Last month, we took both MSI's Z77A-GD55 and ASUS' P8Z77-V DELUXE for a spin, and for their respective pros vs. cons, we awarded both with an Editor's Choice. Will Intel's DZ77GA-70K earn the same respect? Our review would be pointless if we didn't draw up some conclusions, so let's hop to it. For what I'm sure are obvious reasons by now, Intel's name isn't usually the first to come to an enthusiast's mind when choosing a motherboard. Despite offering drool-worthy processors, Intel simply hasn't delivered the motherboards that enthusiasts are dying to own. If you've ever done your own comparisons, the reasons aren't exactly subtle. Intel has famously been slow to adopt bleeding-edge technologies - ironically, sometimes even its own - and with everything from the board design to what comes in the box, it's been very difficult for Intel to compete with the likes of ASUS, GIGABYTE, MSI and others. Then there's the overclocking aspect, which at one point was the truest exercise of patience I've ever experienced. You might recall, however, an editorial we posted last year entitled "The State of Overclocking on Intel Motherboards".

TechSpot

04/2012

4-Way Intel Z77 Motherboard Round-up

The DZ77GA-70K is part of Intel's Extreme Desktop series, making it the company's flagship Z77 board. At $240 it's one of the most expensive Z77 solution money can buy, but it's hard to say why, because it's not really any one feature in particular. The board is equipped with two PCIe 3.0 x16 slots which are color coded blue and support both CrossFireX and SLI. The secondary PCIe 3.0 x16 slot is hard wired to deliver x8 bandwidth as the Z77 chipset limits dual card configurations to x8/x8. There are four DDR3 DIMM slots and Intel has color coded bank A and bank B to avoid confusion. Whereas other manufacturers have talked about overclocked memory frequencies, Intel unsurprisingly only advertises the default frequencies of 1066/1333 and 1600MHz, though that's not to say the board can't go higher when overclocked. Complementing the Z77's six SATA ports (two 6Gb/s), Intel includes a Marvell 6Gb/s controller that can handle four SATA 6Gb/s ports, though the DZ77GA-70K only uses three: two are onboard near the Z77's SATA ports and one is on the I/O panel. Network connectivity comes from a pair of Intel Gigabit Ethernet controllers, the WG82579LM and WG82574L.

Prices

Information	Prices
Intel Desktop Motherboard LGA1155 DDR3 1600 ATX - BOXDZ77GA-70K	$179.99	See it
MB BOXDZ77GA70K/ATX Z77 DDR3-1600+	$180.99	See it
Desktop Board DZ77GA-70K - Extreme Series - motherboard - ATX - LGA1155 Socket - Z77	$186.99	See it
Intel - Extreme Series ATX Motherboard 2400MHz (Socket LGA 1155)	$187.98	See it
MB BOXDZ77GA70K/ATX Z77 DDR3-1600+	$189.65	See it
Intel Boxdz77ga70k Desktop Motherboard	$196.58	See it
Free Ship Intel Boxdz77ga70k Lga1155/ Intel Z77/ Crossfirex & Sli/	$203.49	See it
Intel Boxdz77ga70k Lga1155/ Intel Z77/ Crossfirex & Sli/ Sata3&usb3.0/ A&2gbe/	$203.49	See it
Intel Boxdz77ga70k Lga1155/ Intel Z77/ Crossfirex & Sli/ Sata3&usb3.0/	$203.49	See it
Intel DZ77GA-70K Extreme Series LGA 1155 Intel Z77 Intel ATX Motherboard	$203.99	See it
Intel (boxdz77ga70k) Desktop Board Dz77ga-70k - Extreme Series - Motherboard ...	$239.99	See it
Intel Corp. BOXDZ77GA70K Single Pack DZ77GA70K Extreme	$302.22	See it