Difference between Z68 and Z77 board?

[McFrotton]

OK I bought a Z68 board back this fall and was assuming that the LGA 115 socket and the board were Ivy compatible.

1. Are they?

2. What is the difference between z68 and z77?


p.s.: My board is PCI 3.0 with th eivy bridge (Asrock e3 g3)

[Skarsguard]

The Z68 board is compatible with the Ivy Bridge you might have to update your bios but yea.

[McFrotton]

Upgrade all the bios!!!!!!

[Kayko]

1: yes
2: easy answer, Nothing. If your board supports PCI 3.0 and/or USB3, there is virtually no difference in its construction. The actually differences are argued on by all sorts of different sources and have basically boiled down to it doesn't matter. Basically think of it as they didn't get their shipments of Z77 stickers in when they sent your PCI 3.0 compatible board out to the stores.

[Schmittay]

It's 9 more!!!

[Deleted]

1: yes
2: easy answer, Nothing. If your board supports PCI 3.0 and/or USB3, there is virtually no difference in its construction. The actually differences are argued on by all sorts of different sources and have basically boiled down to it doesn't matter. Basically think of it as they didn't get their shipments of Z77 stickers in when they sent your PCI 3.0 compatible board out to the stores.

Not that it's a major thing but the Z77's do all come with native front USB 3.0 headers. Who knows maybe improved power designs but that's obviously depending on the specific model.

[Kayko]

Not that it's a major thing but the Z77's do all come with native front USB 3.0 headers. Who knows maybe improved power designs but that's obviously depending on the specific model.

Supported vs Native is really no difference here. Native just means that an Intel 3.0 controller is used vs some other company that loads during post basically. Maybe the I-Phone 8.6 will have some strange tech that allows you to load a boot table to your phone and load your computer up that way.

Honestly, I think Schmittay has the best answer with "9 more" For all practical purpose, it is 68+9.

[Deleted]

Supported vs Native is really no difference here. Native just means that an Intel 3.0 controller is used vs some other company that loads during post basically. Maybe the I-Phone 8.6 will have some strange tech that allows you to load a boot table to your phone and load your computer up that way.

Honestly, I think Schmittay has the best answer with "9 more" For all practical purpose, it is 68+9.

Not all Z68 motherboards comes with front USB 3.0 headers.

[Milkshake86]

Not all Z68 motherboards comes with front USB 3.0 headers.

Yet again he said "supported" vs "Native" any gen3 has the capability. Cool to just randomly argue tho.

[Deleted]

Yet again he said "supported" vs "Native" any gen3 has the capability. Cool to just randomly argue tho.

That makes you cool then I guess You're right gen3 with an adapter would give you support. I still like that it's on all the boards now without the use of an adapter, however little of a change it is to you.

(perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned the native part, above was all I meant...)

[Deleted]

It's 9 more!!!

Hahah, amazing.

[McFrotton]

It's 9 more!!!

Good tyvm everyone, I think Schmittay resumed it best for me.

[Drunkenvalley]

It's basically a proper Z68 with some extra updated features. VirtuMVP is supposed to fix the whole issue with onboard-graphics to discreet graphics (I still don't see how a graphics card is discreet, but hey), and a fair number of manufacturers have brought in some updated UEFI features. That said, unless you really want one of those features there's probably no need to upgrade your motherboard, nor is there really a "need" to upgrade to Ivy Bridge at all for that matter if you've got a good Sandy Bridge setup.

Also, apparently Ivy Bridge CPUs are limited to a maximum 38x multiplier when overclocking on Sandy Bridge boards according to this one guy on a Norwegian forum I peruse (he's so enthusiast that he'd gotten his CPU from Hong Kong directly apparently).

[Deleted]

I'll be buying the rest of my parts in the end of April once the I5 3750 comes out, and I'm wondering if I should get a z68 board (Was looking at the Asrock extreme 3 gen 3) or a z77 board. I know you told OP that it was not worth upgrading if he already owned a z68 board, but since I'm starting from stratch, what would be recommended? My GPU will most likely be gtx 570 unless the kepler equivalent is released in April.

[Drunkenvalley]

I'd recommend a Z77 motherboard, given they're the same price, but the currently available ones seem to have a better selection of features. A fair amount of them come with debuggin LED by the looks of it, which is a nice leap forward imo.

Basically, you should look at what features are available and decide if you want them. There may be a niché of Z68 motherboards that some people may desire over the Z77 boards.

As a general rule of thumb, the improved fan control on Asus' motherboards, debugging LED being present on a fair amount of motherboards and the VirtuMVP are big reasons why I'd suggest the Z77 for particularly those who want more tools to, well, debug their hardware and better control over fans that can't be plugged into a controller.