Uncle Fester from Team.AU takes the 3DMARK06 4WAY world record!

Uncle Fester from Australia OC team, Team.AU, pulled out his GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 and some 4WAY 7970 magic today with the new 4WAY GPU 3DMARK06 world record.

Congratulations!

Score Link

TeamAU takes out 3way/4way world records with Z77X-UP7 and 7970 Crossfire!

GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 is turning into a cracker overclocking board.

It’s been used in the latest Team.AU bench session to take out the latest Unigine Heaven DX11 world record. CPU was at 6.2GHz while three GIGABYTE 7970 OC graphics cards were running at 1600/1800 Crossfire frequencies.

For more results visit www.hwbot.org.

3DMARK03 4way global world record was also smashed on the same platform with 7970 4way crossfire!

LN2 mode switch comes in very handy during extreme subzero benching.

It allows the overclocker to drop the system into slow mode during screenshots or between 3DMARK01 subtests.

 

Team.AU also dropped another score with CPU clocking at 6.7GHz and a third fastest 3DMARK01 in the world.

 

The X79S-UP5 WIFI Workstation PC: Creative Professionals Voice Their Opinion

A few weeks ago we put together a really high-end PC build based on the X79S-UP5 motherboard. Seeing as this board uses the Intel C606 server chipset, we decided to go all out in terms of the hardware configuration; I’m talking 8 SAS drives in a RAID-0, an Intel Xeon CPU, 32GB of ECC DDR3, Nvidia Quadro and Tesla cards! It was an absolute monster with shovel loads of raw performance.

In fact the rig was so off the chart performance-wise we were almost struggling to make it break sweat. In an effort to put it through a real-life testing scenario we lent the rig to some friends of ours who run a professional media production company called Aduzai. We figured if anyone could give this baby real test, these guys would.

Here’s a short video from Aduzai which helps explain why these guys really appreciate high-end hardware. It’s really interesting to get the views of pros whose jobs genuinely demand high-end components in their day-to-day work.

You can find more details about the GIGABYTE X79S-UP5 WIFI here and here.

Video: Mini-ITX Home Theater PC Build

Here’s a short video featuring yours truly that explores the recently launched GIGABYTE H77N-WIFI motherboard from the perspective of a really compact Home Theater build. This follows on from the blog we posted a few days ago, using the same hardware configuration which most notably uses the forthcoming SD101 chassis from Thermaltake.

You can learn more about the H77N-WIFI on our website here.

Thanks to Thermaltake for letting us get our hands on the SD101. Keep your eyes peeled for it arriving in the PC market in the next few weeks.

GIGABYTE Z77N-WIFI: The Mini-ITX Gaming Rig

Yesterday we showed you our example of a Home Theater PC based on the recently launched H77N-WIFI Mini-ITX board. Today we bring you another Mini-ITX build using the Z77N-WIFI board, but with a rather different focus than people would expect from a typical Mini-ITX build - we going to put together a high-end gaming rig.

Typical Mini-ITX builds focus on being really compact, this is after all the key feature of a form factor where the motherboard is a mere 17cm x 17cm. Having said that however, our Z77N-WIFI doesn’t have any real weaknesses in terms of its specification; it supports Intel 2^nd and 3^rd Gen Core processors, has two DIMM slots and a x16 PCIe slot… so why not add a zippy K SKU Ivy Bridge CPU, plenty of RAM and lightening fast graphics card? Why not be sexily sleek and compact, yet still pack a mighty performance punch in 3D gaming?

After all wouldn’t it be great to make a real 3D gaming PC that could be pretty portable too. An ideal PC for LAN parties etc.

Here are the components we used:

• Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z77N-WIFI
• Processor: Intel Core i7 3770K
• Cooler: Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer
• Chassis: BitFenix ​​Prodigy mini-ITX chassis
• RAM: Corsair Dominator GT DDR3
• SSD: Intel X25-M 160GB
• Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GV-N680WF3-2GD
• CD-ROM drive: Liteon Blueray ROM
• PSU: Cooler Master 600 watts

In terms of the CPU we just went straight for the jugular and opted for the top K SKU in the shape of the Intel Core i7 3770K. The Thermaltake Water Performer is a top-end all-in-one liquid cooling system that will keep the Ivy Bridge processor in nice and cool.

As with any Mini-ITX build the chassis dictates 90% of what you or cannot do with your Mini-ITX board. The Bitfenix Prodigy is a really interesting choice for a Mini-ITX chassis in that it is larger than most. The real advantage of course is that it’s designed almost exactly for our purposes with space for a two full hard drives, a full sized optical drive, a regular ATX power supply and, most importantly from a 3D gamers perspective, a full length two slot graphics card.

Here are step by step photos of the build as it happened. Firstly we installed the i7 Core 3770K CPU.

 

Then we prepped the board for the Thermaltake all-in-one water cooler, incuding bracing on the back of the board and attaching the cooler fan to the radiator.

Next we install the system memory.

Now we can prep the chassis itself, which involves removing the side panels and drive trays.

Here we’re can installing the Z77N-WIFI board in the chassis, plus its attached cooler, and radiator.

Screw your 2.5” SSD to the drive tray which has handy holes designed to house both 3.5” and 2.5” drives. We’re opting just for one SSD, but the Prodigy could also use an additional 3.5” drive.

Remove the optical drive bezel and install the Bluray disk drive.

There’s a back plate which you attach to your Power Supply first, then you slide in and screw it down. Pretty similar to most regular chassis these days.

There are several cables to attach of course, including the power and data cables, plus front panel USB 3.0 and lastly often trickily small On, Off, Reset and HDD indicator buttons headers. Refer to the motherboard manual if you get lost!

Now for the graphics card. We find there surprisingly plenty of space for our Nvidia 680 card.

Lastly, we attach the WiFi antenna…

The final build. A pretty cool looking compact PC that can take on most 3D gaming rigs.

GIGABYTE H77N-WIFI - The Home Theater Build

Last Friday we officially launched our new Mini-ITX motherboards featuring the latest 7 series platform from Intel; the GIGABYTE H77N-WIFI and Z77N-WIFI. The feature set on these boards is fairly well targeted towards Home Theater PCs with special specifications like Intel Wireless Display 2.0, Dual HDMI ports and Dual LAN. Intel Wi-Di is especially attractive as it lets you broadcast either a cloned or extended desktop to any compatible HDTV or display – wirelessly of course. This means you can more easily broadcast media content to around the home. It’s pretty cool.

In order to explore our new Mini-ITX form factor boards we put together an example of exactly what kind of compact HTPC system could be built. After some debate and deliberation, these are the components we selected:

• Motherboard: Gigabyte H77N-WIFI
• Processor: Intel Core i3 3225
• Cooler: Intel Standard Boxed
• Memory: Kinston DDR3 8GB
• SSD: Micron C300
• Hard drive: Hitachi 3TB 7200RPM
• CD-ROM drive: Liteon Blueray
• Chassis: Thermaltake SD101 chassis (inc. 180 watt PSU)

 

For a system that may well be left on for extended periods of time, we decided to opt for an Intel Core i3 3225 which is the only the Intel Ivy Bridge model that currently combines the top end HD4000 Graphics core with a lower 55 watt TDP. Tailor made for a HTPC. Likewise, we opted for the H77 Mini-ITX variety, being more suited to a locked processor.

The chassis from Thermaltake deserves a special mention. The Thermaltake SD101 is a forthcoming model (should arrive in PC markets sometime next month) that really shows off Mini-ITX for the compact form factor that it is. It is also one of relatively few Mini-ITX designs that features real front panel USB 3.0 support, something I consider an absolute must.

However the SD101, despite being pretty damn small, can still house both 3.5” and 2.5” drives plus a full sized optical drive. Again, that’s pretty impressive. We went for a 128GB Micron C300 SSD, Hitachi 3TB 7,200rpm drive and a Liteon Bluray. Throw in 8GB of Kingston DDR3, and your done…

Here are a few shots of the rig during assembly to whet your appetite. check out the Core i3 3225 CPU and memory being installed:

Getting into a Mini-ITX chassis isn’t always as obvious as it might seem. A certain amount of space efficiency in the design is necessary if it’s going to house all those drives.

Installing the board can be a little tricky, but as you can see it’s soon nice and snug in there.

Here you can see the drives being screwed the tray. The SSD just gets attached to the outside of the tray. The cabling was simple and easy, with each of the power cables designed to be the exact length that you need.

The Blueray drive get house in its own aperture that sits atop the two sides of the chassis.

Slide the chassis side panels in place, screw them in, attach rubber feet and Wi-Fi antena…and you’re ready to install your OS of choice.

Hopefully we’ll have a video to show you in the next few days showcasing Intel Wi-Di among other things. There’s also talk of a Mini-ITX gaming PC. Until then…

You can check out the GIGABYTE H77N-WIFI on our website here. There are also more Mini-ITX ideas and example system setups here.

John Lam from Team HKEPC hits a crazy 7.13GHz on Z77X-UP7 with LN2

Team HKEPC are at it again! John Lam pulled out the GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 and hit a crazy 7.13GHz with a 3770K Ivy Bridge and LN2.

Insane frequency, congrats John!

Result validation can be found HERE.

TweakTown Cutest Child with Technology Photo Contest – Winner Announced!

It’s been well over a week since TweakTown launched their Cutest Child with Technology Photo Contest. The idea was very simple. Add a photo of your kid using technology and get the chance to win a GIGABYTE H77N-WIFI board.

The winning application it turns out was actually a video. Sot by Sagar R. Agrawal of India, this is his video:

Excellent video Sagar. Your GIGABYTE H77N-WIFI isn’t quite as cute as your son, but it should be with you shortly.

Here are a few other submissions for you all to ooh and ahh about:

Catch more young geeks on the TweakTown facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/TweakTown?filter=2

Mad222 breaks pifast world record with Z77X-UP7!

Mad222 did the impossible and took one of the toughest word records you can get in 2D Ivy Bridge. He pulled out his favourite new benching weapon, GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7, and smashed the latest world record in Pifast with liquid nitrogen (max –196C) cooled 3770K. Previous record by an overclocker using Liquid Helium (-250C). One of the reasons such extreme frequency was possible is GIGABYTE’s new LN2 mode switch that UP7 has as well as the new 32phase Ultra Durable 5 power design.

Congrats Mad222!

You can see the result over at HWBOT.

Looks like Mad was using a vacuum cleaner tweak too!

GIGABYTE gives you added drive speed control on the X79S-UP5

Ian Cutress at Anandtech recently reviewed the GIGABYTE X79S-UP5 WIFI, a 2011 socket board which uses a bonafide server Chipset, the Intel C606. This means we can offer up to 8 SAS ports plus full on Intel Xeon and ECC memory support. Pretty neat eh?

However, Ian and dropped us line to say he wasn’t seeing full bandwidth on his RAID-0 SSD array. My first response was “You’re running what?”, after all the board is designed for SAS and workstation-esque applications, not new world records in data bandwidth. After looking deeper however, we managed to confirm what Ian was seeing, that the C606 chipset was in fact the issue.

The chipset we were using was keeping the SAS ports tuned for use as a Server or Workstation rig by limiting the SAS bandwidth to strictly SATA Gen 1 speeds. This is part and parcel of the Intel spec and perhaps shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise as most SAS drives are mechanical, spinning at either 7,200 or 10,000 or at most 15,000 rpm, which means they generally won’t saturate the bandwidth available from SATA Gen 1, and certainly won’t find themselves in a RAID-0 very often. Intel most likely is prioritizing stability, something that it doesn’t guarantee at SATA Gen 2 and 3 speeds.

One things is for sure, Intel didn’t tune the chipset for an SSD RAID-0 array. But know you us. Here at GIGABYTE we aim to please, so we had a chat with our BIOS team and a few days later, bang – we had a new BIOS revision that let you choose which SATA Gen you want to use. We’ve added small disclaimer to remind you that Intel doesn’t in fact guarantee 100% stability beyond Gen. 1, but if you’re in the mood to set up some racey SSD RAID storage….now you can. Race away my boy.

Cheers for Ian for raising the issue. It was one of those choice moments when a product reviewer managed to have some impact on the product itself. Catch Ian’s full review on Anandtech here. More info about the GIGABYTE X79S-UP5 WIFI here.

GIGABYTE X79S-UP5: Highly recommended by TechPowerUp

Cadaveca has published his detailed review of the GIGABYTE X79S-UP5 motherboard and we’re happy to see that it has left him feeling pretty damn impressed. The X79S-UP5 is currently the only consumer 2011 socket motherboard on the market that sports the Intel C606 chipset. This means that the X79S-UP5 is a great option for server and workstation builds with server-class technology like SAS, Intel Xeon processors and ECC memory support.

Cadaveca was compelled to give the X79S-UP5 the TechPowerUp Here’s a Highly Recommended Award. Here’s a sample of what he had to say:

“The addition of SAS support and a PCI slot, things that are specific to the Intel C606 chipset, are quite obviously focused on Workstation users, but given today's HD media, managing large amounts of storage is something that many users are familiar with. Adding support for as many drives as the Gigabyte X79S-UP5 WiFi offers would normally cost an arm and a leg, simply to cover the cost of a RAID card to add all those ports. Here, that functionality is provided nearly for free.

I was completely blown away when Gigabyte informed me of the price. There are a couple of other Workstation-centered products for SKT 2011 on the market already, and the Gigabyts X79S-UP5 WiFi really outstrips them in both functionality, and cost. And if it doesn't beat the competition in one category, it certainly does in all others. I think Gigabyte has a winner here, and I just might have to swap to a blue and black rig.:p”

To learn more about the GIGABYTE X79S-UP5 board, click here.

Here’s the full and detailed review on TechPowerUp.

Video: Colin talks to PC Perspective’s Ryan Shrout about the GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 plus GIGABYTE 7 series Mini-ITX boards

Our buddy Colin has been in the States for the last few days, managing to find his way to Kentucky where he met up with veteran reviewer and tech writer Ryan Shrout from PC Perspective. It’s interesting to hear Colin and Ryan discuss the finer details regarding our new Ultra Durable 5 technology and the deeper OC features of the Z77X-UP7 board, as well as our new H77N-WIFI Mini-ITX board which packs Intel WiDi among other things.

Those of you who are keen to learn more about the GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 can click here.

PC Perspective page here.

How-to save OC profile or entire BIOS (including OC settings!) with GIGABYTE board

A quick how to guide from hwbot’s Massman:

Just a quick thread to show how you can save your GIGABYTE OC settings so you can share them with other users or use them for future reference. There are two methods:

- save OC profile
- save entire BIOS (!!)

If you want someone to boot up with exactly the same settings you're using, the second BIOS save option should be much more interesting than the first one.

Saving the BIOS with Q-Flash is pretty interesting if you want to start exactly where you left off from the previous session. Genuinely didn't know about the feature.

Click here to see the whole thread on hwbot.

Hicookie, Massman & Neo have been busy taking some 4WAY GPU records today!

GIGABYTE is buzzing with some nerd excitement as of late! Massman from HWBOT has decided to move to Taiwan as has Neo from The Overclocker Magazine. It didn’t take them long to setup camp at GIGABYTE HQ in Taipei and start racking up the LN2 bill though LOL .

GIGABYTE crew love overclocking and it’s the strangest thing seeing people casually going about their business with LN2 smoke billowing all around them in certain parts of the office when cubicles get converted to geek offices. Overclocking with LN2 is normal there because of a few extreme overclockers that have worked with GIGABYTE for many years now and the fact they freeze hardware regularly. I’m guilty myself on many occasions heheh. Guests also come around often and camp out for days to push their hardware to extreme. It seems that’s exactly what these cats were up to!

Z77 platform is super fast in 4WAY. Not many companies have bothered to make 4WAY capable Z77 motherboards because they don’t take us crazy overclocking guys seriously. GIGABYTE does, it’s cool .

HiCookie, Massman and Neo played with the Z77X-UP7 and 4WAY 7970 with a few 4WAY world records already taken. Didn’t take them long eeek!

63.6K 4WAY 3DMARK05 Record

 

 

251.8K 4WAY 3DMARK03 Record

 

7798.68 DX11 Heaven 4WAY 7970 Record