ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe Review - Know Your SKU

Now that Panther Point is in full swing, and perhaps Sandy Bridge processor stocks may start to dwindle in favor of Ivy Bridge, market segmentation of motherboards is all too critical. We have gamers (budget and enthusiast), casual users, audio enthusiasts, HTPC users, storage users, power users, enthusiasts, modders, silent users, overclockers, extreme users or perhaps a combination of many. Therefore, when it comes to designing a range of boards, a motherboard manufacturer has priority targets. They can design either a product to go for one target, or a product to cover several. ASUS have a minimum of 13 boards in their current Z77 lineup (not covering H77), with a few more still to be released. One of those 13 is the P8Z77-V Deluxe, a high end product focused on power users who want extremes of functionality and the best of most worlds - an Intel NIC (+Realtek), more SATA, dual band WiFi, fan control, provision for Thunderbolt as well as regular ASUS features such as BIOS Flashback, Q-LED, the BIOS itself and AI Suite software. Even with all of this, it also transpires that the Deluxe is quite good at throughput and IO as well.