What features will be on the new Z77 motherboards

[George Poncho]

Hi Linus,

I was wondering what features will be on the new Z77 motherboards which will be released first quarter of 2112 using the new Ivy Bridge processors.

I am in the process of deciding what motherboard to buy and I know that the current Z68 motherboards can use the new Ivy Bridge processors (with bios update) however the current Z68 lack certain features like

1. PCIe 3 (Gen 3) support
2. How many 6Gbps SATA ports will be made available
3. How many USB 3 ports on the motherboard
4. Will the boards have UEFI BIOS.
5. How many Memory slots will be on the new Z77 motherboards (will it be 4 as with Z68 or will it have 8 as with the new 2011 motherboards)

I would really like to know what to expect. Also do you think that waiting for the new Z77 boards (with new Ivy Bridge processor) and buying one of them is preferable to purchasing a Z68 motherboard today (with 2600k cpu).


Thanks for your input

[AkG]

1) probably. depends on the mobo (ie high end ,mid range, low end). pci-e gen 3 is a meh feature right now. Dont see any gpus coming out that will NEED gen 3. the gen AFTER that...maybe.
2) same as SandyBridges. the pch will just be a refresh of the pch on SB with maybe some tweaks done to it (but I doubt it will amount to much)
3) same as SB....but will vary from mobo to mobo depending on if they use more (or less) usb 3 controllers (ie a discrete usb chip such as the asmedia usb 3 controller chip)
4) probably. most come with it now. for better or for worse its here to stay. but will prolly vary based on mobo lineups (see answer 1 and 3).

[George Poncho]

Question: I forgot to mention regarding the amount of Memory slots that will be on the Z77 motherboard (see updated item 5 to orginal post). Also you did not mention if you would recommend waiting for Z77 Ivy Bridge or go with current Z68 board (with 2600k cpu)

Thanks

No one really knows right now, and anyone who knows isn't allowed to answer you... You'll have to wait until closer to the launch...

As for memory slots though, the IMC on these chips supports 4 slots, so that's all you're getting.

[MARSTG]

I would say run with the Z68 today

[Dzzope]

To upgrade or not is a choice you can only make... is your current rig unusable? or anything like this?

If you can wait I'd always suggest waiting.

[pitz]

The Z77 feature set will be practically identical to the Z68 feature set, except some very minor changes with the PCI-E slots.

You can think of it like the i430TX versus the i430HX. The i440LX versus the i440BX. The clock gets bumped up a little, a feature or two added, but nothing else really.

Triple monitor support will be in the Ivy Bridge/Panther Point chipsets.