http://www.tweaktown.com Intel Z77 coverage keeps on rolling in and
this time we give you a look at three upcoming ASUS boards based on
the upcoming Ivy Bridge chipset. Once again we were told not to say
"Ivy Bridge" by ASUS, but surely by now you all know exactly what
we are working with here, so we just decided to say it. As you can
see in the video above, ASUS has many bases covered with a full
line-up of Z77 boards that support the third generation Core
processors based on a 28nm architecture including ones for those
who want it all, those who are into gaming (for small systems) and
those who are interesting in impressive cooling performance. We'll
start off with the Sabertooth Z77 which is built for consumer
workstation level performance. The big thing with this board is
that it includes Thermal Armor which is an original ASUS invention
to bring a new way to cool your motherboard. The cooling assembly
is split into two cooling zones with one covering the northern part
of the board and the other the southern part of the board. Two fans
are included in the package with are optional to be installed -
meaning, the board doesn't really active fan cooling, but if you
add the fans in, ASUS measured up to a 10 degree Celsius drop in
temperature on some areas of the board. There are also several
drilled holes on the board which allow for improved air ventilation
over previous generation Thermal Armor designs to help cool some of
the back areas of the board. Additionally this time around the
Thermal Armor has included plastic covers for the PCI Express
expansion slots as well as memory DIMM slots to help protect the
slots from dust and so on. It's also appealing to the eye to cover
up more of the board to go with the Thermal Armor cover cooling
assembly theme. Then we move onto the Maximus V Gene (the Formula
will come onto the market about one month after the Gene) which is
part of the Republic of Gamers (ROG) series of course catered right
to gamers who wan