ASUS Launches First Intel® Thunderbolt™ Certified Motherboard
P8Z77-V PREMIUM the first Intel certified and Windows optimized motherboard in the industry to feature Thunderbolt technology
Singapore (May 21, 2012) — Further demonstrating its market leading innovation, ASUS has announced the launch of its P8Z77-V PREMIUM motherboard — the flagship of the P8Z77 Series and the first Intel certified motherboard in the market to offer the latest Thunderbolt connection interface. The PREMIUM designation has been reserved for only the best motherboards with the latest technologies, and the P8Z77-V PREMIUM maintains this standard. In addition to the onboard Thunderbolt connection on the P8Z77-V PREMIUM, ASUS also offers the same technology on the P8Z77-V PRO/THUNDERBOLT to give consumers a wider range of choices.
“Intel and Asus have worked closely on the implementation of Thunderbolt™ technology onto Asus motherboards”, said Jason Ziller, Intel’s Director of Thunderbolt Marketing. “The P8Z77-V PREMIUM is the first Thunderbolt certified motherboard in the industry, a testament to its solid design and compatibility.”
Thunderbolt and the latest technologies on board
The ASUS P8Z77-V PREMIUM is the first Thunderbolt motherboard to be certified by Intel, showing its strength in the industry. Thunderbolt is a new, high-speed I/O technology designed for performance, simplicity and flexibility, with lightning fast transfer speeds that are twice that of USB 3.0 and up to 20 times faster than USB 2.0. It offers simultaneous bi-directional, 10 Gbps transfer speeds over a single cable, with the flexibility to daisy-chain up to six Thunderbolt devices with a single connection for a clutter-free computing experience. Users can connect multiple Thunderbolt-enabled external storage drives to a Thunderbolt-enabled display and transfer files while watching HD movies, all without experiencing any lag.
Strength through cooperation
With its long history of working with high tech vendors, ASUS is able to show its strength and commitment to innovation with a close relationship to three of the leading brands currently producing products with Thunderbolt technology, Elgato, LaCie, and PROMISE.
“Elgato is delighted to work with ASUS to bring the world’s first portable Thunderbolt drive to Windows,” says Markus Fest, Elgato’s CEO. “The powerful combination of ASUS’ new PREMIUM board technology and the Elgato Thunderbolt SSD dramatically outperforms state-of-the-art portable USB 3.0 or eSATA drives.”
“LaCie is pleased to work with ASUS to showcase the power of Thunderbolt technology in a Windows environment,” said Erwan Girard, Business Unit Manager for Professional Solutions, LaCie. “Our solutions will deliver the unprecedented speeds and advantages of this technology to PC demanding users, especially those working in digital media applications who continually strive for more performance.”
PROMISE is a leading supplier of sophisticated RAID storage solutions catering to customers from the enterprise to SMB, as well as SOHO and digital home applications. They currently offer the world’s first Thunderbolt enabled RAID storage solutions and have previously worked with ASUS to develop a diversified portfolio to meet customer’s requirements.
Premium features for a premium motherboard
The title of PREMIUM carries certain expectations, and as such, the P8Z77-V PREMIUM motherboard boasts several new features, such as true 4-way NVIDIA® SLI™ and 4-way AMD CrossFireX™ on the latest PCIe Gen 3.0 slots for maximum graphics performance. Also introduced is advanced SSD Caching II, allowing users to cache additional frequently used programs and files using multiple SSDs to instantly upgrade system performance. A 32GB mSATA based SSD is also onboard, enabling Intel® Smart Response and Rapid Start Technology™ for super-fast boot up and resume times. Network traffic is expertly handled by a pair of Gigabit Intel LAN ports, ensuring lag free transfers and streaming entertainment.
Dedicated to providing the latest innovations, the P8Z77-V PREMIUM and P8Z77-V PRO/THUNDERBOLT provides users with the best and most complete solutions available, such as DIP3 with SMART DIGI+ Power Control, Wi-Fi GO! and Fan Xpert 2.
Available Models
| Models | P8Z77-V PREMIUM | P8Z77-V PRO/THUNDERBOLT |
| CPU Socket | Intel® Socket 1155 for 3rd/2nd Generation Core™ i7/Core™ i5/Core™ i3/Pentium®/Celeron® Processors | |
| Chipset | Intel® Z77 Express Chipset | |
| Memory | DDR3 2800(O.C.) MHz | DDR3 2600(O.C.) MHz |
| Digital CPU Power Design | Dual Intelligent Processors 3 – SMART DIGI+ Power Control | |
| Digital 20-Phase Power (16-Phase for CPU & 4-Phase for iGPU) |
Digital 12-Phase Power (8-Phase for CPU & 4-Phase for iGPU) |
|
| Digital DRAM Power Design | V | V |
| PCIex16 Slots | 4*PCIe 3.0 x16 | 3*PCIe 3.0 x16; |
| Multi-GPU | 4-Way CrossFireX™/SLI | CrossFireX™/SLI |
| Graphics | Thunderbolt/DisplayPort/HDMI | Thunderbolt/HDMI/DVI-D/RGB |
| Gb LAN | 2 (Intel) | 1 (Intel) |
| Wireless Connection | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n Dual band 2.4/5GHz & Bluetooth v4.0 |
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n |
| Audio | 8-ch HD, DTS | 8-ch HD, DTS |
| Storage | 1*mSATA 3.0 Gb/s with 32GB SSD onboard 6*SATA 6Gb/s 3*SATA 3Gb/s 2*eSATA 6Gb/s |
4*SATA 6Gb/s 4*SATA 3Gb/s 1*eSATA (with bracket support) |
| USB 3.0 | 6*USB 3.0 (4 ports at back panel, 2 ports at mid-board) | 6*USB 3.0 (4 ports at back panel, 2 ports at mid-board) |
| TPU/EPU (with onboard switch) |
V | V |
| ASUS SSD Caching II | V | |
| ASUS Wi-Fi GO! | V | V |
| ASUS Fan Xpert 2 | V | V |
| USB BIOS Flashback | V | V |
| USB 3.0 Boost | V | V |
| Network iControl | V | V |
| LucidLogix Virtu MVP | V | V |