I just got an ASRock Z77 Extreme4 and RMA'd it because of a faint (but quite audible over my 7v Nexus 120s) high pitch coil whine. The replacement board they sent me exhibits the same problem... so it seems the whine is a feature, not a bug. I know it's the board because the system was working very nicely and quietly with an Asus P8P67-M Pro; nothing else changed.

I'm going to try and outright return it in favour of something else, but I'd really prefer not to go through all this just to get another motherboard with CPU whine issues.

Considering the Asus P8Z77-V quite strongly.

My P8Z77-V Pro is quiet and I love it.

Can vouch for my P8Z77-M Pro sample. No complaints from the owner of an Asus Maximus V Gene setup I helped part-pick either.

Sounds like Asus is a good bet then. I guess I should have stuck with them in the first place. I'd just heard so many good things about ASRock lately.

Thanks for the suggestions!

I splurged and got the P8Z77-V Pro. I can happily report that it's a lot quieter than the ASRock board. There's still a very quiet electrical noise coming from my machine, but it's so faint I can only hear it with my ear beside the case.

This motherboard feels so much more sturdy than the Extreme4. It kinda sucks to have to pay $50 more for the same feature set, but at least there's not an ever-present tiny dentist drill drilling into my brain now.

Fan Expert 2 is also intriguing... maybe it's time to undo the 7v mod daisy chain on all my fans and see what this thing is capable of!

Thanks for doing a follow-up. Too often people just disappear after getting advice.

To me it just sounds weird that three boards would whine like that, even if there was one in the past that didn't. Are you absolutely positive it's not the graphics card or PSU?

Does anyone know if MSI Z77A-GD65 has coil whine?
I'd rather buy it than the Asus P8Z77-V Pro, but obviously not if it's got coil whine.

I'm not sure what it is that's making the remaining electrical noise. It could very well be PSU or graphics card. It's so faint that I can't localize it, and like I said I have to put my ear to the case to notice it. All I can hear now from my seating position is a *very* gentle wooshing from my 7v Nexus 120s.

With the ASRock board, it was easy to pinpoint the whine coming from the CPU region. I'm quite happy with the P8Z77-V Pro. Performance-wise and noise-wise, it seems like a safe bet.

In that case it was most likely the VRMs then, or the power components in general. We'll just call it good enough for now, if you don't happen to have an extra card or PSU to test with.

Anyone have any experience with the Asus Sabertooth Z77 board? Are the small "assist" fans too noisy to be worthy here?

Trying to spec up a 3770K build and can't figure out which Asus Z77 mobo to go with.

Regards.

They're not worth it in the first place. They're there to compensate for the shortcomings of a design made with form before function. The "Thermal Armor" is not watertight, it's not dustproof, it doesn't conduct, and it most certainly is not necessary for cooling (Kitguru and Tweaktown reviews even left out the fans for example, Kitguru overclocking a CPU to 5 GHz). It's just for looks and luring in suck... I mean, new customers.

There's a reason we don't have NB/SB/chipset coolers with fans anymore: it's just not necessary, and they were awful.

The SPCR Recommended P8Z77-V Pro is a nice choice if you have to have full ATX. The only practical advantage the Sabertooth board has is a 5 year warranty, but 3 years should be plenty anyway.

PS. Why the i7? Unless there's heavy encoding, streaming or the like in the works, you can save even more with the i5s and put all the savings towards a good graphics card or bigger SSD.

Thanks for your thoughts on the Sabertooth Z77 board. Those are good counter-points. I was sucked in by the warranty and looks, but you're right - a 3-year warranty should be plenty.

Here are the major tasks the PC I am spec'ing up will be used for:

- Light editing/transcoding of .mts files from my Canon HG20 camcorder, Sony point-and-shoot 720P videos, and future Canon 7D video footage. All this HD footage is for sharing with family/friends via YouTube, Facebook, etc.

- Photoshopping of RAW files from my Canon 40D and 7D cameras (single photos and batch processing) - hobby only, not for profit

- Wireless streaming of photos/home videos/purchased movies from hard drive to my PS3 in my living room, for viewing on my plasma TV in the living room

- General office tasks including e-mail, internet, MS Word, MS Publisher, etc.

I was thinking if I went Ivy Bridge, I can use the integrated HD Graphics 4000 and not get a graphics card - meaning one less component in the case to generate heat.

Thanks.

I fully endorse the iGPU (CPU-integrated GPU) line. It's so nice to have a cool-running 100 W rig, especially in the summer!

Transcoding might benefit from the Hyperthreading in i7s, but it will definitely benefit from Intel Quick Sync, see http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph5871/47092.png for reference. In fact, judging by that test, it shouldn't matter if you get an i5 instead of an i7 in case of transcoding - AND even better, the i5-3570K features the HD 4000 instead of the HD 2500 seen representing i5s in that test. Should look into it regarding the software you'll be using. Photoshop will probably prefer lots of RAM and a big and fast cache/stash/scratch drive over a Hyperthreading CPU.

In summary: unless some software provenly gains big from having an i7 with Hyperthreading, I would invest the money towards extra RAM - or even better, a bigger SSD.

The link to the review the picture is from: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5871/intel-core-i5-3470-review-hd-2500-graphics-tested/2

PS. Full ATX is a waste if you don't have at least 2 add-on cards. Go mATX and enjoy a cool AND compact rig! (look into P8Z77-M Pro or the Maximus V Gene; the latter has more "cool factor", extra bits and Fan Xpert 2, but the first is more affordable and I like mine)

The safe bet Z77 board, as of 2012-09-30, seems to be toss up between the Intel DZ77GA-70K and the ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE.

These board satisfy my idiosyncratic requirement for an external eSata-III connection. But they might also satisfy the requirement that all of us, who visit silenctpcreview, will be interested in: easy control of fans.

To help get clear on this: Can any of you gals and guys with Z77 (IvyBridge Chipset) ASUS motherboards with Fan Expert 2 (e.g P8Z77-M Pro, P8Z77-V Pro, etc) confirm that the fans are, or are not, also controllable with Speedfan?

These ASUS boards appear to have all their fan sockets as the PWM 4 Pin type. Into these PWM 4 Pin sockets do you gals and guys ...

* Use PWM 4 Pin fans; or
* Use a PWM Control Module (e.g. Nanoxia PWMX PWM Control Module) to connect and control to variable voltage 3 pin fans; or
* Directly plug in the variable voltage 3 pin fans

... and are you able to control them both by Fan Expert 2 and speedfan?

A bit more context to the questions:

From the review Asus P8Z77-V Pro: Xpert Fan Control for LGA1155 Lawrence mentions that (as of 2012-05-07) ...


I'm hoping speedfan has have been updated since then.

Speedfan lists an ASUS Z77 motherboard, the P8Z77-I DELUXE, as a Motherboards that [is] known to change fan speeds. But there are no votes or comments on that page.

In short I'm wanting to know:
* Can Z77 ASUS motherboards control all their fans via speedfan?
* Are 3 pin variable voltage fans controllable via ASUS 4 pin PWM headers?

If the answers to these questions are negative I'll be inclined toward the Intel DZ77GA-70K Z77 Motherboard, given that Lawrence reports in Intel DZ77GA-70K Z77 Motherboard: Waiting for Ivy Bridge