EVGA Z77 FTW Motherboard Review

The EVGA Z77 FTW joins an elite group of motherboards aimed at satisfying the needs of overclocking, gaming and hardware enthusiasts.  While this group is small by comparison the things they look for in a motherboard can be rather specific but really make the product better and well suited for the average user looking to build a solid system.

Motherboard layout is quite good and while it follows a trend that was started back with the P55 Classified the placement of the component is considerably better.  The EVGA Z77 FTW will support up to five graphics cards but is clearly designed to accommodate 3-way video card setups in its default configuration.  4-way SLI and Crossfire is possible assuming your chassis comes with extra expansion slots or you are running on a test bench.  This configuration is made possible by using a 5-node (1 in and 4 out) PLX PCI Express switch located under the chipset cooler.

Normally you wouldn't find active cooling on an EVGA motherboard however the PLX chip does run quite warm and when combined with the Intel Z77 chipset dictated that an active cooler be used.  We actually like this option since the chipset cooler is buried under video cards and doesn't get adequate airflow.

EVGA is using a slightly different PCB on the Z77 FTW that features a matte black finish that does a good job at showing were any pools of water may be hiding.  Under normal conditions this isn't an issue but when dealing with SS and LN2 cooling knowing where the water is can make or break your overclocking success.  Another point to make about the PCB is that, for once, the board is of a decent thickness and doesn't flex like some of the other EVGA boards we have tested.  This may be a minor point to some but good board construction can go a long way in the eyes of a system builder.

Overclocking the EVGA Z77 FTW was really easy and only required a few changes to reach the 4.8Ghz used in this review.  Our processor will run at 5.1Ghz with the same test setup but at those speeds we feel that a better watercooler is needed for 24/7 operation.  The EVGA engineers have gone to great lengths to ensure good memory compatibility and claim that 2133Mhz+ speeds are possible without any manual UEFI tweaking required.  For this review we choose the XMP option but found that higher speeds were possible provided we let the system determine the timings for us.

Totally sweet color scheme
Full ATX motherboard
Quad SLI Support
Voltage test points
PCI Express Disable Jumpers
Removable motherboard heatsinks
Thicker and Stronger PCB
Matte Black Finish
Thunderbolt Onboard

UEFI could benefit from some color
Onboard power required to activate PCI Express slots