently on giving the motherboard a very strong VRM, apart from just enough expansion and connectivity features for 2-way multi-GPU setups. To begin with, the LGA1155 socket is powered by a 27-phase VRM, which consists of AIO ferrite-core solid-state chokes, DrMOS, tantalum capacitors, and a super-ML multiphase capacitor to condition power. The VRM is controlled by a VRD12-compliant controller.

It is not often we find a new motherboard gets our full attention, but a new Mini-ITX motherboard from ASUS has really succeeded in doing so. The board gets a relatively large VRM section in relation to its overall size and looks well prepared for overclocking.

While rival manufacturers flooded CeBIT with their Z77 motherboards, EVGA has been rather low key and only today decided to give us a look at what it's preparing for next's month's Ivy Bridge launch. Seen below is one high-end LGA 1155 board EVGA is currently working on.

ASUS unveiled the Republic of Gamers Maximus V Formula motherboard, at CeBIT. Its latest bad boy is based on Intel Z77 chipset, and supports "Ivy Bridge" and "Sandy Bridge" Core processors in the LGA1155 package. The LGA1155 socket is powered by a 12-phase Digi+ VRM, which takes power from one 8-pin EPS, and one 4-pin ATX, apart from the 24-pin ATX, and an optional 4-pin Molex. The VRM area of this motherboard is cooled by a heatsink that is embedded with a liquid-cooling channel that lets you plug it to your water-cooling loop.

ASUS unveiled the Republic of Gamers Maximus V Formula motherboard, at CeBIT. Its latest bad boy is based on Intel Z77 chipset, and supports "Ivy Bridge" and "Sandy Bridge" Core processors in the LGA1155 package. The LGA1155 socket is powered by a 12-phase Digi+ VRM, which takes power from one 8-pin EPS, and one 4-pin ATX, apart from the 24-pin ATX, and an optional 4-pin Molex. The VRM area of this motherboard is cooled by a heatsink that is embedded with a liquid-cooling channel that lets you plug it to your water-cooling loop.

Z77 motherboards are to be reelased on April 8, with Ivy Bridge processors a few months later. Still, the motherboards can house a Sandy bridge processor as well. Below you can see a ASRock Z77 Extreme6 motherboard, the top of the tine product from Asrock.

Well, not exactly surprizing, motherboard makers started to get ready for Intel’s upcoming release of its first 22nm Ivy Bridge processors, sources in Taiwan claiming that some companies have already begun mass production of LGA 1155 boards based on Intel 7-series chipsets.

Most of the solutions that have entered production are apparently based on the Intel Z77 chipset, the most advanced PCH in the 7-series Panther Point range.

Intel's most CPU from the upcoming Ivy Bridge collection is going to be known as Core i7 3770K and has been benchmarked, apparently. The benchmarking results that have made their way to the Internet originate with OBR-Hardware, which is not the most reliable of sources TBH.