REVIEWS / MOTHERBOARDS / ASROCK (MEDIAMAN INFOTECH)

ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP Review

12 Sep, 2012, 12:27 pm IST | by Roydon Cerejo | Motherboards

Motherboards

Expansion slots are laid out well

Expansion slots are laid out well
Good feature set
ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP
Good layout and design
Good number of ports

PRICE IN INDIA

7,000

TECH2 RATING

7.5

AVERAGE USER RATING

8.0

How we test

CONTACT

ASRock (Mediaman Infotech)

 886-919-457-786

  www.asrock.com

ASRock has been gaining ground in India and the company has been expanding its product portfolio steadily over the years. Today, we have its flagship H77 motherboard with us – the Pro4/MVP. This also happens to be one of the few boards out there with the Lucidlogix Virtu feature – all at a very affordable price. Let’s see how it fares. 

Design and Layout
The Pro4/MVP is a full ATX motherboard and is not the most visually striking board you’ll come across. The CPU area is relatively free of capacitors and heatsinks, so you can easily install a larger third-party CPU cooler. We didn’t have much trouble installing our Thermaltake heatsink. There’s good amount of spacing between the RAM slots and the GPU, so it’s possible to swap out the RAM sticks without having to remove the card.

Good layout and design

Good layout and design

 


You get a total of two PCIe x16 slots; however, only the main one is PCIe 3.0 while the other one runs at x4 speed. ASRock says CrossFire X is supported, but we wouldn’t recommend it as the second card will only run at x4 speed since the chipset isn’t designed for multiple cards. You also get a PCIe x1 slot and three PCI slots. What we really like about this arrangement is that there's clear space after the first graphics card slot, so even if you install a dual slot card, you don’t lose any of the other expansion slots. The rear ports include a PS2 keyboard port, six USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, VGA, DVI and HDMI. There are also Gigabit LAN and multi-channel audio ports.

Expansion slots are laid out well

Expansion slots are laid out well

 


The board has a total of 8 SATA ports, two native SATA 6Gbps and two additional ports from an ASMedia controller. The ports aren’t facing outwards but instead facing upwards. This could be a problem if you have an expansion card installed, but mostly it shouldn’t be an issue since ASRock has grouped them towards the corner of the motherboard. The Pro4/MVP is a well-designed and laid out board with plenty of room to work with. 

Features
ASRock uses a 4+2 phase power design for the CPU and RAM. The H77 chipset uses the LGA 1155 socket, so it’s backwards compatible with Sandy Bridge CPUs too. The one feature that’s removed from the chipset is the ability to increase the multiplier from the BIOS for unlocked CPUs, so you can’t really overclock using this board. Video-out lets you easily make use of the onboard GPU in the CPU and the addition of Lucislogix’s Virtu MVP is a bit of a bonus as you can dynamically switch between the discrete and onboard GPU.  

ASRock has bundled along a UEFI BIOS with the motherboard from AMI. The BIOS is easy to get around although the GUI itself is not as refined as what we’ve seen from the likes of Asus or MSI, but it gets the job done. You also get a whole bunch of utilities like Extreme Tuning, Instant Boot, Instant Flash, SmartView, XFast USB,  XFast LAN, Crashless BIOS etc. One unique feature that we don’t see too often is a dehumidifier function, which is said to reduce the humidity of the system when activated in the BIOS.

Test rig configuration

  • Processor: Intel Core i7-2600k
  • Memory: G.Skill RipjawsX 8GB (4 GB x 2 @1866MHz)
  • Graphics card: AMD Radeon HD 6870
  • SSD: Plextor PX-256M2S
  • Power supply:  Cooler Master Silent Pro 1000W
  • OS: Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit
Good number of ports

Good number of ports

 


Performance
Before we began testing the board, we updated the BIOS to the latest version. The memory speed officially supported with a Sandy Bridge CPU installed is 1333MHz, but we used the memory’s XMP profile and ran it at full speed (1866MHz) in dual channel mode. We didn’t face any problems setting it up and the board ran stable throughout the tests. We got a score of 5081 points in PCMark 7 and 4485 points in 3DMark 11 (performance mode). The PCMark 7 score was slightly higher as compared to the same setup on the B75 chipset we tested a while back. It took 26 seconds to transcode a 1 minute MPG video H.264 format and Cinebench R11.5 reported 6.86 points, which is ideally what the Core i7-2600k should give at stock speed. At 1920 x 1080 with ‘Ultra’ preset and AA turned off, Crysis II and Unigine Heaven logged 36.7 fps and 820 points respectively, again slightly higher than the B75 chipset.

The overall performance of the ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP is very good and is close on the heels of other Z77 board in the market.

Verdict and Price in India
For Rs. 7,000, the ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP offers good value for money if you’re looking for an Intel solution and don’t want to bother with overclocking. The motherboard offers most of the features of the higher end Z77 boards but at a more affordable price.


Tags:

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Would you buy it?




 


How We Test

The Tech2 Labs receives many products every single week and each of them is tested with the utmost care and highest level of objectivity. There’s a constant effort to reduce and totally eliminate subjectivity. Each product is tested according to set test processes so the same test scenario is used.

Verdict
The ratings awarded to a product are derived from a number of tests and calculations, keeping certain important factors in mind. These factors consist of features, performance, quality and value for money. In case of software and some other categories, build quality might be replaced with ease of use or ease of installation. Products are compared with other products in a similar price range or product category.


Features
The features component of the score is rated based on the kind of features present on a particular product. Features are a big part of what people look for when they’re buying a new product such as a phone or a camera.

Performance
The performance score is derived from the benchmarks and tests run on the product. In case of the subjective scores, an average of the scores given by the group of reviewers is considered.

Build Quality
The build quality of a product is important so that it doesn’t fall apart after some use. The build quality scores from the way the product is designed and the kind of materials used in the product.

Value
Value for money comes from the fact that a cheap product is able to provide most of the performance of a higher priced product. Once again, value for money is judged by comparing pricing and performance of products in a particular price range or category. 

There are many other aspects of the product that are looked at such as the bundled software and accessories. All of these scores are aggregated together to form the final score.

What do the ratings mean?

Ratings are simple - higher the score, the better the product. A brief listing of the features and what they mean are given below.

1 - 3

The product is bad in almost every aspect. We strongly advise against purchasing this product.

4 - 6

An average product that isn't the best you can buy, but isn't the worst either.

7 - 8

Product with this rating is highly recommended because it's priced sensibly, has a good set of features and performs well.

9 - 10

Exceptionally excellent product with features and performance unlike any we've seen in the past. A must-have for everyone!

What is the Average User Rating?

We at Tech2 take product reviewing very seriously and every product is tested with the utmost care and level of objectivity. The end user who buys a particular product and uses it over an extended period of time has his own take on a product and there might be nuances that he or she can shed light on. The Average User Rating is present to help readers get the complete picture of how good or bad a product is. The Average User Rating is calculated by averaging the ratings by the thousands of readers visiting Tech2.com every single day. To record your own rating of a product, simply click on the user rating bar. If you disagree with our ratings or our community's product rating, please don't hesitate from voicing your opinion in the comments section below the review.

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