Great build! I am very envious.
The more I look into this board, the more it looks like the best option. Does the onboard Wifi and Bluetooth work? What about the 6GBs SATA?
and do I understand that the two USB 3 ports on the case are controlled by the Z77 and work properly?
Thanks, I am happy as it seems to be way more stable than my first hack which had become unreliable (hardware failure = constant crashes).
The only drawback to the Bitfenix case is that it has too much ventilation, so it is a noisy case.
Anandtech reviewed it as being silent, but it does not match my old Antec.
Wifi: NO. I don't care as I use wired Ethernet and that one is recognized with hnak e10000 driver. I think I have read on here that some folks have replaced the mini-PCIE card on the motherboard with another one to get Wifi.
Built-in Bluetooth: NO. Note that the replacement wifi card mentioned above does not do bluetooth. I have not seen any combined wifi+bluetooth that is supported for a hack. However I don't care as I use a ASUS USB-BT21 bluetooth dongle plugged in one of the four USB 2.0 ports in the back. So I've bluetooth working (but not the built-in)
6Gbps SATA:
The motherboard has 2x6GBps ports and 2x3GBps internal (plus two eSATA that I did not use).
The first 6GBps port is used by the Intel SSD, System report reports Link Speed as 6Gbps, and Negotiated Speed as also 6Gbps
The second 6GBps port is used by a WD 1TB HDD, System report reports Link Speed as 6Gbps, and Negotiated Speed as only 3Gbps
The third 3GBps port is used by a Seagate 3TB HDD, System report reports Link Speed as 6Gbps, and Negotiated Speed as only 3Gbps
The fourth 3GBps port is used by the LG bluray drive, System report reports Link Speed as 6Gbps, and Negotiated Speed as only 1.5Gbps
USB ports:
The two side panel ports are plugged in the motherboard using the single large USB 3.0 connector (the smaller other one is left dangling).
The System report reports them as just USB "up to 480 Mb/sec" which sounds like USB 2.0,
but when I was installing Lion using my USB 3.0 stick, it was way way faster than installing Mountain Lion using a USB 2.0 stick.
So I would say they work at USB 3.0 speed, but I cannot prove it.
Looking at the motherboard back:
The four USB 2.0 ports work (That's where I have my KVM for my keyboard/mouse, and an external card reader+hub)
The two blue USB 3.0 ports just under the Ethernet do NOT work. I believe those are the "ASMedia" ports that I've disabled in the BIOS.
The two black/green USB 3.0 above the eSATA - one of which is for flash - do work. I've not tested the speed per se, but I would say they do work at USB 3.0 speed.
My keyboard has 3 USB 2.0 ports, my card reader has 3 USB 2.0 ports, and my KVM still has 2 ports free, so I've had enough ports free so far.
Hope that helps.