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FRONTPAGE BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z77X Motherboard Review

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Nov 1, 1998
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It’s all about the audio my friends, BIOSTAR’s Puro Hi-Fi audio to be exact. The idea behind this motherboard is to attract the overclocker, the gamer, the audiophile, and those that might be looking for a HTPC motherboard solution. Sounds like pretty high expectations, so let’s carry on and see what the BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z77X brings to the table.

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I can't help but think that this Hi-Fi think is just another marketing gimmick and won't match anything aftermarket like an O2, and it might be similar to what a cMoy can give, plus IIRC a Faraday cage like the audio chip shield is trying to make had to be completely sealed for it to work correctly, but well. And the condensers being actually branded as HiFi caps with no info about the manufacturer does not help this.

Excluding my nitpicking on the Hi-Fi things, the board is just another Z77 board. For standard usage, you can't go wrong with any of them. I'd love to see this board under LN2, it seems to be easy to isolate it with such a lot of space around the socket.

It has a very positive point for me, the iTE chip. It is a great one, because IIRC, SpeedFan could modify the PWM frequency it used, helping us with "weird" fans like the San Ace to set a proper frequency to avoid whining and what not. There's a "bad" chip too, the Realtek GbE chip. That used to give me a lot of headaches with my old P67 Extreme4. I'd love to see that replaced with an Intel GbE. I like the lack of third-party USB3/SATA controllers.

Also, the HDMI port being so close to the edge of the I/O panel might make it hard to connect a thick HDMI cable.

Have you tested the eHot-line? I'd love to see if they're fast. I'm still waiting for a TSD ticket reply from ASUS Europe and ASRock. The ASUS one is from a Crosshair III Formula that I bought when it was top board for AM3. Long time.

Overall, the review is great, Dino, just a little typo. First set-up utility screenshot. Instead of UEFI, you said EUFI. Just that, everything else, is great! Thanks for the review, fellow OCFer!
 
that was fast didnt hokie just send the review stuff out yesterday? lol
 
oh haha oops thought he mentioned sending a board to you yesterday... ohh z77 perhaps?
 
AFAIK, SPDIF doesn't have the bandwidth for current HD audio formats, so it's internal DAC/analog out or HDMI.
 
That might be something I'd considering building if it came in a microATX form factor, as I wouldn't want an HTPC taking up too much space just to serve my audio needs.
 
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