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CrystalMark 2004R3 => 300008 CINEBENCH 11.5 OpenGL => 26.57 fps CPU => 6.31 pts CPU (Single Core) => 1.38 pts PCMark7 => 5435 Windows 8 Benchmarks CPU performance increase a little because of the i7-3610QM 2.3GHz upgraded to i7-3630QM 2.4GHz. PC Mark 7 over 5400 scores, this is really high as a notebook platform. Windows 8 built in benchmarks is more accurate than Windows 7, CPU/RAM got really high scores, especially the Super RAID dual SSD RAID0 makes the storage up to 8.3 points. GT70 built in with 2 GPU, one is Intel HD4000 from Core i7-3630QM, the other is NVIDIA GeForce GTX675MX with 4 GB DDR5 vRAM. 3DMark 11 - P4186 BIOHAZARD 5 Benchmark 1920 X 1080 => 119.2 fps Heaven Benchmark 3.0 DX11 1920 X 1080 => 53.2 FPS Previous GT70 comes with GTX675M, this time it upgraded to GTX675MX, the 3D performance is around 15%~20% higher than GT675M. The 3D benchmark programs above got really high scores in notebook field, GT70 Dragon Edition presents very smooth gaming experience with Full HD resolution and highest effects on most of the heavy loading games. GT70 Dragon Edition built in with 2 mSATA interface with 2 128GBx2 SSD on RAID0 mode as C: drive for Windows 8 system used. The drive D: is a SATA2 interface with 750GB 7200rpm HDD for data storage. Below is the benchmarks of drive C: from Super RAID with 2 SSD RAID0. HD Tune Pro 5.00 Read - Average 986 MB/s Access Time 0.100ms ATTO DISK Benchmark over 128k could reach the highest reading speed with 1064.1 Mb/s, and writing speed up to 1025.0 MB/s CrystalDiskMark Seq Read - 914.6 MB/s Write - 365.0 MB/s <All 0xFF, 0Fill> Read - 994.7 MB/s Write - 845.9 MB/s <All 0x00, 1Fill> Read - 995.8 MB/s Write - 854.6 MB/s AS SSD Benchmark - 955 Seq Read - 958.29 MB/s Write - 345.25 MB/s 4K - 64Thrd Read - 276.39 MB/s Write - 316.77 MB/s The random access tests will be lower when in CrystalDiskMark on the right image and AS SSD Benchmark Compression Benchmark writing start from 300MB/s more, and over 900MB/s at last. Depends on the benchmark result, these 2 SSD should be used with SandForce SF-2281 chip, Random Writing is the weakness, and it's really good performance on 4k access and other writing or reading benchmarks. Most 120GB SSD with SF-2281 chip used 120GB, and use the extra 8GB as the cache buffer. Recently the new version of 128GB SSD could use complete 128GB capacity, GT70 use the new version with 128GBx2 capacity.

The Dragon Head tattoo on the right side of the palm rest. The placement of keyboard is same as desktop keyboard, the numeric key on the right side is good to input numbers easier. The Keyboard By SteelSeries design comes with good typing sound, the force feedback and durability is better than most of normal laptop keyboards. The key in the middle is power button, shine with white light when turn on. The feature control panel designed with touch sensor, with 6 feature to control. Left 1 is GPU Turbo boost key, left 2 is Cooler boost key. Sound By Dynaudio speaker system aside the control panel with metallic cover. The back light keyboard could switch with multi colors, it's orange, green and blue right now. You could also change it become single red color to fit the same color tone of GT70 Dragon Edition. 17.3" LED back light matted monitor, with 1920x1080 Full HD resolution. HD WebCam supports 1280x720 30fps recording and 1280x1024 photo snapshot. The back side of the laptop. From right: heat sink hole \ HDMI \ eSATA \ D-Sub \ RJ-45 LAN \ AC \ Lock Previous version of GT70 only used Killer Gaming LAN, but this time GT70 Dragon Edition used both Killer LAN and Killer WiFi with Wireless-N1202 chipset, it supports 2x2 and 2.4GHz /5GHz bandwidth, these 2 was called "Killer Double Shot", for really faster internet access and lower gaming pin rate. Left side. From right: Line out \Line in \Mic-in \ Headphone \ SDXC card reader \ 3x USB3.0 Right side. From right: Blu-Ray burner drive \ 2x USB2.0 The GT70 Dragon Edition used Windows 8 OS. It's the hardware information in the device manager of Windows 8. System benchmark tests Nuclearus Multi Core => 23251 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 24.95/11973

In recent 2 years, MSI did not focus on the Ultrabook series as many other brands, they mainly focused on high performance of Gaming series Notebooks, that makes MSI to become a well known gaming products company in the market, also shows how important of the Gaming related market. MSI Gaming, Dell Alienware and ASUS ROG are the top 3 of the gaming laptop products in the gaming laptop market, that's the well known brands in the gaming laptop market. The higher product position comes with much higher price range. MSI extend their Gaming series become more price range segments, GT series on the top, GX series based on AMD platform, and GE series focus on the performance level market with better Cost/Value, so that more consumer could consider their GE series with better price range. This time we would like to share the latest version of MSI GT70 - The GT70 Dragon Edition. The GT70 Dragon Edition totally changed with their box design, make it slimmer and with better looks of their dragon logo to impressed gamers and power users. The ID design of GT70 Dragon Edition. Compare with their regular GT70, the GT70 Dragon Edition use red metallic cover design with the Dragon Tattoo on it, that makes GT70 more gaming style and high performance looks. The metallic cover with normal light will be deep red, but the metal will reflect light of the color with different angle, so the color of the red will be lighter when outdoor with sunshine. Besides the box size become slimmer, the interior design is also become better, every accessory was put with lint bag, makes it looks higher quality with better protection. On the bottom of the laptop, 4 corners comes with 5 soft pad for stand. The subwoofer of 2.1 channel speaker was placed on the up left side, it presents really good quality on low frequency sound stage. Battery on the down left side, up right side comes with CPU, GPU(MXM module) and DDR3 DIMMs. DDR3 designed with 4 DIMMs, use dual channel design and built in with 4GBx2, supports up to 32GB (8GBx4). And it comes with 3 SATA interface, supports mSATA with RAID 0 function. Accessories. Driver DVD, quick guide and 2 years warranty book. The battery designed with 9 Cell, 7800mAh. The 180W adaptor was made by Delta with good quality. Gaming style mouse, it's 3200dpi optical but good positioning and good handling, but if it's larger and with laser optical will be better. The limited accessory is the necklace with the shield of MSI Gaming Series Dragon Edition, it's very special and only comes with GT70 Dragon Edition. The placement of C side. The red part is also metallic material with dragon tattoo, it's good of touch feeling when using, but you will feel cold in winter. ..... The Dragon Tail image on the left side of touch pad. The touch pad is really good, very sensitive and good on positioning, make it easier to control. The signal lights from left side, Bluetooth mode, WiFi mode, Battery status, Suspend mode, HDD access.

3D Performance - PowerColor AX7970 3GBD5-2DHV3 3DMark Vantage => P33910 StreetFighter IV Benchmark 1920 X 1080 => 383.69 FPS Unigine Heaven Benchmark 3.0 1920 X 1080 => 100.7 FPS When running with VGA - AMD Redaon 7970, the 3D performance is very high. Unfortunately, I only got one7970 card. As single card performance, Z77X-UP7 is above standard. You can see 3~5% difference in 3D performance. It may be caused by Windows8 or latest AMD driver. If there is any opportunity in the future, I will test 3DMark Vantage to see the detail 3D performance. Power Consumption Test Enter to OS Desktop - 103W CPU full speed by running LinX - 246W FurMark Test - 430W i7-3770K disable C1E, OC to 4.8GHz and combo with AMD HD7970 VGA. The platform uses none 80Plus 600W Power Supply to compare the power consumption status. When entering to OS desktop, you can see the power consumption is very low. When CPU or GPU full speed, the power consumption increases a lot. You can see even Z77X-UP7 is 32-phase CPU PWM, it doesn?t cause any extra loading. Temperature Test (Room is 26˚C) Enter to OS Desktop - 33~38˚C CPU full speed by running LinX - 80~86˚C When i7-3770K OC to 4.8GHz, I suggest you to use high end fan or water cooler. During test, the room is 6˚C cooler than summer. CPU full speed is around 80~86˚C If it?s winter, the temperature will be a little bit lower. Under this temperature condition, if you are installing in chassis, the inner air flow will be very important. At same room temperature, I test the MOSFET temperature. GIGABYTE launched IR3550 PowlRstage in Computex 2012 as own high end MB new PWM design. When disabling C1E and entering to OS desktop, it?s about 35.7. When burning system, the max is around 46.7. The temperature is very low. I will compare it with other Z77 MOSFET in the future. GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 Pros 1.UP7 owns more OC designs and better hardware specs, comparing to UD7. 2.UEFI BIOS has two interfaces for users to choose. 3.Exclusive OC-Touch design and 32-phase CPU digital PWM enhance the OC capability. 4.Using IR3550 PowlRstage latest PWM design to lower the MOSFET temperature. 5.Unique BT4.0 / Wi ? Fi card to connect your all mobile devices. 6.Supporting max 4-Way AMD CrossFireX/nVIDIA SLI technology. Cons 1.CPU voltage in full speed or standby is not stable in default setting. 2.DDR3 bandwidth can be improved. 3.Should use better audio chip. Performance ★★★★★★★★★☆ 89/100 Components ★★★★★★★★★☆ 90/100 Specifications ★★★★★★★★★☆ 92/100 Appearance ★★★★★★★★★☆ 88/100 C/P Value ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 69/100 Z77X-UP7 is improved a lot in both hardware and software comparing to Z68X-UD7. For example, new IR3550 PowlRstage PWMa and 32-phase digital CPU PWM. It supports max to 4-Way AMD CrossFireX/nVIDIA SLI and exclusive BT4.0 / Wi-Fi card. OC-Touch OC design is for users to OC in bare system and extreme OC. The color changes to black with orange which is more eye catching. Z77X-UP7 is one of GIGABYTE most high end model in Z77. It uses own most high end components and specs in 2012. As it?s a top model, the price is also high in Z77 MB. As the top MB product, C/P value is always low. It?s suitable for higher budget and top specs demanders. Recently, windwithme shared GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 and ASUS Maximus V Extreme, top 2 brands high end Z77. Mainly, I only do air cooling OC or some performance tuning. I hope it’s useful for your reference. This is also post in my blog - WIND3C, All comments are welcome.

CrystalMark 2004R3 => 411934 CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 9.78 pts CPU(Single Core) => 2.04 pts PCMARK7 - 6140 Windows8 Experience Index - CPU 8.4 This is my first time using Windows8 for product review. Hyper PI 32M is 30~40 sec faster and the other software also improved more or less. The special part is Windows8 experience index break through the CPU 7.8 limitation in WIN7. Also, Windows8 installed capacity is 10GB less than Windwos7. It?s a little faster than WIN7 in booting. Booting screen is similar with tablet or smart phone, touch panel devices. After entering main screen, the interface is almost same as Windows7. However, there are some new features. As general users, it takes time to get used to the new interface. DDR3 is USA CORSAIR Dominator Platinum series, CMD16GX3M4A2400C9. The packing is very unique. It?s a 2 layers stack. Each layer consists of 4GB X 2. Dominator Platinum is CORSAIR most high end DDR3 product line. The heatsink quality and design are even better than Dominator GT series. The picture is DDR3 2400 4GB X 4. The internet shows Dominator Platinum has launched DDR3 2800. DDR3 top with white metal heatsink. I guess it?s the reason for naming Platinum. It bundles with CORSAIR original DHX(Dual-path Heat eXchange) Cooling technology with better cooling ability. After power on, the top of black heatsink will light blue-white. It makes quality even better. DRAM Bandwidth Test DDR3 2401 CL9 11-11-31 1T ADIA64 Memory Read - 24658 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 28598 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 28481 MB/s The test is running at DDR3 2400 1T and 4G X 4. Z77X-UP7 4DIMM OC ability is quite good. The gap is not big between 2 and 4DIMM. DDR3 2600.8 CL10 12-12-34 1T ADIA64 Memory Read - 25760 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth -30088 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 28829 MB/s DDR3 2667.8 CL11 12-12-35 1T ADIA64 Memory Read - 25935 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth -30221 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 29371 MB/s After comparing three DDR3 clock, you can see the bandwidth is rising gradually from DDR3 2400 to 2666. Even though Ivy Bridge structure bandwidth increasing range is not big, the extreme clock has improved a lot from Sandy Bridge. As DDR3 OC, I think it?s more about memory quality, voltage, and CL tuning. It takes time to find out the best CL and clock.

Z77 high end version also use big surface heatsink. It looks elegant. It features ultra-thin metal fins, the heatsink provides greater surface area so that quicker heat exchange can occur. OC-Touch Z77X-UP7 this design is better than Z68X-UD7. Red button is power button. Two + and ? for adjusting CPU and BCLK. Gear is for BCLK steps switch. Right hand side is LN2 switch and below has 8 touch points for voltage measurement. GIGABYTE displayed IR3550 PowlRstage in ComputeX 2012. This new PWM design uses in own mid to high end MBs. It delivers 60A per phase and lower temperature than former PWM design. Z77X-UP7 uses 37-phase digital PWM, 32-phase CPU + 2-phase VTT + 3-phase Intel HD GPU. GIGABYTE UEFI interface provides 7 languages. I remember it seems didn?t support Korean in previous version. Intel Core i7-3770K default ratio is 35. I set it as 48 to run at 4800MHz. Enable X.M.P. and this CORSAIR DDR3 auto set to 2400 and CL. Vcore Loadline Calibration is important feature for CPU OC. CPU voltage set as 1.350V and Vcore Loadline Calibration is default. When CPU is full speed, voltage will drop around 2 levels. As the pic, I switch to Extreme and set CPU to 1.350V. It?s 1.356V as standby and 1.368V as full speed. I set i7-3700K to 1.350V. It can pass all software stalely. DDR3 voltage is 1.650V as the other key voltage in OC. Test Configuration CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K MB: GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 DRAM: CORSAIR Dominator Platinum CMD16GX3M4A2400C9 VGA: PowerColor AX7970 3GBD5-2DHV3 HD: CORSAIR Performance Pro Series 256GB POWER: Thermaltake TR2 600W Cooler: CORSAIR Hydro Series H100 OS: Windows8 64bit CPU 100.0 X 48 => 4801.5MHz(Disable Turbo Boost and C1E) DDR3 2401 CL9 11-11-31 1T(Enable X.M.P. mode) Hyper PI 32M X 8 => 10m 53.985s CPUMARK 99 => 756 Nuclearus Multi Core => 35398 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 37.79/18137

2012 is very important for PC market. There are more and more mobile devices coming. Especially smart phones and tablet PCs. It really impacts traditional PC and NB markets. This change does benefit the users which you can see the change in MB market. More brands start to enhance their service terms and conditions. GIGABYTE also launched their 4 years warranty in Taiwan. For mid to high end Intel Z77 platform, the price drops from former 170UD to 120USD. High end Z77 price is around 10~15% lower than previous chipset. Except the MB enthusiasts market, the price drop is good for general users. GIGABYTE high end MB has 2 product lines. One is Gaming series, Z77 model called G1.SNIPER3. The other one is designing for OC and extreme performance, the board for this review, called Z77X-UP7. GIGABYTE used to use UD with numbers as model name. This model changes to UP with number. First, you can see the Z77X-UP7 board. The color is black and orange which is different with past UD7. Z77X-UP7 is E-ATX, size is 30.5cm x 26.4cm. Most ATX case can install it, except shrinking ATX case. It?s for Overclocking market. The following part will introduce all the details. Accessories Product Manual, software manual and drivers CD. 3.5? front panel controller board, BT4.0/WiFi card, 4-Way SLI bridge. IO panel, back panel SATA bracket, SATA cables, WiFi antenna. CrossFireX / 2-Way and 3-Way SLI bride, voltage cables. Lower-Left 3 X PCI-E X16 support X16 bandwidth. 2 X PCI-E X16 support X8 bandwidth. It supports up to 4-Way AMD CrossFireX/nVIDIA SLI technology. 3-Way AMD CrossFireX/nVIDIA SLI bandwidth is X16 + X16 + X16 4-Way AMD CrossFireX bandwidth is X16 + X8 + X16 + X8 4-Way nVIDIA SLI bandwidth is sX8 + X8 + X8 + X8 2 X PCI-E X1 LAN chips are Atheros GbE and Intel GbE LAN. It builds in Realtek ALC898 audio chip supporting 7.1 channel and High Definition Audio technology. Design in Taipei Lower-Right 2 X White SATA by Z77 support SATA3. 4 X Black SATA by Z77 support SATA2. It supports hybrid RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10. The max performance decides by installed SATA devices. 4 X Gray SATA by Marvell 88SE9172 support SATA3, RAID 0 and RAID 1. 1 X mSATA supports SATA2. If you install mSATA, SATA2 port 5 will not work. Right hand side is debug LED, MB and SB are dual BIOS switcher, and blue round button is RST_SW. Upper Right 4 X DIMM DDR3 support 1066/1333/1600/2666(OC) and DDR3 max capacity is 32GB. It supports Extreme Memory Profile technology. Next is 24-PIN power connector and front USB 3.0 connector. Upper Left Z77X-UP7uses new fins design with heat pipe. CPU metal cover is better quality by plating process. Behind the heat pipe, there are 2 8-pin power connectors for high power consumption usage after OC. IO 1 X PS2 KB/Mouse 1 X D-Sub / DVI-D / HDMI / DisplayPort 6 X USB 3.0/2.0(Blue) 2 X RJ-45 LAN 1 X S/PDIF Optical output 6 X Audio jacks

CPU Full Speed - 53~56 LinX 0.6.4 Using Intel original cooler, i3-3220 is good in OS Desktop. Full speed is lower than 60 degree C. This is also better than average. After Ivy Bridge phases in 22nm, K sku CPU temperature after OC is not improved. However, for general use, the temperature performance is excellent. Power Consumption Test Enable C1E and Enter to OS Desktop - 30W Disable C1E and Enter to OS Desktop - 38W Running LinX to Full Speed CPU - 57W In Sandy Bridge, Intel has lower the TDP much comparing to 1st gen Core i. After Ivy Bridge phase-in 22nm, it?s even 10~20% lower. The Ivy Bridge doesn?t improve much in ratio due to Sandy Bridge TDP is very low already. Also, I don?t use 80Plus power supply this time. If I change to 80Plus, it will improve more. LGA 1155 chipset has H61, B75, H77 and Z77. These four chipsets have different specs and features. I do recommend you to study first before buying. The price is much cheaper than the past. Four chipsets entry models price is very close. It?s around 15~30USD for each segment. Most MB brands have many models for each chipset. You can choose by your budget, favorite brands and specs. Intel revealed Ivy Bridge Core i3 is renewing product line as the price is same as Sandy Bridge Core i3. For positioning is also the same. Entry i3-3220 bundles HD2500 and i3-3225 is with HD4000. If 3rd gen Core i3 price can be lower, it will be more attractive. Windwithme shares Ivy Bridge entry Core i3-3220 performance for your reference. I also hop Pentium series can be released earlier. This is also in my blog - WIND3C, All comments are welcome.

DDR3 1995.2 CL9 11-10-27 1T ADIA64 Memory Read - 19509 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 24499 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 20886 MB/s In the test, I OC DDR3 8GB X2 from 1866 to 2000. You can see DDR3 performance is always Intel advantage. The bandwidth is similar to Sandy Bridge, but DDR3 clock can rise 2~3 levels. Previously, H67 only can reach DDR3 1333, but H77 max clock is DDR3 2000. Of course, Z77 with better quality DDR3 can even achieve 2400~2600 which is enhance DRAM extreme clock a lot. 3D Performance Test Intel HD Graphics HD2500 3DMark Vantage => P1783 StreetFighter IV Benchmark 1366 X 768 => 41.72 FPS FINAL FANTASY XIV 1280 X 720 => 709 i3-3220 builds in HD2500 and former i3-3120 or i5-2300 both built in HD2000. For above three 3D software, HD2500 performance is 30~50% higher. If HD2500 3D performance is not enough, you can choose HD4000 built-in or external VGA. SPARKLE nVIDIA GTX570 3DMark Vantage => P25923 StreetFighter IV Benchmark 1920 X 1080 => 238.46 FPS FINAL FANTASY XIV 1920 X 1080 => 4002 I use the mid to high end VGA to see how the performance is of i3-3220 with VGA. Three 3D software is around 10~20% lower than nVIDIA GTX570 bundle with i7 CPU. This can be the reference for limited budget. If you want to enhance 3D performance, you better to put you money on VGA. i3-3220 can bring out around 80% 3D performance. If you have more budget, you can consider CPU either. H77 also support Intel Smart Response Technology. Also, GIGABYTE H77-DS3H has mSATA slot. HDD performance test (Disable SRT feature) ATTO DISK Benchmark max Read is 106.5 Mb/s and Write is 104.4 MB/s. HD Tune Pro 5.00 64K - Read - Average 82.6 MB/s Access Time 15.2ms HDD plus SSD performance test (Enable SRT feature) ATTO DISK Benchmark max Read is 212.6 Mb/s and Write is 69.6 MB/s HD Tune Pro 5.00 64K - Read - Average 151.9 MB/s Access Time 0.2ms SanDisk U100 spec is mSATA and SATA3. The max Read/Write is 450/380MB/s. Due to H77-DS3H mSATA only supports SATA2. The bandwidth will limit the mSATA3 SSD performance. After enabling Intel SRT, the Write performance is 1.5~2 times faster. Access Time is 76 times faster. The Write performance boost a lot in small files but max is lower than HDD. For actual usage, system boot is 2~3 times faster. I do hope GIGABYTE can upgrade mSATA slot to SATA3. It will boost SSD performance. Temperature (Room is 28˚C) Enter to OS Desktop - 33~37

UEFI Screen Intel Core i3-3220 default is 3.3GHz DRAM can set to DDR3 2000 after fine tune. The performance is much higher than former H67 DDR3 1333. DRAM Advanced Parameters set the latency to CL9 11-10-27 1T. Test Configuration CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 MB: GIGABYTE H77-DS3H DRAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT CMT32GX3M4X1866C9 VGA: Intel HD Graphics 2500 / SPARKLE GTX570 HDD: Seagate Momentus 500G / SanDisk U100 64GB POWER: Thermaltake TR2 600W Cooler: Intel Original Cooler OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit System Performance Test CPU 99.8 X 32 => 3292.72MHz DDR3 1995.2 CL9 11-10-27 1T Hyper PI 32M X4 => 14m 54.007s CPUMARK 99 => 519 Nuclearus Multi Core => 14204 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 13.28/6376 CrystalMark 2004R3 => 200583 CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 3.18 pts CPU(Single Core) => 1.35 pts FRYRENDER Running Time => 11m 36s x264 FHD Benchmark => 9.8 PCMark Vantage => 8644 Windows Experience Index - CPU 7.2 Intel structure advantage is high performance of individual thread. You can see the good score in single core benchmark above. i3-3220 is 2C4T and supports Hyper-Threading. IT will be 30% faster than own 2C2T CPU. Former share, Ivy Bridge 3770K, single thread performance is 3~6% faster than Sandy Birdge 2700K and 10~14% in multi-tasking. Comparing i3-3220 and i3-2120, the performance is close. It may causes by L3 Cache capacity.

Intel Core I Gen 3 is named Ivy Bridge which is launched in April. In the beginning, there were only mid to high end models, Core i5 and Core i7. For lower price Ivy Bridge Core i3 was launched in Sep. Now you can save some budget for Ivy Bridge CPU to buy Core i3 instead of Core i3. There are three models for new Core i3, Core i3-3220, i3-3225 and i3-3240 from low to high. Each is 100MHz difference. i3-3225 built-in Intel max performance HD4000 GPU. i3-3220 and i3-3240 are HD2500. This is the simplest way to distinguish. This guide is using Intel Core i3-3220, the cheapest one of three models. The clock is 3.3GHz. It?s physical 2 Cores and none Hyper-Threading. It can run 4 threads, called 2C4T. It?s 22nm manufacturing and TDP is 55W. L3 Cache is 3MB. It?s most entry Ivy Bridge CPU. The bottom of original cooler is none cooper for own 2 Cores CPU. If you add some better quality thermal paste, it?s helpful for temperature control. CPU back, it?s Revision E1. There are 4 chipsets in the market. The cheapest is H61 since Sandy Bridge. H61 doesn?t support SATA3 and USB 3.0. It?s quite a pity. The higher level is B75. Intel set it at Small Business Advantage. The picture is GIGABYTE B75M-D3V. B75support native SATA3 and USB 3.0. The price is higher than H61. If B75M-D3V got 4 DIMMs, the expandability would be better. LGA 1155 most high-end chipset is Z77. The price is even higher. Since this year the MB competition is very tough. Z77 entry model MB is much cheaper the former structures. The picture is FOXCONN Z77A-S. Z77 owns highest specs, expandability and adjustable CPU ratio for OC in LGA 1155. K sku CPU can adjust higher ratio and none K sku CPU can rise 200~600MHz clock. The mid-end uses H77 chipset - GIGABYTE H77-DS3H H77 can OC the built-in GPU, but not CPU. The other features are the same with Z77. GIGABYTE recently builds in mSATA slot from mid-end ATX MB. Windwithme just got mSATA SSD and will share Intel Smart Response Technology.

Hi-Fi Z77X uses relatively high-level ALC898 of Realtek, which has the good performance in both computability and stability. Its audio effect is quite acceptable. At present the MB manufacturers use various audio chipsets of Realtek. Hi-Fi Z77X uses Realtek, so it is difficult to be distinguished from other MB brands. The design on the upper side of the audio chipset is the metal shield printed with BIOSTAR Logo shining red when power-on. Altec Lansing BackBeat Plus UHP206 is sold at a price closed to the medium-level earphone in the common consumption market. I compare the actual audio effect of Hi-Fi Z77X and TZ77XE4 when the Realtek ALC898 audio chipset is used. Altec Lansing is a U.S. brand with long history. I believe most PC users can speak out some of its well-known loudspeakers which produce quite high-level performance. BackBeat Plus UHP206 is of in-ear type, belonging to the monitoring function, and can present the audio effect of real sound source. It supports Creative THX technology. Let?s first take a look at the THX software interface. The first three options are enabled by default. If the user enables the options of SMART VOLUME and DIALOG PLUS, it will optimize the sound field, but decrease the finer points of intermediate frequency. It is suggested opening these two options when gaming or watching videos. When comparing the audio quality of these two MB brands, it will disable all THX options to achieve the original audio effect. The left side is the Multi-Channels Calibration interface, used for the multi-channel calibration of PC loudspeaker. The right side is SmartEAR Headphone Utility，used for adjustment under the earphone environment. Below is the test for audio quality, which belongs to personal opinion. It makes the comparison of the built-in audio effect between the Hi-Fi Z77X and TZ77XE4. When the earphone volume is 50%, the sound is loud enough. Thus, it?s no need to worry the insufficient power will cause small volume. High frequency ? there is no sharp tune, and it is much finer . Intermediate frequency ? the definition and the finer points are improved. If the intermediate frequency can be fuller, it will be better. Low frequency ? bass is quite shocking, free from the problems of TZ77XE4 in which the sound is not thick or muddy enough. As for the built-in level, Hi-Fi Z77X improves the audio effect more or less. Moreover, with the THX software, it will be more suitable for watching video or gaming, bringing about a better performance in the effect of audio field. Compared with the last generation under the same brand, TZ77XE4 makes the most improvements in the performance in the intermediate frequency. It will get quite good built-in audio effect for listening to the music. Of course, Hi-Fi Z77X improves the audio effect of built-in audio chipset, making the consumer enjoy better audio quality with the same price. However, its audio effect is not so good as the lower or medium-level audio card on the market. After all, the built-in audio effect doesn?t need to spend extra money like the additional audio card, so it is hard to compare this part fairly. Temperature performance (Ambient temperature is 28 Celsius) System standby - 38~46 Running LinX, CPU at full speed - 82~87 XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 is a radiator that has gain higher C/P ratio on the market, while its price falls around the medium level. Although the temperature is slightly higher when overclocking to 4.5GHz, its radiation capacity is quite satisfactory if considering its reasonable price.. If you think the temperature of 80 Celsius is too high, it is helpful to enhance the internal cooling or reduce the overclocking to 4.4GHz when installing it into the case. Power consumption test System standby - 125W Running LinX, CPU at full speed - 222W 3770K OC 4.5GHz, C1E disabled, and the system standby under GTX 570 SLI mode, it is only 125W. When CPU is at full speed, it will increase about 97W. The power consumption under Ivy Bridge platform is obviously lower than the last generation of Sandy Bridge. BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z77X Pros 1. The price is a little higher than the basic-level Z77, with its specification and material similar to the middle-level Z77. 2. Japanese solid capacitor, built-in Power/Reset buttons and simple debug LED. 3. It adopts UEFI interface with fast startup speed, rich options and large range of voltage, as well as excellent overclocking ability. 4. Provide special Calibration Microphone to adjust the sound field based on the surroundings. 5. With special design of audio effect of the built-in Hi-Fi, the MB power supply has 13 phases in total. Cons 1. BIOSTAR has no distribution channel in Taiwan currently. 2. It is suggested using the advanced audio chips, such as Creative CA0132 or VIA Envy24MT. 3. DDR3 bandwidth has some improvement room. Performance ratio ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 80/100 Material ratio ★★★★★★★★★☆ 85/100 Specification ratio ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 82/100 Appearance ratio ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 82/100 C/P ratio ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 83/100 BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z77X is sold at US$150(NT$4,382), which is almost the same price of TZ77XE4 when released on the market. Currently, the price of TZ77XE4 has dropped to US$120 or so, but it has two more SATAs and one DisplayPort. Thus, the C/P ratio will be increased. Both Hi-Fi Z77X and Hi-Fi H77S are two models of Intel platform introduced with Hi-Fi material. Hi-Fi A85X and Hi-Fi A85W with the AMD FM2 that are released by BIOSTAR lately, also have the same audio effect design. In recent years, some MB brands have improved the audio effect or the network on the advanced product line, which seems to pave road for the gaming market. Moreover, the BIOSTAR with affordable price and high performance has also stepped in the design of audio effect. It is a piece of good news for the users who calls for better built-in audio effect with limited budget. And Hi-Fi design does make substantial improvements on the audio effect. I hope BIOSTAR will adopt Hi-Fi material in more MB products in the future, so that the consumers will have more MB options with higher C/P ratio:) This article is also post in my blog - WIND3C, All comments are welcome.

Nuclearus Multi Core => 31526 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 35.08 /16837 CrystalMark 2004R3 => 378507 CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 9.14 pts CPU(Single Core) => 1.92 pts FRYRENDER Running Time => 4m 10s x264 FHD Benchmark => 26.6 PCMark Vantage => 26885 The frequency of 4.8GHz is about 6.7% higher than that of 4.5GHz. Compared with 4.8GHz, the Fritz Chess Benchmark of 4.5GHz is 7.8% higher in the test, and CINEBENCH R11.5 7.2% higher. Moreover, the x264 FHD Benchmark is 7.1% higher and FRYRENDER is 6.3% faster. It seems that the increased CPU frequency will improve the performance accordingly. However, most of my previous tests use the advanced radiator with overclocking to 4.8GHz. This time I use the affordable CPU radiator with overclocking to 4.5GHz to test the performance, getting different results in the voltage, power consumption and working performance. It is hoped to provide reference for the users of medium-level radiator. After all, overclocking to 4.8GHz requires more conditions. DRAM bandwidth test DDR3 2400 CL11 12-11-28 2T ADIA64 Memory Read - 19333 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 19292 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 22702 MB/s When installing 4DIMM in the DRAM, the overclocking capability of the same DDR3 will be lowered by one or two levels, which is common for many Z77. Thus, I set it as DDR2400 2T, which is a stable parameter. Those who want to achieve the overclocking frequency of DDR3 2400~2600 1T, it is suggested using 2DIMM which also provides a favorable environment to achieve the purpose in addition to the powerful DDR3. Moreover, the DRAM bandwidth of Hi-Fi Z77X is two-level lower than that of TZ77XE4, which needs to be enhanced by the newer BIOS in the future. 3D performance test - SPARKLE GTX570 SLI 3DMark Vantage => P45768 FINAL FANTASY XIV 1920 X 1080 => 6244 Unigine Heaven Benchmark 3.0 1920 X 1080 => 101.4 FPS The bandwidth required by SLI mode is X8 + X8, but the performance might be poorer. However, sold at this lower price, Hi-Fi Z77X still supports AMD CrossFireX/nVIDIA SLI technology, thus it is a product with rather good specification. BIOSTAR advertises Hi-Fi Caps and Hi-Fi resistors, and the material adopts the non-polarized capacitor and film resistor. Equipped with the audio-amplification chipset on the front earphone, it provides the users with better audio quality.

The radiation fin for Z77?s chipset is of long-shape design. In addition to the unique appearance, it is also labeled with PURO Hi-Fi. O.N.E calibration page of BIOSTAR UEFI interface The frequency multiplication of the CPU Ratio is 45, i.e. 3770K will be operated by 4500MHz Graphics Core Ratio Limit is the frequency of the built-in GPU The algorithm of 23 is 23 X 50 => 1150MHz. In the figure below, it adopts the default frequency of built-in HD 4000 for 3770K. DDR3 frequency is set as 24, namely DDR3 2400. For DRAM frequency and parameter settings, generally, smaller value leads to higher performance. Set it as DDR3 2400 CL11 12-11-28 2T, and adjust other detailed options to optimal setting values. The user can increase the frequency and adjust the parameters based on the DDR3 property, so as to increase DDR3 bandwidth. Voltage page Four CPU VCore Modes are included, i.e. SPEC Volgate/Auto/Offset Mode/Fixed Mode CPU VCore Offset -0.200~+0.370V CPU VCore Fixed 1.000~1.790V In terms of the purpose of overclocking, the major change here is the CPU voltage. In the sample figure, the CPU Vcore is fixed as 1.280V. Making slight adjustment based on the radiation ability and CPU property are two major foundations for overclocking CPU. This page can adjust the shared capacity needed by the HD 4000 built in 3770K. CPU Smart FAN can control the rotating speed based on the CPU condition. PC Health Status The CPU temperature detected here is higher, while the wind temperature felt from the radiator or the detected temperature by OS temperature detection software will be lower. This time the common and affordable CPU radiator is used, and the 3770K overclocking to 4.5GHz is set stably. Install 4DIMM DDR3 2133 and overclock it to 2400 2T. The capacity of DRAM is 4G X4, namely 16GB in total. Hi-Fi Z77X is equipped with better radiator and 2DIMM DDR3, which can also achieve the overclocking performance of 4.8GHz / 2600. I only intend to test the overclocking in different ways, providing more information to the users who need. Test platform CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K MB: BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z77X DRAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT CMT16GX3M4X2133C9 VGA: SPARKLE GTX570 SLI SSD: CORSAIR Performance Pro Series 256GB POWER: CORSAIR AX650W Cooler: XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit Intel Core i7-3770K overclocking performance CPU 100 X 45 => 4500MHz 1.280V DDR3 2400 CL11 12-11-28 2T 1.608V Hyper PI 32M X8 => 12m 57.381s CPUMARK 99 => 708

In recent years, overclocking and material are the major positioning route in the middle and high-level MB market. With the Desktop market changing, the terms like electric competition or Gaming appear on the technical data of a lot of hardware. For the MB field with mature specifications, it has put the focus on the audio effect and network. In this way, it intends to improve the traditional design model before, providing better audio effect for users in gaming environment. Most customers are under the impression that BIOSTAR take the affordable price and the overclocking as the major market positioning. TZ77XE4 released before performs well in the aspects of C/P ratio and overclocking capabilities. And Hi-Fi Z77X released lately, as implied in the product name, mainly strengthens the audio effect. The product package this time takes the sound-related pattern, which is also quite special. Hi-Fi Z77X Appearance Currently, most MB brands use the shining black PCB, while BIOSTAR uses the matte PCB material which increases the sense of texture. As for colors of Hi-Fi Z77X, PCB, DRAM and PCI slots are all black, and then matched with blue radiator. Hi-Fi Z77X looks different from the black and orange appearance of TZ77XE4. Personally, I like its external package design and new colors better. Accessories enclosed: Product manual, IO board, SLI / CorssFire X bridge, SATA wires, Calibration Microphone and driver disk The lower-left section of motherboard 2 X PCI-E X16 3.0, supporting AMD CrossFireX/nVIDIA SLI technology at most, with a bandwidth of X8 + X8 1 X PCI-E X16 2.0, with a bandwidth of X4 3 X PCI-E X1 Network chip adopts Realtek RTL8111E Audio chip Realtek ALC898 supports 8-channel Blu-ray Audio and THX TruStudio Pro technology at most The lower-right of motherboard 2 X black SATA, provided by chipset Z77, with SATA3 specification 4 X black SATA, provided by chipset Z77, with SATA2 specification They can work together to build RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10, and the highest performance depends on the SATA device installed. Power / Reset buttons and debug LED, and the black section on upper side is the front USB 3.0 slot The upper -right of motherboard 4 X DIMM DDR3, supporting 1066/1333/1600/1866(OC)/2133(OC)/2400(OC)/2600(OC) The maximum capacity supported by DDR3 is 32GB, supporting Extreme Memory Profile technology. The lower side is the 24-PIN power input. The upper-left of motherboard The power supplies on both sides of CPU are equipped with the enhanced passive radiator, with a power input on the upper side of 8PIN. IO 1 X PS/2 Keyboard 1 X D-Sub / DVI-D / HDMI DisplayPort 4 X USB 2.0(black) 2 X USB 3.0(blue) 1 X RJ-45 Network hole 6 X Audio hole The power supply design has 13 phases in total, including 10 CPU VCORE phases + 1 VCC phase + 2 IGD phases

Enable X.M.P. => DDR3 1866.8 CL9 10-9-27 and manual adjust to 1T. ADIA64 Memory Read - 17252 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 45532 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 13238 MB/s There is only part of software supporting LGA 2011 exclusive quad channel. You can see Sandra Memory Bandwidth supports quad chanel. LGA 2011 DDR3 1333 quad channel bandwidth is only 10% more than LGA 1155 DDR 2600 dual channel. CrystalMark reached multi-memory scoreand quad channel bandwidth. ADIA64 Memory Read and MaXXMEM Memory don’t improve much. If we compare three clock and parameters to see the bandwidth, and using Sandra Memory Bandwidth as base, DDR3 1333 1T is 0.4% higher than 1866 2T. You can see 1T or 2T is not the key factor. Pulling high DDR3 clock is more helpful for DDR3 bandwidth. Temperature(Room is 30˚C) Enter to OS Desktop – 32~35 CPU full speed by LinX – 38~50 Even the threading is 8C16T, due to CPU clock is not too high and H100 water cooler performance, the temperature is very good. It seems Intel original cooler is enough for Xeon CPU. Power Consumption (Enter to OS Desktop) Enable C1E - 65W Disable C1E - 107W CPU full speed by LinX - 205W The power consumption is using AMD Radeon HD 7970 as well. New LGA 2011 and former LGA 1366 CPU are both 32nm. The power consumption is big different. You can see LGA2011 is lower 50~70W than LGA 1366 CPU. Besides CPU power consumption is lower, new C606 or X79 is also saving more power than X58. 3D Performance - PowerColor AX7970 3GBD5-2DHV3 3DMark Vantage => P32516 StreetFighter IV Benchmark 1920 X 1080 => 369.88 FPS FINAL FANTASY XIV 1920 X 1080 => 5996 Redaon HD 7970 is current AMD most high end single GPU VGA. All tests have very high 3D performance. Of course, AMD also has Redaon HD 7990 with two7970 GP. You can choose your own VGA by budget or requirements. This is for simple share. As room is 30 degree C, I use tool to test MOSFET temperature. When entering to OS desktop and enable C1E, the max temperature is 40.5 and 51.6 in burning CPU. As my own experience in several X79 boards, X79S-UP5 MOSFET is quite low in CPU default mode. My every LGA 2011 articles all have these numbers for reference. GIGABYTE X79S-UP5-WIFI Pros 1. First C606 Server Chipset in DeskTop market 2. UEFI BIOS provides two BIOS interfaces 3. DDR3 supports 8 DIMM and ECC. It supports up to 14 SATA devices. 4. First IR3550 PowlRstage PWM design to lower the MOSFET temperature. 5. Exclusive BT4.0/Wi – Fi card to support all mobile devices. Cons 1. CPU voltage drift between standby and OC is too big. 2. OC ability is lower than X79 3. Intel C606 SAS only supports SATA2 Performance ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 82/100 Components ★★★★★★★★★☆ 91/100 Specifications ★★★★★★★★★☆ 93/100 Appearance ★★★★★★★★★☆ 86/100 C/P Value ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 82/100 I used to share Core i7-3930K / 3960X default and OC performance. These two CPUs are most high end in consumer PC which is 6C12T. This Intel Xeon E5-2000 series CPU only use in high end Server. E5-2680 is 8C16T. Some general software doesn’t support it, but it still improves some software performance. If you are OC enthusiasts, 3930K and 3960X adjustable ratio is a better choice. X79S-UP5 price segment is same as former X79-UD5. The main difference is X79S-UP5 using Intel C606 chipset. It adds dual LAN, 14 SATA devices, supporting ECC and new IR3550 PowlRstage PWM design. Unfortunately, Intel C606 only supports two SATA3 devices. Otherwise, X79S-UP5 spec will be even better. X79S-UP5in mid-end X79 market is quite competitive in specs and components. Currently, X79 MB is still in high end market. However, LGA2011 life cycle is longer than mainstream LGA 1155 platform. It’s all depending on your budget and needs. This is just a reference guide for who is considering LGA 2011 platform. This article is also post in my blog - WIND3C, All comments are welcome.

CrystalMark 2004R3 => 351690 CINEBENCH R11.5 CPU => 11.96 pts CPU(Single Core) => 1.41 pts FRYRENDER Running Time => 3m 6s x264 FHD Benchmark => 31.2 PCMark Vantage => 16941 Windows Experience Index Fritz Chess Benchmark => 43.47/20867 In E5-2680 8C16T structure, it has very good performance for multi-threading software, such like CINEBENCH R11.5 / FRYRENDER / x264 FHD Benchmark. As overall system performance, some software seems no performance improved due to none multi-threading support, such like CrystalMark 2004R3 / PCMark Vantage. Windows Experience Index cannot support 8C16T, so I just ignore it. Xeon is great for multimedia or file converting, but not some regular software. Besides you have specified software requirement, for general users, 4C6T or 6C12T CPU utilization rate will be higher. LGA 2011 is the only quad channel DDR# platform in DeskTop market. DDR3 is CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT series, CMT32GX3M4X1866C9. The packing clearly shows supporting Intel X.M.P. Certified QUAD CHANNEL. The clock is 1866 and latency is CL9 10-9-27 with 1.50V. DOMINATOR-GT uses exclusive DHX thermal technology. The heatsink and PCB designs are bigger than some high end DDR3. DDR3 capacity is 4 X 8GB As X79S-UP5 8DIMM design, it can support up to 64GB, 8G X 8, 64GB. UEFI DualBIOS default is DDR3 1333.4 CL9 9-9-24 1T ADIA64 Memory Read - 15203 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 33842 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 12531 MB/s Enable X.M.P. => DDR3 1866.8 CL9 10-9-27 2T ADIA64 Memory Read - 17100 MB/s Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 44352 MB/s MaXXMEM Memory - Copy - 13127 MB/s The performance difference between DDR3 1333 1T to enable X.M.P. DDR3 1866 2T is as below. ADIA64 increases 12.5%, Sandra increases 31% and MaXXMEM increases about 5%. ADIA64 and MaXXMEM performance is not much for quad channel platform. But you can see Sandra Memory bandwidth is almost double the LGA 1155 platform. The quad channel support really impacts the DDR3 performance.

Chipset heat sink is pretty big with good match colors. GIGABYTE own UEFI DualBIOS Interface Intel Xeon E5-2680 operating information shows physical 8 cores clock is around 2.7~3.1GHz. M.I.T. Tuning Page E5-2680 is 27x and supporting Turbo Boost. As core utilization, you can adjust between 31~35 ratio. Enable X.M.P. to OC DDR3 1333 to 1866. Advanced CPU Features Menu You can adjust individual CPU Core ratio and choose how many cores to run. C1E is power saving feature. Intel Turbo Boost is opposite with C1E. It will boost the CPU speed by loading. LGA 2011 is exclusive quad channels structure. You can set up by Channel A/B/C/D. For X.M.P. DDR3, it has original parameters. The picture shows CL9 10-9-27. CPU Vcore 0.800~1.700V CPU Vtt 0.715~1.610V CPU PLL 1.195~1.985V IMC 0.800~1.600V DRAM Voltage 1.100~1.990V PC Health Status Xeon E5-2680 is for Server market. It’s more on multi-threads and reliability. If you want to pull higher clock, you can adjust the CPU frequency. However, it’s limited. If you are OC enthusiasts or looking for higher clock, Core i7 3930K or 3960X is more suitable. The test below is based on E5-2680 8C16T structure. Test Configuration CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2680 MB: GIGABYTE X79S-UP5-WiFi DRAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT CMT32GX3M4X1866C9 VGA: PowerColor AX7970 3GBD5-2DHV3 HD: SanDisk Extreme 240GB POWER: CORSAIR AX650W Cooler: CORSAIR Hydro Series H100 OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit CPU 100 X 27 => 2700MHz Enable C1E and Turbo Boost, clock is around 1200~3500MHz by CPU utilization. DDR3 1867 CL9 10-9-27 2T Hyper PI 32M X4 => 17m 36.824s CPUMARK 99 => 533

This year, Intel has 2 CPU sockets in DeskTop market. As previous generation, Extreme was LGA 1366 and mainstream was LGA 1156. The new generation Extreme is LGA 2011 and mainstream is LGA 1155. X79 life cycle should be around 3 years which is same as X58. LGA 2011 in consumer market only has X79 chipset. Some MB makers launch new X79 series and even use Server level chipset to enhance spec. GIGABYTE X79S-UP5-WiFi is the first model to use Intel C606 chipset. I, windwithme, will share you the LGA 2011 Server CPU, 8C16T, performance. Let’s look at the CPU backside first. Left is most high-end CPU in consumer market, Intel Core i7-3960X. Right is Intel Xeon E5-2680. Serve level CPU price and usage are different with our common views. E5-2680 clock is 2.7GHz. It supports Turbo Boost 2.0 to 3.5GHz. It’s physical 8 Cores and Hyper-Threading to reach 16 threads, called 8C16T. It’s 32nm manufacturing, TDP 130W, and 20MB L3 Cache. It’s very high end CPU in E2600 series. MB is GIGABYTE latest X79S-UP5-WiFi. It’s mid-end price in X79 MB segment. X79S-UP5 is same as former X79-UD5 and G1.Assassin2 bundling BT4.0/Wi-Fi PCI-E card. X79S-UP5 can be treat as enhance edition from former X79-UD5. The color tone is similar, but some specs are enhanced. It’s E-ATX spec. Size is 30.5cm x 26.4cm. You can just use standard ATX case. Lower-Left Corner 3 X PCI-E X16 support 3-Way AMD CrossFireX/nVIDIA SLI The bandwidth is operating at X16 + X16 or X8 + X8 + X8. 1 X PCI-E X16 bandwidth is X4 1 X PCI-E X1 1 X PCI Dual LAN chip design with Intel GbE LAN and Realtek GbE. Audio chip is Realtek ALC898 supporting 7.1 channel and High Definition Audio Design in Taipei Lower-Right Corner 2 X White SATA, provided by C606 and support SATA3 4 X Black SATA, provided by C606 and support SATA2 It supports hybrid RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10. The max performance is depending on installed SATA devices. 8 X Gray SAS SATA provided by C606 and support SAS or SATA2. It also supports RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10. 2 X 64 Mbit flash with Dual BIO. It build-in RST_SW blue button. Upper-Right Corner X79S-UP5 CPU PWM is 8-phase digital and the cover is plating for better look. Red button is Power for bare system. Upper-Left Corner There are 8 X DIMM DDR3, supporting 1066/1333/1600/1866/2133. DDR3 max capacity is 64GB. It supports ECC memory, quad channel DDR3 and Extreme Memory Profile. IO 1 X PS2 KB/MS 1 X O.C. button 1 X BIOS Switch button 1 X Clear CMOS button 5 X USB 2.0(Red/Black) 1 X eSATA/USB 2.0 Combo(Red) 1 X eSATA3 (Blue) 4 X USB 3.0(Blue) 2 X RJ-45 LAN 1 X S/PDIF Optical output 5 X Audio jacks GIGABYTE displayed IR3550 PowlRstage in ComputeX 2012 as new PWM design for own high-end MB. It delivers 60A per phase and lower temperature by single package design.

Vengeance 2000 positioned as Gaming Headset, it's good on bass, deep enough and not feel hard at all. All the sound detail could heard clearly when gaming, the sound stage positioning is clear. If use for gaming environment, Vengeance 2000 presents alive and good surround sound experience. If users love music or songs, the performance still good, just could be better on mid frequency to be stronger. Power consumption tests Under OS desktop with idle mode - 26W CPU full loading - 91W Intel Burn Test V2.4, Stress Level Maximum. CPU and GPU full loading at same time - 188W OCCT Power Supply test Ivy Bridge architecture Core i7-3610QM is less power of 2~5W than last generation Sandy Bridge of same level CPU. Core i7-3610QM is better than older architecture on clock and performance, maybe the Watt saving is not too much, but still have great help to use 22nm process. On OCCT test, because of nVIDIA top level GTX680M graphics, let the whole system power consumption up to 188W. Battery life 9 Cell battery, BatteryEaterPro tests (Enable WiFi and BT) Full loading - 1:16:51 Idle mode - 3:49:27 GT70 use 9 Cell battery with such enthusiast level hardware SPEC., the performance is good on full loading or idle mode battery life. Tested with some 13.3~15.6 inch notebooks with lower SPEC., but still presents same battery life as GT70. If use GT70 for video broadcast, the playback time is around 3 hours, it's ok for mobility usage. If compare to last generation GT683R, GT70 built in more high level SPEC., but still keep same battery life as GT683R. Summarize of MSI GT70 Pros: 1. The seldom 17.3 inch large panel Gaming notebook in the market, SPEC. is closer to top level of desktop PC. 2. Dual mSATA3 SSD plus a 2.5 inch 750GB HDD to make balanced on great performance and large capacity. 4 DIMM of DDR3 extend more capacity in the future. 3. The IO port is rich, 3 USB3.0 ports and 2 USB 2.0 ports, with HDMI, D-Sub and eSATA. 4. With full size SteelSeries gaming keyboard with multi backlight. with Turbo and Cooler Boost keys to increase the GPU and FAN performance. 5. Designed with better 2.1 channel speakers, use Sound By Dynaudio technology, present better quality than last generation. 6. Built in 1920x1080 high resolution panel, matted design could make eyes feel more comfortable for gaming or Full HD video experience. 7. Cable LAN use Bigfoot Killer E2200 Gaming LAN, this is good help for faster response internet gaming and streaming. Cons: 1. Beside brushed metallic cover, the exterior design could refer DELL Alienware with robber plastic material. 2. Recommend to use smaller size power adaptor for high level notebooks. 3. High level Gaming notebooks will cost much more higher than regular notebooks. 4. Recommend to use CREATIVE latest Sound Core3D quad core sound processor chip to enhance the total sound quality. Performance Ratio: ★★★★★★★★★★ 95/100 Material Ratio: ★★★★★★★★★☆ 90/100 Specification Ratio: ★★★★★★★★★☆ 92/100 Outlooks Ratio: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 82/100 Cost/Performance Ratio: ★★★★★★☆☆☆☆ 63/100 MSI Gaming Series NoteBook on latest Ivy Bridge platform comes with 15.6" and 17.3" design, and also separate with Enthusiast GT series and Performance GE series, the GT70 is much more difference with GE70, the top level GT70 ID design is more low-profile and solid design style, and brushed metallic to increase the sense of quality. The SPEC. combination is really good on GT70, of course you have to pay more for it. The storage comes with dual 128GB SSD RAID 0 as system drive, 750GB 7200rpm HDD to be data drive. Sound By Dynaudio 2.1 channel speakers, Audio Boost with gold jack and headset AMP circuit design. Keyboard comes with more durable and better feedback which was Keyboard By SteelSeries, combine 3 zone of multi color backlight design. Used Core i7-3610QM CPU and nVIDIA GTX680M top level graphics. MSI keep improvement on every generation gaming notebooks, this time we could see the big enhance of design and hardware. We mentioned that GT70 comes with 3 version of graphics, this GT70 with GTX680M graphics is the top level, it's around $2799USD in US, it still cheaper compare to same level same SPEC. from other brands. But since GT70 top level version comes with highest SPEC., the price is also the highest as well. The middle level GT70 in Taiwan with lower SPEC., use dual 64GB SSD/DDR3 8GB/Blu-Ray Combo/nVIDIA GTX675M, the price is around $2335USD, it's still high at first look, but still lower than the top level one. But most consumers will be more interested on the GE series, since GE70 is only 60% or less price range compare to GT70. In recent years, more consumers wants to use NB to replace PC, it also more and more popular especially on high-end level notebooks. MSI provide GE60/GT60/GE70/GT70 in the market, it's more option for Gaming Series of the NB brands. Everyone have their own condition and budget to buy a notebook, it's the first priority to choose with your favor from your limitation. The MSI GT70 top level gaming notebook test and share as above, for people who need these info for a detail reference. MSI GT70 is the same as other notebook brands, the different region might have different SPEC. combination. This article is from one of the version I got in hand. Attached is the color correction fie from windwithme with Spyder tool. Share to users who had GT70 on hand. windwithme-msi GT70.icm This article also shared in my blog WIND3C , welcome to visit and recommend.

LOST PLANET 2 DX11 1920 X 1080 TEST B - 56.4 fps Heaven Benchmark 3.0 DX11 1920 X 1080 => 65.8 FPS The nVIDIA GTX680M is really powerful on 3D performance, especially the 3D Mark Vantage got really high score. Compare to last generation GTX560M, this GTX680M is over 50%~140% faster, this performance could run most 3D games easily and smoothly with highest detail. Of course the GTX680M could be better, if you want every game title could runs great as 3D Mark Vantage to over P24000, the other Game Benchmark just present 60%~90% of the GTX680M performance, the fine tune nVIDIA driver could enhance more gaming performance when new version release. Diablo 3 gaming 1920 x 1080 with highest detail setup => 115FPS Maze theme => 153FPS Normal single gaming status is around 113FPS This global popular game is not so demanded on 3D performance, but it's more suitable on Desktop platform. If we use GT540M on 1366x768 resolution it's only 23FPS on setup screen. So this could be a issue on middle or entry level notebooks for most consumers. On GT70 with GTX680M, highest detail and highest resolution with Full HD still over 100FPS, if play to higher level stage with more monsters and magic effects with heavy loading, GT70 will still runs smoothly like a piece of cake. Sound Presents GT70 supports THX TruStudio Pro technology, first we take a look on THS SW interface. Enable the SMART VOLUME and DIALOG PLUS options. This will make surround sound stage batter, but the detail of middle frequency will reduced, recommend to enable this when gaming or movies. Below is the feeling of listening. This part is more subjective feeling. compare with notebooks built in speakers. Turn the volume to maxima, the sound is really loud, you don't need to worry about the volume at all. High Frequency - No sharply sound, rich on detail, presents high quality. Mid Frequency - Crystal clear, detail is better than TOSHIBA Harman/Kardon. It will be better if the mid-frequency could be stronger. Low Frequency - It's good with 2.1 channel on law frequency, the subwoofer presents good on the power of bass. And the sound is not muddy at all. The sound of GT70 is very suitable for movies and gaming, good on surround sound effect and sound stage, it belongs to multimedia type of speakers. Middle frequency had great improvement compare with last generation MSI gaming notebooks. It will present good sound quality and sound stage if you use GT70 to listen to music or songs. For high-end gaming laptop, we often use gaming headset together. Used own CORSAIR Vengeance 2000 Wireless 7.1 Gaming Headset for experience. Vengeance 2000 packing, provide 2 years warranty. Apply mic device, let gamers could communicate with company in the game. Wireless headset become more and more popular, especially to use on the notebooks for higher mobility. Headset is high level design on material and quality. Use full size cover design, make user feels comfortable. I used for a time and did not have any uncomfortable feelings.

C: Main system devices performance was built on 2x128GB SSD RAID 0. HD Tune Pro 5.00 Read - Average 975.3MB/s, Access Time 0.111ms ATTO Disk Benchmark over 128k tests could reach the highest reading speed to 1073.7MB/s, writing speed 1032.4MB/s HD Tune Pro 5.00 sequential reading speed up to 1029MB/s ATTO Disk Benchmark sequential reading and writing speed also could over 1000MB/s. CrystalDiskMark Seq Read - 905.9 MB/s Write - 357.6 MB/s <All 0xFF, 0Fill> Read - 965.2 MB/s Write - 855.6 MB/s <All 0x00, 1Fill> Read - 958.5 MB/s Write - 859.8 MB/s CrystalDiskMark of the right image on random benchmark, the writing speed will be lower. This SSD should be use SandForce SF-2281 control chip depends on the performance characteristic. We could see that the NAND Flash used Micron chip. Left side of the image, CrystalDiskMark change to 2 pure sequential mode test, the writing speed is good enough to reach formal data. AS SSD Benchmark - 941 Seq Read - 932.53 MB/s Write - 348.68 MB/s 4K - 64Thrd Read - 261.47 MB/s Write - 319.41 MB/s Use the SSD with SandForce SF-2281 chip to run AS SSD Benchmark, single 120GB SSD could reach 500MB/s more, Compression Benchmark writing performance is frim 300MB/s up to 900MB/s. Although SandForce SF-2281 SSD control chip is not always on the highest performance and stable, it says that's because to reduce the write times to increase the life time o the SSD. So this is good or bad depends on the choice of end users. BootRacer Time to Logon 7 seconds Time to Desktop 12~22 seconds From boot up to desktop after loading all programs is around 19~29 seconds, The test use MSI installed OS system, it comes with some permanent small tools, so the loading time will be slower compare to pure OS. Besides that, the RAID 0 mode will also take few seconds to detect Intel RAID combination when boot on at BIOS post. But SSD RAID 0 is indeed make the boot up speed much faster, it's pretty smooth on launch software or program installing. If user installed a clean system without many extra tool bar programs, the real high speed SSD could get into OS desktop under 15 seconds. D: is the data Drive, also use higher level 2.5 inch HDD, 750GB with 7200rpm, let's take a look on the HITACHI 7K750-50 benchmarks HD Tune Pro 5.00 Read - Average 98.7 MB/s Access Time 17.2ms ATTO DISK Benchmark over 128k tests could reach the highest 120.2MB/s reading speed, writing is 120.3MB/s File Benchmark Sequential -116418 KB/s / Write - 108355 KB/s CrystalDiskMark Seq Read - 121.9 MB/s Write - 121.3 MB/s Highest read/write could over 120MB/s, average speed is close to 100MB/s, its really good performance as 2.5 inch HDD. Compare to the SSD RAID 0 storage system, the performance is 3~10x faster than HDD, but if compare with 2.5 inch HDD, this 7K750 is on the top performance level. GT70 set it as D: drive for mass data storage. the SSD RAID 0 + HDD combination indeed comes with great performance an large capacity. GT70 built in 2 kinds of GPU, one is the Intel HD4000 from i7-3610QM, another one is nVIDIA highest level GeForce GTX680M with huge 4GB GDDR5 memory. 3DMark Vantage - P24211 StreetFighter IV Benchmark 1920 X 1080 => 223.65 FPS DEVIL MAY CRY4 DX10 1920 X 1080 => 201.85/188.26/223.79/157.84 fps FINAL FANTASY XIV 1920 X 1080 => 2906

MSI GT70 use Intel Ivy Bridge platform Core i7 3610QM CPU The clock is 100x20 => 2GHz, L3 is 6MB, Quad Core with HT multi core technology. TurboBoost 2.0 native overclock will boost up to 3.3GHz, comes with 3rd generation HM77 chipsets. Native USB3.0 with 22nm process CPU and more technology. The performance benchmarks Use Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit English version OS from factory default. GT70 SPEC. have 3 versions, this one is the highest level one, so the price range is also higher. Compare with Taiwan standard version (Dual 64GB SSD RAID/DDR3 8GB/Blu-Ray Combo/NVIDIA GTX675M), there are 4 points of SPEC. difference. This GT70 built in 128GBx2 SSD RAID0, DDR3 4GBx4 with 16GB, GPU upgrade to GTX680M 4GB, and BD Writer ODD. The hardware info under Device Manager. MSI GT70 installed software on desktop. There is a hidden manual on the top, apply quick launch of many software application. System performance tests Hyper PI 32M X8 => 17m 46.465s CPUMARK99 => 507 Nuclearus Multi Core => 22172 Fritz Chess Benchmark => 24.02/11530 CrystalMark 2004R3 => 300898 CINEBENCH 11.5 OpenGL => 43.10 fps CPU => 6.18 pts CPU (Single Core) => 1.35 pts PCMark Vantage => 20533 GT70 with Core i7-3610QM is obviously faster than last generation Core i7-2630QM, it around 20%~30% faster no matter single core or multi core, because of the enthusiast level Dual SSD RAID0 and nVIDIA GTX680M, the performance reached to extreme high score on above tests. windwithme remove the shield of GT70 bottom to explore the inside design and placement. Right upper side is main thermal module design, use 2 copper pipes to release the heat of Intel Core i7-3610QM CPU, use 3 copper pipes to release the heat of nVIDIA GTX680M graphics. On left up side, MSI designed a 2.5 inch SATA3 HDD space, this time they change the placement become 2 mSATA3 SSD, it not only for save space but also increase much performance. But mSATA SSD is not popular in the market, this interface of SATA3 SSD will come out slower and performance is less than regular 2.5 inch SSDs. To have a high performance mSATA SSD is the part that MSI need to working on. Below image is 2 DDR3 DIMM, here installed 4GB DDR3-1600 modules, another 2 DIMM should be in another side of the motherboard. Another part is 2.5 inch SATA2, here used HITACHI 7K750-750 7200rpm HDD, use this big capacity HDD for mass storage use.

Touch pad is good touching for use, very sensitive and good on point positioning. The light on the bottom, the 5 signal light start from left is Bluetooth, WiFi, Battery, Stand-By, HDD reading. SteelSeries gaming keyboard, this did cost a lot, it's really great help for gaming control, typing response is really good and much more durable. The built in KLM software could apply multi color combinations, this is the popular Yellow-Green-Red combination. The button in the middle is power key, will have white light when turn on. The upper control panel used touch sensor design, have 6 feature keys to turn on and off. Left 1: Turbo is to overclock GPU a little bit and disable the lock on GPU clock. but MSI only increase a few clock because of the system stability. Left 2: Cooler Boost is the fan turbo key, could boost the fan speed up to 110% and cool down the system temperature. One of the important factor of Gaming is the present of sound. MSI again combined with the Sound By Dynaudio 2.1 channel HD speakers design, comes with metal mesh style cover, this kind of high quality design could apply higher sound quality presents. 17.3 inch matted LED back light panel, with Full HD 1920x1080 resolution. The word size was adjusted by MSI, the size is suitable for this resolution. Built in HD WebCam, photo resolution up to 1280x1024 video resolution up to 1280x720 30fps, quite good. The left side Start from left, Line out \Line in \Mic-in \Headphone-Out \Multi Card Reader \ 3x USB 3.0 \ thermal air flow holes. Both input and output audio jack use gold flashed design, and built in headset AMP to have better output sound quality. GT70 is more professional on sound quality presents, design and material is more outstanding from others. The right side Start from left, BD Writer optical drive, 2x USB2.0 ports. The back side Start from left, thermal air flow hole \1xHDMI \1x eSATA \1x D-Sub \1x RJ-45 LAN \AC in \Kensington lock. Theoretically this high performance and SPEC. GT70 is more suitable for small space and high performance demanded users. Like in Japan, the 15.6" notebook or ITX/M-ATX Small PC will be more popular. The weight of GT70 with battery is around 3.9kg, if compare with regular 17.3" notebooks is heavier, but if we consider about its high performance Gaming level with more components, most of the gaming notebook will be over 4kg, MSI GT70 around 3.9kg is much more acceptable.

On the high end notebook market, it's all about Ultrabook in the past year. Focus on thin & light with mobility, the price is higher than regular notebooks. In fact, the high end notebooks still have another direction, it's the pursuit of higher performance and big display design products. Gaming notebook market is not so popular in Taiwan, only few brand still working on this field, like Dell/Alienware, MSI Gaming and ASUS ROG series, it's all high-end level in the market. Right now MSI notebook comes with 4 series, the Gaming series was for high-end users and gives different segmentation for the market. Only Gaming series goes with high performance, high SPEC., high quality audio/video enjoyment, it's a niche product line in the market. This time I would like to share the latest MSI Gaming notebook with top level SPEC., it's GT70 0NE. MSI did not focus on Ultrabook like many other brands. They pay more attention on the Gaming series. This kind of marketing strategy is quite difference, this type of laptop is more suitable for small living space or high performance notebooks demanding market. GT70 outlooks overview, just little differences compare with their GT60, GT70 used big surface cover with brushed metallic aluminum material, the frame used plastic matted material, the whole design looks more low key and solid design style. Built on Intel Ivy Bridge platform, not only performance enhancement, but also get better layout and material enhancement. The MSI logo on the middle of cover will shows white light since system boot up. The dimension of GT70 is 428 x 288 x 55 mm. Adaptor was made by Delta, the quality should be good. The bottom comes with 4 robber pad for stand, apply adaptor protection and enhance the thermal. The bundled mouse is good on specific pointing position, the design and quality looks good. the red line will light up with orange/red color when you are using it. It will be more friendly for big hand users if the mouse size could be bigger. On the bottom of the laptop, use 5 soft pad for stand on 4 corners. Left down side is battery bay, another side is CPU, HDD, DDR3 and thermal module. DDR3 comes with 4 DIMM, up to 32GB support, this GT70 comes with 4GB x4 total 16GB. On the bottom there is the subwoofer of the 2.1 channel speakers, it's few special design on notebooks, this could enhanced more of the bass sound quality. The battery comes with 9 cell 7800mAh, the larger capacity could apply the longer battery life. C side placement. The palm rest side also use brushed metallic aluminum material, feels better quality when use it. Keyboard size is the same as desktop regular keyboard, it's more convenient that comes with numerical keys.