Three months ahead of launch of Intel's Z77 chipset, the Wibtek Z77 Hacker motherboard, which was detailed earlier this week, is already put up on Chinese marketplace site (similar to eBay) Taobao, priced at 1,999 RMB (about US $317). Apparently someone is planning to make a killing out of pre-launch sales of this motherboard. With Intel "Ivy Bridge" Core processor support out of the box, two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, six SATA 6 Gb/s and ten USB 3.0 ports, not to mention a plethora of features for overclockers, who can complain about the $317 price-tag? A word of caution, though, would be that the seller has not put up his own pictures, and is reusing pictures posted by Expreview.

Chinese brand Weibu Wibtech is ready with a high-end socket LGA1155 motherboard based on the Intel Z77 "Panther Point" chipset, called the "Hacker Z77". The board is designed to support next-generation Core processors based on the 22 nm "Ivy Bridge" silicon out of the box, while retaining support for existing Sandy Bridge processors in the LGA1155 package. The CPU is powered by a 16-phase VRM, it is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots, supporting dual-channel DDR3 memory. Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (electrical x8/x8 when both are populated), two PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and two legacy PCI.

Storage connectivity includes a total of six SATA 6 Gb/s ports, and four SATA 3 Gb/s internal ports. Display outputs include one each of DVI, HDMI, and D-Sub. All USB ports on the rear panel are USB 3.0, some of which are wired to the Z77 PCH, some from additional controllers. Apart from the six USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel, there are four USB 3.0 ports available via front-panel headers. There are a few other USB 2.0 headers. Networking capabilities include wired gigabit Ethernet, WiFi b/g/n, and Bluetooth. Other connectivity includes 8+2 channel HD audio with optical SPDIF output, Firewire, and a strange unidentified connector (a button?), which definitely doesn't look like mini-DP/Thunderbolt. The board is said to have a boat-load of features for overclockers to play with. It is not known at this point of Wibtech will sell this board apart from its typical market of mainland China, Hong Kong, etc.