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ECS Z77H2-A2X Black Edition Intel Z77 Motherboard Review
ECS Z77H2-A2X Black Edition Intel Z77 Motherboard Review - PCSTATS
PCSTATS has a real treat for you today - the ECS Z77H2-A2X Black Edition Golden motherboard! Every metallic surface on this board is gold plated so it's got quite the 'bling' factor going for it.
 84% Rating:   
Filed under: Motherboards Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: ECS Apr 24 2013   Max Page  
Home > Reviews > Motherboards > ECS Z77H2-A2X

360-Degree Motherboard Gallery: Features and Layout

360-Degree Motherboard Gallery:

The ECS Z77H2-A2X motherboard has two PCI Express x16 slots which support single graphics cards in x16 mode and two-way ATI CrossfireX / nVidia SLI set ups in x8/x8 mode. All graphics slots are PCI Express 3.0/2.0 compliant. The remaining expansion slots include two PCI Express x1 slots and two legacy PCI slots.

At the foot of the board is a little mini PCI Express slot the manual says supports both mini PCI Express and mini SATA devices. We're not entirely sure this slot supports miniSATA... the Intel 20GB miniSATA SSD we plugged in didn't come up in the OS as a storage device. We also noticed ECS neglected to include the tiny screws to hold a mini PCI express card in place. The documentation on this slot is scant, so maybe we've overlooked a setting in the BIOS. Regardless, ECS really needs to improve the detail in their User Manuals.


miniPCI port for notebook expansion sized devices... but not for miniSATA SSD drives?

Getting back to videocards, there are two slots of space between the pair of PCI Express x16 videocard slots, which is fantastic. The odd choice is positioning the single PCI Express x1 slot where it will be blocked by dual-slot-wide videocards. If you opt for SLI or CrossFireX, it will cost you PCI slot as well.

Along the bottom edge of the ECS Z77H2-A2X motherboard we find headers for; front panel audio, SPDIF, COM port, SPI debug cards, (1) USB 2.0 and (1) USB 3.0 header. A nice aluminum two-port USB 3.0 3.5" bracket/PCI bracket is supplied with this gold and black motherboard.

Next to the front panel IO headers is the Port80 diagnostic read out, (2) 3Gb/s SATA II ports and (4) 6Gb/s SATA III jacks (RAID 0,1,5,10). Two of the SATA III ports come from an ASmedia ASM1061 controller.

Beside the six SATA ports are physical power and reset buttons that out-of-chassis tweakers always find so helpful. The Intel Z77 Express chipset only requires a simple low profile passive heatsink for cooling. More motherboard goodness to follow after the jump...

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Contents of Article: ECS Z77H2-A2X
 Pg 1.  ECS Z77H2-A2X Black Edition Intel Z77 Motherboard Review
 Pg 2.  All That Glitters Isn't Really Gold
 Pg 3.  — 360-Degree Motherboard Gallery: Features and Layout
 Pg 4.  360-Degree Motherboard Gallery: Continued
 Pg 5.  Overclocking Report and BIOS Walkthrough
 Pg 6.  Test System Hardware and Specs
 Pg 7.  Sysmark 2012 - Workstation Motherboard Benchmarks
 Pg 8.  PCMark Vantage Motherboard Benchmarks
 Pg 9.  SiSoft Sandra: CPU Motherboard Benchmarks:
 Pg 10.  Sandra: Memory Motherboard Benchmarks:
 Pg 11.  3DMark 11 Motherboard Benchmarks
 Pg 12.  3DMark Vantage Motherboard Benchmarks
 Pg 13.  3DMark 06 Motherboard Benchmarks
 Pg 14.  IGP vs IGP Motherboard Benchmarks
 Pg 15.  IGP vs IGP Motherboard Benchmarks: PCMark Vantage
 Pg 16.  Video Transcoding and Power Draw

 
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