At almost the opposite end of the spectrum from the Asus Maximus V Gene (in terms of target market) we find the Asus P8Z77-M Pro motherboard. The P8Z77-M Pro is also a micro ATX board and despite being aimed at the lower end of the consumer market it shares some of the same features that the Gene has. You still get Asus’ Digi+ power controls and FanXpert+ along with Asus’ commitment to solid design and component selection. We have talked about most of these items in Part I of our review. Now we are going to focus on the performance you can expect when you pick up the P8Z77-M Pro along with Intel’s new Ivy Bridge CPU.
Value -Value is another very subjective topic. What is expensive to some might be a deal to others. You can look at this topic in multiple ways. One is raw price and the other is what you get for the money. Each is accurate and both are correct ways to look at price/value. We tend to look at features, performance and real-property when we discuss value. However, we also take into account the raw cash cost of the item. The Asus P8Z77-M Pro will only cost you $160 from most online stores. This is an exceptional price considering the performance and feature set that we have seen here. We can really understand people’s interest in this board. Even the enthusiast market will want to give this board a look as it much more capable than its modest price tag would indicate. Conclusion -The Asus P8Z77-M Pro is an entry level product with some enthusiast class features and performance. Although it cannot really match up to what you get with boards like the Maximus V Gene or the V series it is more than capable and will not leave a crater in your wallet. Asus has a good product on their hands and we think they are very aware of it. When we first showed our readers that we had one of these in the lab the requests for information on it were a little surprising. Now, as we said, we completely understand. This is a great board for multiple uses from gaming to general computing. Asus’ move to provide features to the each market that make sense is really showing here. As a value proposition it certainly is one. The P8Z77-M Pro has more than earned the Gold Key award from us with the excellent performance, overclocking and exceptional value it brings to the market.
