MR Geeks I need help (Asus Motherboard info needed)

Hi, my friend is looking into 2 types of motherboards from Asus and since he's not sure of the differences, he asked me some infos, but I'm not a god of computer stuff so I came here to get your help.

He's looking at the Asus Motherboard P8Z77-V or the P8Z77-V Prenium.

As far as I saw, the main difference between those to is the Thunderbolt port.

he's not equipped in any apple products and don't intend to. But since Thunderbolt won't be for Apple stuff only it might be of some use one day.

what I would like to know is if he's gonna be able to connect an adaptor or a car with a Thunderbolt port on it so he can use it in a few years.

Also, if you guys know well those motherboards, could you tell me the big differences.

Thanks !

Main differences are:

1) Thunderbolt port
2) Dual Intel Gigabit ethernet ports
3) Can handle 4 way SLI / CrossfireX
4) SSD Caching II
5) mSATA slot with pre-installed 32gb mSATA SSD

cool, he's also looking at the : P9X79 Deluxe, because he saw he could put up to 64 Gb of RAM.

He's a professional photographer and it's the main use he's gonna do of it.

Any other good suggestions ? Budget around 400 $

Unless he's running multiple VMs he won't really need all that ram. Without knowing his exact work flow, its hard to say which set of specs is better for his use. I don't know if he uses external scratch drives, how much and what he stores where, etc.

well I was thinking that, maybe it would be a better choice to get the P8Z77 since you can put 3rd Gen i7 Processor on it and it still up to 32 Gb of RAM.

The P9X79 will carry only 2nd Gen Processors.

His work flow I would say is pretty much one of the fastest I've ever seen. But IMO to get a 3rd Gen processor is a bigger advantage then having 64Gb. As for the Drives, he project to use SSD intern for his softwares and external HD for all his Data.

He stores mainly pictures (real estate + Wedding photography) but knowing him and the frequency of his contracts, he's gonna have to transfert a lot of files.

Asus à Laval.