I have a thing for motherboards. It isn’t just the performance I like, it’s the way they look and the way I can just add things, remove things, and do things to get different results. It’s like Lego for geeks. Recently I had the chance to play around with the ASUS P8Z77-V Premium motherboard and these are my thoughts…
When I first unwrapped the ASUS P8Z77-V Premium motherboard my six year old took one look at it and said, “That looks like a city!” As a parent I could not have been prouder, although as I started to explain how the “city” worked, she soon glazed over and fell asleep. Not quite ready for motherboard testing…
The P8Z77-V has a rear port for Thunderbolt connectivity which transferred files faster than a rabbit runs towards a carrot on a stick. The interface is quick, very quick, and if you need this type of speed then this is the place to go in order to make the most of it.
The board also has four full x16 PCIe 3.0 slots at x16 and 32GB mSATA SSD for all that extra storage, speed and power you’ll be wanting to squash into every last bit of available space. The SSD caching utility means that you can save on disk space considerably – important with the modern space munching titles that eat space pretty fast – and noticeably improve performance.
I found that installing and setting up the ASUS P8Z77-V Premium motherboard wasn’t as complex as I’d initially expected. As someone who still needs to spend a bit of time figuring things out with each install, this is an important point. The variety of features such as the prolific USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports on the rear (I have so many different devices to connect to my PC, these are essential) and the other connectivity options give this board a lot of room to manoeuvre.
As a board for the gamer or the prolific PC user, the ASUS P8Z77-V Premium motherboard excels. I think it’s worth the price and have to resist peeking into my chassis to stroke it every now and again. Although I’m sure that urge will pass when a new board comes out. I’m shallow.
Tamsin