ECS Z77H2-AX 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 an ASMedia ASM1061 chip (no RAID support). These ports are located at the motherboard’s edge and rotated 90°, so video cards won’t block them. Unfortunately, the manufacturer used the same color for all ports, making it hard to identify them. See Figure 5.

Figure 5: The two SATA-300 ports, the two SATA-600 ports controlled by the chipset, and the two SATA-600 ports controlled by the additional chip

This motherboard also has two independent eSATA-300 ports, which are controlled by the chipset.

The Intel Z77 chipset supports 14 USB 2.0 ports and four USB 3.0 ports. The ECS Z77H2-AX offers six USB 2.0 ports, four available on the motherboard rear panel and two available through a header located on the motherboard; and six USB 3.0 ports, four located on the motherboard rear panel and two available on a header located on the motherboard. The two additional USB 3.0 ports located on the rear panel are controlled by a Texas Instruments TUSB7320 chip. The motherboard comes with a 3.5” panel with two USB 3.0 ports, so you can use the internal USB 3.0 connector if your computer case doesn’t have USB 3.0 ports using this kind of connector.

The ECS Z77H2-AX 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 Realtek ALC892 codec, which is a mainstream solution, providing a 97 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, a 90 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. For a product touted as high-end, we’d prefer to see a better audio codec here, with at least a 100 dB signal-to-noise ratio.

The motherboard has an optical SPDIF output, and you can add a coaxial SPDIF output or route digital audio to old video cards that require a physical connection in order to have digital audio on their HDMI output by using the “SPDIFO” connector available.

The analog audio outputs are independent only if you use a 5.1 speaker set; if you install a 7.1 speaker set you will have to use either the “mic in” or the “line in” jacks.

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

In Figure 6, you can see the motherboard rear panel with the Bluetooth dongle, four USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA-300 ports, clear CMOS button, VGA output, HDMI output, Wi-Fi dongle, four USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet port, optical SPDIF output, and the analog audio jacks.

Figure 6: Motherboard rear panel