ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE Motherboard

On-Board Peripherals

The Intel Z77 chipset is a single-chip solution, which is also known as a PCH (Platform Controller Hub). This chip supports two SATA-600 ports and four SATA-300 ports, supporting RAID (0, 1, 10, and 5). This motherboard has two additional SATA-600 ports, controlled by a Marvell 88SE9128 chip, which supports RAID 0 and 1. These ports are located at the motherboard’s edge and rotated 90°, so video cards won’t block them. Thankfully, ASUS used different colors to identify which SATA ports are SATA-300 (light blue), SATA-600 controlled by the chipset (gray) or SATA-600 controlled by the additional chip (dark blue). See Figure 6.

Figure 6: The four SATA-300 ports (light blue), the two SATA-600 ports controlled by the chipset (gray), and the two SATA-600 ports controlled by the additional chip (dark blue)

This motherboard also has two independent eSATA-600 ports, controlled by an ASMedia ASM1061 chip.

The Intel Z77 chipset supports 14 USB 2.0 ports and four USB 3.0 ports. The ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE offers eight USB 2.0 ports, four available on the motherboard rear panel and four available through two headers located on the motherboard; and eight USB 3.0 ports, six located on the motherboard rear panel and two available through a header located on the motherboard, near the main power supply connector. The four additional ports are controlled by two ASMedia ASM1042 chips.

The ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE doesn’t have FireWire ports.

This motherboard supports 7.1+2 audio format, i.e., eight channels plus two independent channels for audio streaming. On this motherboard, the audio is generated by the chipset using the new Realtek ALC898 codec, which is an outstanding solution, providing an impressive 110 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 104 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, and up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs, with 24-bit resolution. This means you are able to capture and edit analog audio (e.g., converting LPs to CDs or MP3, converting VHS to DVDs or any other digital format, etc.) with this motherboard without adding any background noise.

The motherboard has on-board optical SPDIF output. A header labeled “
SPDIF_OUT” also provides SPDIF output for you to install a coaxial SPDIF output or to route digital audio to older video cards that require this physical connection in order to have digital audio output in their HDMI connectors.

The analog audio outputs are independent, so you won’t need to use the “mic in” or the “line in” jacks when installing an analog 7.1 speaker set.

The portrayed motherboard has two Gigabit Ethernet ports, one controlled by the chipset using an Intel WG82579V chip to make the interface with the physical layer, and one controlled by a Realtek RTL8111F chip.

The ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE also comes with a module supporting Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n), which is to be installed on a special connector on the motherboard rear panel. It is important to notice that this module supports the latest Bluetooth standard (4.0, maximum theoretical transfer rate of 24 Mbps), while some competing motherboards only support Bluetooth 2.1+EDR (maximum theoretical transfer rate of 3 Mbps). Another important difference is on the Wi-Fi portion of the module, which is a dual-band device, i.e., it supports the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequencies, and has two antennas, allowing you to reach higher transfer speed when using the IEEE 802.11n standard compared to single-band devices operating at 2.4 GHz. These are important features to understand when comparing this motherboard to competing products.

Figure 7: The Bluetooth/Wi-Fi module

In Figure 8, you can see the motherboard rear panel with four USB 2.0 ports, the Bluetooth/Wi-Fi module installed, six USB 3.0 ports, two eSATA-600 ports, optical SPDIF output, HDMI output, DisplayPort output, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, the “BIOS Flashback” button, and the analog audio jacks.

Figure 8: Motherboard rear panel