Biostar TZ77XE4 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).

The Biostar TZ77XE4 has another two SATA-600 ports, controlled by an ASMedia ASM1061 chip (no RAID support).

One drawback is that the manufacturer didn’t use different colors to identify the SATA ports. See Figure 4. All SATA ports are located at the motherboard’s edge and rotated 90°, so video cards won’t block them.

Figure 4: The two additional SATA-600 ports, the two SATA-600 ports controlled by the chipset, and the four SATA-300 ports

This motherboard also has one eSATA-600 port, which is shared with the “SATA3-U” port, so they can’t be used at the same time.

The Intel Z77 chipset supports 14 USB 2.0 ports and four USB 3.0 ports. The Biostar TZ77XE4 offers eight USB 2.0 ports, four soldered on the rear panel and four available through two headers located on the motherboard; and four USB 3.0 ports, two located on the motherboard rear panel and two available on a header located on the motherboard, near the third PCI Express x16 slot.

The Biostar TZ77XE4 doesn’t support 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 doesn’t have SPDIF outputs, which is certainly a drawback, but you can add them by buying and installing adapters on the “JSPDIFOUT1” connector available.

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

The portrayed motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port, controlled by a Realtek RTL8111E chip.

In Figure 5, you can see the motherboard rear panel with a PS/2 keyboard connector, four USB 2.0 ports, DisplayPort output, HDMI output, VGA output, DVI-I output, eSATA-600 port, two USB 3.0 ports, one Gigabit Ethernet port, and the analog audio jacks.

Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel