3/07/2012 09:34:00 PM
dannzfay
Intel’s Z77 chipset for the company’s upcoming Ivy Bridge processors seems to be one of the most interesting topics at this year’s CeBIT fair, with virtually all motherboard makers, including ECS, showcasing LGA 1155 solutions based on this new PCH.
The Taiwanese company actually came at the fair with not just one, but two motherboards developed around the Z77 Express chipset.
The more advanced model of the two is called the Z77H2-AX Black Extreme and, according to TechPowerUp, this was developed especially to be used for 3-way SLI/Crossfire setups.
In order to achieve this, ECS has added a PLX PEX8747 bridge chip to its creation. This takes the 16 PCI Express Gen 3.0 lanes available in Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors and splits them into two PCI Express 3.0 x16 links.
When all three slots are populated, the second and third PCIe cards will run at x8 speeds, making them fully compliant with 3-way GPU setups.
The rest of the expansion option present in the Z77H2-AX Black Extreme includes dual PCIe x1 and a pair of 32-bit PCI legacy slots, but also an mSATA slot.
More storage devices can be connected to the board via the four SATA 6Gbps and two SATA 3Gbps ports, while two more SATA interfaces are routed to the back of the board as eSATA 6Gbps links.
The Z77H2-A2X is a lite version of the Z77H2-AX, so it comes without the fancy PCI Express switching circuitry of its older brother.
As a result, ECS installed just two PCI Express x16 slots, which drop to x8 speeds when both are populated.
Other board features include mSATA, four SATA 6Gbps and two SATA 3Gbps ports, one eSATA 3Gb/s connector, as well as dual PCIe x1 slots and a couple of legacy 32-bit PCI slots.
Both of these motherboards feature 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and ECS’ Qooltech IV VRM heatsinks. No details regarding pricing or availability have been disclosed so far.
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