welcome to my unboxing of the ASUS Sabertooth z77 motherboard this
is what I would consider to be a true
successor to the Sabertooth p67 because
it brings back the thermal armor so the exclusive
thermal AR armor covers the entire board with dual turbo fans Direct in cool air
to critical parts and dissipating heat faster for better stability tough series
motherboards better be stable and they better have high quality components
because they come with a 5year warranty these are the only ASUS motherboards
that do come with a 5-year warranty and they have a number of features to back
it up so first of all we've got thermal armor we'll show you that in a moment
thermal radar this is really cool if you check out on my ncixcom channel I've got
a video where I talk about the ASUS specific features are their z77 boards
where I show you thermal radar it's really really cool dust Defender repel
the dust expand the lifespan I'll show you those in just a minute you can cover
your slots when you are not using them tough components certified by military
standard so there you go you're going to to give a 5-year warranty on something
you better make sure you're using proper components that are going to last a long
time new Digi plus power control so this is eighth generation digital power
control from ASUS meaning you are controlling the RAM the CPU and the
integrated GPU USB F BIOS flashback allows you to easily recover your BIOS
in the event of a failure even without a CPU and RAM installed Network eye
control allows you to prioritize various applications through AI Suite in order
to make sure that your you know uTorrent that's running in the background is not
affecting your pings in your game server
ufi BIOS we take that for granted these days usb3 boost is also available
whether it's just the regular boost mode or uasp with compatible devices on the
as as media controller USB charger Plus allows you to charge up to three times
faster ESD guards in theory protect the
board from electrostatic discharge AI site 2 is their software that allows you
to control all this stuff and finally complete USB
3 whatever they mean by complete USB 3 I'm not quite sure I think they mean
they have a front panel header and rear panel ports they also have uh both Intel
and third party chipsets supported on this particular board because the z77
chips set does include Intel usb3 ports however the Intel usb3 ports don't
support uasp at this time so you're going to want to use the as media
controller if you want to get the best performance possible so this platform is
using the z77 chipset which means you got support for 22 or 32 nanom CPUs that
is second generation or third generation IV Bridge Intel core I3 i5 and i7
processors we've also got support for Intel smart response technology which
means that you can use an SSD to cach your boot Drive NVIDIA SLI and AMD
Crossfire X technology are supported virtue MVP gives you the ability to plug
in a dedicated graphics card still make
use of quick sync technology which is the integrated gpus uh quick video
encoding as well as use the integrated
GPU as a way to augment the performance of your dedicated GPU as a way to reduce
the tearing that is caused by frame rates that are above the refresh rate of
your monitor and finally with the newer
virtue you don't have to worry about whether you plug into the dedicated graphics card or the integrated graphics
card you can switch to IM mode or D mode whichever you prefer okay now let's do
accessories really quick here I've actually opened some of these already guys because I did already use this
motherboard to film my other video and slick in His Infinite Wisdom opened up
the board before we prepped the other video and before we had a chance to
unbox it so uh he's feeling the shame right now all
right so we've got some pieces here that we took off the board in order to
install these fans so there's a fan right here on the chipset blowing air
down in order to direct air exactly
where it needs to go so through the chipset fins across any of the other
chips that are installed on the board itself and you know eventually sort of
out the gaps around it there's also a fan here so this I would probably
suggest using it as an exhaust instead of as an intake but I guess the the
choice is yours slick installed this one and then next we've got our dust covers
so this one this one these basically allow you to keep dust from accumulating
in slots that you're not using ASUS has included a full complement of them for
the PCI Express slots as well as look at
these These are cool so we've got other placeholders for the RAM slots that
we're not using so you don't look they can go either way they've got slots so you don't have to worry about which way
you install them see I can go in that way I can go in that way
there you go so your board will look like really sweet even if you have
absolutely nothing installed on it so if you're into Aesthetics which I happen to
be that is cool all right IO Shield including a cutout for the fan at the
back so that you're going to get adequate ventilation we've also got uh
four SATA cables two of them are SATA 3 two of them are SATA 2 but it doesn't
actually matter they're both single to right angle or all four of them are single to right angle SLI connector
right there two connectors for your front USB as well as your front panel
headers for your power and whatnot uh you've got a driver and utilities DVD
you don't use that download the latest from the ASUS website you've also got a
certificate of reliability it's
gold and tough series 5year warranty notice that's the one I'm concerned
about not this one so much because that means ASUS is going to stand behind it
you've also got a sticker that you can put on your case tough inside
oh sorry can you see that there we go cool moving on let's have a look at the
layout of the board which is quite tricky because it's completely covered with the thermal armor which you can
take off should you see fit so we've got our CPU socket right here LGA 1155
supporting the latest Intel processors we've also got our eight pin power connector and its ideal location at the
top left of the board we've got our 24 pin power connector and its ideal
location along the right hand Edge there's the memo button that means even if you're using a high performance dims
you can use that button to ensure that it will post no matter what we've got a
front USB 3.0 header very good orientation of this love it good job
ASUS thumbs up because this will run more easily to your front panel and uh
will require less you know kinking of the cable and you don't want something
coming out like this if you're buying this board you probably care about the look of your build this will help next
we've got four SATA 2 3 GB per second ports two SATA 36 GB per second ports
and two more SATA 36 GB per second ports running off of a third party chipset so
those guys are just a
sec here's our front panel headers for your power and reset and all that good
stuff three USB 2 front panel connectors
moving on we've got a power LED we've got clear simos uh jumper prefer to see
a switch especially on a gaming oriented board but it is what it is we've got our
Thunderbolt header yes so you can install uh an optional ASUS accessory
into this slot and then plug that into the Thunderbolt header and you will add
Thunderbolt support to your board debug Port as well as front panel audio are
both right here and moving along we've got the PCI Express slot layout so we've
got 1 2 3 PCIe 1X slots 3 PCIe 16x slots
although it's going to run at 16x or 8X 8X and I really wouldn't recommend
running a graphics card in here this is more intended for accessories you know
land card raid card Thunderbolt card whatever else the case may be
moving along to the back we've got our usual assortment of ports so four USB
2.0 ports the BIOS flashback button so handy so useful two EA ports four USB
3.0 ports two of those running off of a thirdparty chipset and two of them
running off of an Intel chipset DisplayPort and HDMI video out optical audio
out as well as 7.1 audio now I want to show you guys where all of the fan
headers are because you can use the AI Suite software in order to configure
custom fan curves 1 2 3 4
five and six ASUS has done a fantastic job of putting all the relevant ports
around the very outside of the edge of this board in order to keep a clean
aesthetic that is not easy so they have
done a tremendous amount of work in order to make things convenient for you
so I hope you guys appreciate it here's another cool thing check this out
ventilation holes in the board I call them bullet holes but I don't think
that's actually A's intention but check this out so we got like like random
ventilation holes like in in the board I think these ones are for the socket
itself but yeah there's like some ventilation holes and whatnot pretty
cool right perforated PCB that's like
the latest technology I'm not even
joking thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the
Sabertooth z77 Slick's laughing he's making me lose
it don't forget to subscribe to lus techtips for more unboxings reviews and
other computer videos miss something PCI
3.0 is supported on this motherboard as long as you are using a CPU that has a
built-in PCI Express 3.0 controller