ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP review

Budget-priced and feature-rich, a welcome H77 debut from ASRock

ASRock H77 Pro/MVP
Budget-priced but feature-rich

TechRadar Verdict

Pros

  • +

    Great feature set

  • +

    Very competitively priced

Cons

  • -

    Faster H77 boards exist

  • -

    Thin PCB

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With the usual big brand suspects rolling out motherboards based on Intel's H77 chipset, it's time for something a little different in the form of the new ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP.

In the past, ASRock had a reputation for quirky and rough around the edges - if competitively priced - motherboards. These days, ASRock still does things a little differently, but its boards are much more polished and still offer great value.

The ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP is a great example. Ostensibly it packs in pretty much everything the Asus P8H77-M Pro has, but brings a little more flexibility and expansion to the mix, thanks to its ATX rather than MicroATX form factor, and all for around £20 (about $30) less.

In fact, even compared to the Gigabyte H77M-D3H, which is a lot thinner on features, the ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP is cheaper, if only by £5 (about $7.50).

Priced at £70 (around $109), the ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP certainly looks like the most cost-effective way to get yourself a motherboard fully optimised for Intel's latest Ivy Bridge generation of PC processors.

Vital stats

Chipset

- Intel H77

Socket

- Intel LGA 1155

Graphics support

- Intel integrated, PCIe 3.0, CrossFireX, Lucid Virtu MVP

USB 3.0

- Two ports plus header

Multimedia

- VGA, DVI, HDMI, 5.1 sound, optical, S/PDIF

Benchmarks

Like other motherboards based on the Intel H77 chipset, serious overclocking isn't an option with the ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP. Unfortunately, you don't have full access to the CPU multiplier. So, what we're looking for is solid performance at stock clocks.

That's pretty much what it delivers. Admittedly, it's a little off the pace by most of our benchmark metrics. But we're talking about fractions of a frame per second rather than anything you'll notice in the real world. There are one or two ways where you can see how ASRock has cut costs. But raw performance isn't one of them.

Professional rendering performance

ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP Benchmarks

Video encoding performance

ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP Benchmarks

Gaming performance

ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP Benchmarks

Peak power consumption

ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP Benchmarks

Contributor

Technology and cars. Increasingly the twain shall meet. Which is handy, because Jeremy (Twitter) is addicted to both. Long-time tech journalist, former editor of iCar magazine and incumbent car guru for T3 magazine, Jeremy reckons in-car technology is about to go thermonuclear. No, not exploding cars. That would be silly. And dangerous. But rather an explosive period of unprecedented innovation. Enjoy the ride.