Asus P8Z77-V LK (Z77) Motherboard Review

Following my recent look at one of Asus' mainstream boards, the P8Z77-V which saw me highly impressed with its feature pack and relatively competitive levels of performance that give some of the higher end board a run for their money, its time to see what else is available in Asus' mainstream motherboard line-up. When it comes to needing a new motherboard, not every user needs a top end board and for any manufacturer, targeting the mainstream market with a top end board is a worthless exercise. This is the whole reason why there are product ranges that stem from the rock bottom basic board right up to the top end ROG boards (in Asus' case) that give every bell and whistle possible to cover every eventuality. Sticking more with the mainstream market though, like we have seen recently with the launch of the 7790, there are a few gaps the are still to be filled in, either of feature sets or price point and in the case of the Asus mainstream line up, this is between the P8Z77-V LX and P8Z77-V. The P8Z77-V LK offers up the best of both worlds between the entry level and mid range boards and this is both in terms of price and performance. Over the entry level board, we see mre USB3.0 connectivity on the rear I/O along with a DisplayPort output, 7.1ch audio, three PCIe 16x lanes giving the option for up to three way graphics configurations should the need arise and cooling to some of the power phases around the CPU amongst more subtle features. Obviously this is not a high up the ladder as the P8Z77-V so items such as on-board WiFi is not present, but this is the whole point of a board that with in the middle, it offers up the best of both worlds for a certain price point. Still being effectively a entry to mid level board, there is not the biggest range of accessories included but there are all the basics to get you going including a driver CD, SATA cables, I/O shield and even a SLI bridge as well. Keeping the P8Z77-V as the direct comparison for this slightly lower spec board, there are a few distinct alterations that can be seen on the PCB. The LK board is slightly narrower than its bigger brother and it also has some visual aspects that are either smaller or missing. One of the most notable changes is around the CPU socket. The LK board features only a 4+1+1 phase power design down from the P8Z77-V's 8+4 design. Naturally this does mean that the power delivery to the processor is not going to be as smooth and in terms of overclocking we shouldn't expect as higher clocks as we found on the fully fledged P8Z77-V. Due to the slightly lower specification of the board, there is also a slightly smaller heat sink over the Z77 chip, although this still follows a similar design style to the bigger heat sink on the -V. One specification that remains unaltered is the support for up to 32GB of DDR3 memory across the four DIMMs. The LK board also offers up a native USB3.0 header like many other boards do in the current generation. In a matched layout to the -V, Asus' LK board also offers up native PCI expansion for users that still require them. Along side these, there is support for up to three way CrossFireX or SLI set-ups through the three x16 lanes and on top of this an additional two x1 lanes are present. Along the header linup there is still a strong presence for USB2.0 with four headers present, and in addition to the front panel headers and HD audio the only addition is a COM port header which the higher spec boards tend to drop off. Another feature that is a little trimmed back over the P8Z77-V is SATA connectivity, dropping two ports from the line-up, the LK board gives two 6Gb/s and four 3Gb/s ports, all controlled by the Z77 chipset. Moving last of all round the the rear I/O, the number of options may seem a little sparse, but in fact there are almost as many connectivity options to chose from compared to the P8Z77-V, bar the option of WiFi. There are the four main display outputs, four USB3.0 and two USB2.0, a legacy PS/2 combo port, Intel Gigabit LAN and 7.1ch audio with S/PDIF. More than enough for the everyday user. As seen on the P8Z77-V, this line of boards use a BIOS that is derived from the roots for ROG with a UEFI interface. This as we know makes navigating a board BIOS so much easier and for novice users, a lot less daunting. To test this board, we are able to run all of our tests at stock speeds using a pre-defined set-up of hardware. We will also be overclocking the processor to its limits on this board to see how it compares against the stock speed. Test system: Asus P8Z77-V LK Intel i7-3770k Corsair Vengeance 1866MHz 8GB AMD Radeon HD 7970 Corsair H80 Corsair HX1050 Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD Lian Li T60 AOC E2795VH We would like to thank AOC, Asus, Corsair, Kingston and Lian Li for supplying us with our test system components. Many different software applications are also used to gain the broadest spectrum of results, which allows for the fairest testing possible. Software used: 3DMark 11 AIDA64 Cinebench R11.5 CPU-Z PCMark 7 Super PI As highlighted previously whilst having a closer look at this board, there are considerably less power phases to what is normally found on a high end board and when we translate this to overclocking potential, it does of course mean that there is a dramatically less change of going near to the 5GHz barrier. This is expected though and if you're looking to hit that mark, then look for a higher class of board that is geared for that job. Irrespective though, the UEFI BIOS on this board does have all the required features need to do a bit of overclocking, albeit some voltage adjustment features have been left out from this revision. This does mean that there is space to give the board some extra speed and in turn a bit more for the money, but as I've said don't expect mega clocks from a lower end mainstream board. Targeting the CPU ratio directly, I had in my mind a target of getting to 4.6GHz, which based on similar boards from the past is where I've ended up and with out even throwing a fuss back at me the board was more than happy to run at this level, this means that there has to be a little more in it and upping the ration to 47x was also a success. Pushing the chip further to 48x however resulted in a no-boot scenario and even mixing the ration and BCLK to get a 4.8GHz speed out of the chip proved fruitless. This is due to the lack to power phases and voltage control on this particular board, but regardless getting to 4.7GHz is still a very good level to be at. Cinebench R11.5 CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more. CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It's completely free. Kicking things off with Cinebench, the lack of phases powering the CPU does seem that have a direct effect on the performance available with one of the lowest scores that I've recorded for Z77. Overclocking naturally does raise the performance, but again this is still limited by the power delivery, pitting it only mid-way through the chart. Super PI Super PI is a computer program that calculates pi to a specified number of digits after the decimal point—up to a maximum of 32 million. It uses Gauss–Legendre algorithm and is a Windows port of the program used by Yasumasa Kanada in 1995 to compute pi to 232 digits. As I've mentioned before, SuperPI is more focussed upon the chip itself with very little influence given by the board and consequently we find a stock time that sits right in the midst of the Z77 results. 3DMark 11 3DMark 11 is the latest offering from Futuremark, taking full advantage of DirectX 11 by utilising tessellation features and volumetric lighting. It takes your graphics and CPU hardware to the edge to simulate the most extreme conditions whilst working as a stand point to compare results with other users online. As I found with the -V, the LK board does give some of the higher rated boards a good run for their money under the extreme pre-set, still taking on a UP7, but again the performance pre-set knocks the board down a peg or two. Overclocking brings the board back up the chart, giving performance that sits just below that of a Maximus V Gene. AIDA64 AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. AIDA64 Extreme Edition provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. AIDA64 is compatible with all current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Memory bandwidth is another aspect that is less influenced by the board itself [albeit that it does have a slight factor to play] but more on the processor and consequently there is still a highly acceptable abount of bandwidth on hand for any application. AIDA64 AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. AIDA64 Extreme Edition provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. AIDA64 is compatible with all current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. SATA performance is very well handled by the P8 series of boards as we have seen with close performance all round at stock speeds. Overclocking the board give raise the bar a little up to 468MB/s however 460MB/s at stock is still very fast in its own right. PCMark 7 PCMark 7 provides a set of 7 suites for measuring different aspects of PC performance with a high degree of accuracy. Overall system performance is measured by the PCMark Suite. The Lightweight Suite measures the capabilities of entry level systems and mobility platforms unable to run the full PCMark suite. Common use performance is measured by the Entertainment, Creativity and Productivity scenario suites. Component performance is measured by the Computation and Storage hardware suites. The Storage suite is ideal for testing SSDs and external hard drives in addition to the system drive. As we've seen from the other P8Z77 motherboards, when everything is brought together in a system wide benchmark run, they do fall down the ratings with this board sadly sitting at the bottom of the Z77 chart, but as we can see this is pushed back in front when over clocked showing the advantage of unleashing the free extra performance that is hidden within the CPU. AIDA64 AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. AIDA64 Extreme Edition provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. AIDA64 is compatible with all current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. As I've seen time and time again, USB speed is not directly related to processor speed and this is backed up by the 'as near makes no difference' mark of speed when the CPU is over clocked. On the front of USB3.0 performance overall however there is no short fall in speed compared to the armada of high end boards. Power Consumption To test power consumption, we monitor the overall power of the system through a plug-in electricity usage monitor at an idle and load state. This allows us to show the fluctuation between how much power draw the system takes at idle and at load. By monitoring the overall usage of the whole system, it gives an easy comparison if you wish to do the same yourself as opposed to buying very expensive individual testing equipment. Lower levels of power consumption is something that is to be expected with a lower level of board and the LK board delivers just that with a full load rating of only 217W at stock speeds, whilst overclocking sees the total system draw still well below the 300W threshold. Given the good level of performance and an extensive feature set that I saw from the P8Z77-V not too long ago, some may wonder why they should consider this board instead. Well the way to look at it and as it happens the way I see it, is what if you don't need all the extra options such as WiFi or better overclocking potential? This is where more basic boards come into the game. There are many situations where the need for a board that does as it says on the tin is needed and all the extra bells and whistles that can be had with higher boards are left unused, meaning that the higher cost is disproportionate to the end users needs. So putting this board in the light of mainstream users who need a board that does as it says on the tin with minimal fuss and at a price which is right for the job in hand, the P8Z77-V LK is bang on target. Such ideal situations for this board would be in schools, offices and general home systems where gaming isn't a priority and something that is up-to-date with the main modern features is considered to be more important. Whilst the board does have the ability to overclock, I wouldn't see this as a major selling point, as the lack of heat sink on some of the power phases may see a shortened lifespan on components if pushed too far in the long run. Following this through I would recommend that if you really wanted to overclock on this board then taking it to somewhere in the region of 4-4.5GHz would satisfy the needs of anyone and would give them a bit more power at the same time. For a board that does what it needs to with minimal fuss and gives some backward compatibility at the same time with the two included PCI lanes, with some features that steer it towards the mid-range level whilst keeping at a price point that is close to the entry-level P8Z77-V LX, for around £100 you really can't go wrong. So where does this leave the LK board? Well for the vast majority of home office users, this is the sort of area you should be looking in, granted there are options from other brands to consider such as the Z77X-D3H from Gigabyte, but this has a slight edge over its competitors on price point and when you're in that market, price is a major factor when choosing components. With a pretty good level of performance on hand for around £100, there is certainly a bit of bang for your buck right there.