Asus Z77 Series Information Thread (drivers, BIOSes, overclocking, reviews) **UPDATED 4/22** - Page 41

Originally Posted by Tielc 

Hi guys, I'm completely new to the site, and I hope this is the right place to ask this question. I've read all 40 pages of posts so far and could not find what I was exactly looking for. I'm trying really hard to decide which board to get here, and to be honest I only see it coming down to 2 features. I don't care for, or even want WiFi, Bluetooth or dual NIC. I also could care less for eSata on the back plane either. The only I/O thing that might make me lean towards the Deluxe (besides my 2 questions below) is the plethora of USB3, though it's really just the 2 extra in the back I'll be making use of, as my case only has 2 3.0 on the front.
Though there's a comparison chart showing some of the differences between the different boards linked in an earlier post, there's one feature they don't touch on, or explain very well. The PLX Bridge chip, or whatever the acronym is. It's the chip only found in the Deluxe board between the PCIe slots. From what I've heard, mainly from JJ on the ASUS website is marketing speak. He states that it will allow me to manage more PCI lanes if I'm using a lot of resources, such as SLi, Audio Card, etc. the thing he doesn't answer is where this threshold is. I'm going to be running 2 GeForce cards in SLi, and an HT Omega card. When will I need this extra controller? This could be a decision maker automatically checking the buy Deluxe button.
The second difference has to do with my lack of knowledge about the power to the chip and what it does and it's stats mean. The Deluxe being Digital Phase 20, the apro 16 and the -V 12. Doesthis stat, or how does this stat, contribute to overall performance? I want to overlock the 3770K to get the best use out of it as well. However, I'm not looking to finely tweak every setting. I just want to use the UEIF and press the button for "make it go faster".
Could someone give me a run down on these two features and how they contribute to the overall value of the Deluxe board? If they're not significant, I don't see any reason to not just get the Pro, or even the -V. Keep in mind, I have absolutely no problem paying a premium for these features if they add value. I just know I don't need a lot of the other things that make the Deluxe unique. Thanks guys.

Originally Posted by christpunchers 

Okay, it gets crazier...
...flashed back to the previous bios through UEFI EZ Flash utility in an attempt to see if a corrupted bios is causing the problem...
Found no difference at all to the weird ram behaviour. So I flashed backed to the latest bios (0703).
But that's not the crazy part.
Just to test things out, I punched in x46 multi in the UEFI... but every time I press enter, it goes right back to x35, like some sort of auto-correct function!
So what in the heck is going on here?

Originally Posted by WC_EEND 

This may be a long shot, but are you sure you're entering the multiplier info in the correct place (ie: turbo multiplier instead of CPU multiplier)?

Originally Posted by christpunchers 

Entering a value in either spot results in the auto-correct-to-x35-multiplier behaviour.
Gonna clear the CMOS jumper for a few hours with the battery pulled. If not.. reseat the CPU.
And if that fails, I'm going to RMA this thing.

Originally Posted by Frankrizzo 

I don't have a sound card. Unless your talking the motherboard?

Originally Posted by Aparition 

Either or.
If you either go through control panel, or right click on the speaker icon in the lower right system bar... click on the playback tab and select the output device (speaker/line out)
Now click the configure option, this will give you options to set the device for Stereo, 5.1, 7.1 audio.
If it is only selected as Stereo it will only output stereo sound.
The Onboard or discrete sound card also have a setting which can influcence the sound config, but the Windows setting is important.