The ASUS P8Z77 V-Pro ThunderBolt Motherboard

The Motherboard

Let's have a quick look at the the components used in today's test, this is the ASUS P8Z77 V-Pro ThunderBolt motherboard. We might as well give it a little mini overview:

The ASUS P8Z77 V-Pro ThunderBolt is a premium motherboard loaded with all the latest hip features. These motherboards come with new features such as DIP3 with SMART DIGI+ Power Control, Wi-Fi GO! and Fan Xpert 2.

The ASUS P8Z77 V-Pro ThunderBolt comes with extra USB 3.0 and 6Gbps SATA ports and three PCI Express x16 slots. The V-Pro also has a big brother, called the Premium, that one has four PCI Express x16 slots and a full 20 power phases dedicated to the CPU. There's also an onboard mSATA slot with a 32GB SSD on the Premium model. That makes the P8Z77-V Pro the more affordable solution in  the 200~250 USD range.

The P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt is pretty much identical to the P8Z77-V Pro with minor changes.

The P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt lacks the full-size DisplayPort connector and a pair of USB 2.0 ports. The USB 2.0 ports have clearly been replaced by the Thunderbolt/miniDP connector.

Here you can see the ThunderBolt / DisplayPort connector. Monitors wise, Thunderbolt requires DisplayPort 1.1a or newer monitors. To the right you can see the ThunderBolt controller IC, the traces are close to the port keeping data signal optimal.