Final thoughts and rating
The market is chock-full of Z77 chipset-based motherboards, and the popularity of the chipset stems from its compatibility with both 2nd and 3rd generation Core processors from Intel. These chips dominate the mid-range space and help drive sales of associated motherboards.
ASUS's wide range of Z77 boards add incremental features to a base price of around £85. Spending more than double that amount, £190 all told, brings the P8Z77-V Deluxe into view. The £100 premium over a reference-like model provides extra USB 3.0, SATA 6Gbps, eSATA, dual Ethernet, WiFi and Bluetooth dongles and upgraded power delivery to the CPU.
The board's layout, feature integration and BIOS are all solid, so the question you need to ask is whether the extra features make sense to you. Though fully cognisant of the fact that ASUS offers enthusiast-orientated boards under the ROG banner, the Deluxe could have been made even better if the third graphics-card slot was upgraded for three-board usage.
Bottom line: As we have mentioned in previous Z77 chipset-based board reviews, you need to be using the ASUS-integrated features for the asking price to make sense. As it is, given what ASUS has implemented, we'd like to see the price come down to the right side of £150 before dishing out recommendations.
The Good
Expansive feature-set
Very good BIOS
The Bad
Heady price premiumLacks support for three-way graphics
HEXUS Rating
ASUS P8Z77Z-V Deluxe
HEXUS Where2Buy
The reviewed motherboard is available from SCAN Computers*.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.
