Displaying items by tag: GIGABYTE

With the apparent delay of Intel Ivy Bridge and of course the Z77 chipset that goes with it) we there is going to be a continued demand for the X79 chipset and the pretty much every flavor of the LGA2011 CPU. To be honest I think that even after Ivy Bridge there will be a demand as the replacement for the LGA 2011 CPUs will not hit the market until around Q4 2012 or even later. So with that in mind we are taking a look at what at first glance appears to be a low cost X79 motherboard from Gigabyte. However, once you take a look at it you just might begin to see the serious overclocking and GPU benchmarking potential that it has. Let’s take a look at the Quad-SLI/Crossfire capable X79-UD3 from Gigabyte.

Every now and then we like to step back and take a look at the component industry. It has not been that long ago when the number of individual component makers began to dwindle. We have already watched as ABIT, SOYO DFI, FIC, and other motherboard manufacturers have disappeared. These were once great companies and flourished in the heyday of the DIY market (the Super Socket 7, Slot A and 1, Socket A etc.). Now the market is collapsing and we see companies that once only directly sold the pieces and parts for our computers starting to assemble them for us as well. Although the three major players in the motherboard/GPU market all have presence in Europe and Asia only one has truly penetrated the North American market and stands poised to make an even bigger impact there; this is Asus.

Not that long ago we talked to you about the features and design choices that Gigabyte made on the X79-UD5. This board is at the upper end of Gigabyte’s X79 lineup although it is not what you would consider an enthusiast board. Despite this Gigabyte has given it many of their enthusiast level features like their dual 3D BIOS, 3D power and some of the overclocking potential that we would expect from Gigabyte. Now it is time for us to dive into the usability and performance. So let’s see exactly  how the X79-UD5 performs.

Back in the mid-90s when the DIY computer industry was just breaking into full swing we saw a ton of great products hit the market almost weekly. It was a very cool time to be in the business; the problem was that the technology was so new that in many cases the early hardware was not only WAY overpriced, but also buggy to use. I can vividly remember buying a DVD-ROM for the first time and trying to play a move on my desktop. It was an old AMD K62-333 with a whopping 512MB of RAM. The movie was so bad that it was almost laughable. The K62 just could not process all of the video information to keep the movie going with an acceptable frame rate.

Intel is in full swing with the X79 and their Sandy Bridge-E CPUs. We have watched as they have broken and re-broken records for performance and in some cases overclocking. Behind all of this we have the X79 chipset with its quad-channel DDR3 configuration and some impressive power specifications. Intel has also brought back BCLK overclocking which has made things very interesting. We have a few X79 boards in the lab and are working on finding out just what they can do and how they actually work in the real world. One of these is also our second Gigabyte motherboard; the X79-UD5. This will also be our first video preview where we show you and talk about the design and features. So let’s dive in and see what the GA-X79-UD5 has to offer…

CES 2012; Las Vegas, Nevada – We had the chance to visit the Gigabyte booth and take a look at what they have to offer. Gigabyte has not always been a serious contender in the motherboard (or GPU) market, but starting about 5 years ago they took a long hard look at what they were doing and made some impressive changes. So with that in mind let’s take a look at what Gigabyte has to offer the market in 2012.

We have now had the G1.Assassin2 up on the test bench for a little over a week now and are ready to talk about our experience with it. The G1.Assassin2 is Gigabyte’s current top of the line x79 motherboard and follows in the same trend as the other boards in the G1 line up. This means that you get the military theme, the built in audio card, and of course the KillerNIC E2100 NPU. However, there are also things that had us concerned about how the G1.Assassin2 might handle certain types of work. So let’s get started and see if all of the new features (like the 3D BIOS and 3D Power) work and if the concerns that we talked about in the design and feature review are valid or not.

Although AMD’s future is far from certain we do know that they have been pushing towards lower power and lower cost devices. We have seen these in the form of their new APUs and their A75 and A55 chipsets. We have already tested the performance of the A75, now we are ready to take a look at the performance of one of the A55 based motherboards; the Gigabyte A55M-DS2. We have taken a look at the design choices and features so far and have come away with a bit of confusion as to where this product actually fits into the market. Now that we have put the board through our performance tests, let’s see if we can find out exactly where in the market the A66M-DS2 belong and if it is worth your time and money.

Intel is enjoying some of the most successful quarters of their life. They have launched what is arguably the fastest desktop CPU that you can buy and have coupled it with a chipset that is clearly set to perform. We have already shown you what the CPU is capable of on a reference design motherboard and are now ready to dive into what the, more creative, companies have in stock for the X79 and Core i7 3960 combo. Today we are going to dive into the features of the Gigabyte G1.Assassin2. This X79 based board is the follow up to the very popular G1.Assassin (hence the “2” at the end) It features quite a few intriguing new features as well as what you would expect from a G1.Killer motherboard. These include an onboard KillerNIC and also a full CreativeLabs Audio card built right onto the board. Other features include a new “3D” bios improved power management and Bluetooth 4.0. Will these combine to bring about the same level of gaming platform we saw in the G1.Assassin? Or will the youngest member of the G1 family be a disappointment and not get invited to holiday dinner? Let’s find out…

AMD’s Llano is not a new product; it is one that has been out on the market for long enough that all of the major hype and press has already been written. We recently wrapped up our long term testing of an AMD A6-3650 combined with a Gigabyte A75 motherboard. We were rather impressed with the performance that we saw, even if the numbers did not match up to the overall feel. Now we are taking a look at the same CPU, but taking a step down the ladder to the A55 chipset. This time the victim is the A55M-DS2 motherboard.  You are losing a few items with this shift like USB 3.0, SATA 3.0  and a PCIe slot, but we wonder if that will really impact performance. So let’s take a look at the design and the features that you can expect to get when you pick up one of these.