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Welcome to my unboxing and first look at a product that is actually very

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exciting. Now, the whole performance microATX

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motherboard thing, I guess I'd have to say, was really started by EVGA back in

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the socket 939 days. So they had their

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SLI motherboard which was

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using shoot what chipset was

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that? Wow. It fails me at this point but whatever. Okay. So they they had a truly

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performanceoriented um microATX motherboard which was later

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sort of the concept of which was later copied by DFI and then uh and then ASUS

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got on board with their Gene series of motherboards and now finally Gigabyte

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has a truly legitimate high-end MATX

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board. So this has all the usual features. So we'll start with what they

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got on the front here. So, this is a Z77 board, which means we do have support

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for Virtue MVP, third generation Intel

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Core series processors, i3s, i5s, and i7s, including support for PCI Express

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3.0. It is SLI and Crossfire X ready,

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meaning if you're running a 7970, which I happen to have one of over there, or a

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GTX 680, which I happen to have one of over there. Those are PCI Express 3.0

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ready graphics cards that will run in SLI and Crossfire with double the usual

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bandwidth. So PCIe 38X and 8X will be

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equivalent to PCIe 2.0, 16X, 16X. We've

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also got their patent pending 3D power as well as 3D BIOS. So that's their dual

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UEFI BIOSes. So that's two independent chips. And then their 3D power is their

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all digital power delivery system that they're using on this board. What else

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we got here? Super Speed. So we're using Intel Gigabit

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Ethernet. We have SATA 3, USB 3, and 3X

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power. This has been a popular marketing scheme for Gigabyte since they

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introduced it. And I think it's awesome because yeah, it means you got all the

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highest speed interfaces. And the three times power thing is cool because it

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means that you can deliver up to three times the amount of power through a single port as you can with a standard

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port, which allows you to run more devices off of a single port, which is

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cool. Okay. Super Hearing Creative Sound Core 3D. So, they do have a dedicated

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section of the PCB for their uh for their headphone amplified

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sound. What else we got here? Super Shield. So, four smart fan connectors,

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multiple GPU support, Lucid Virt Lucid Virtue MVP. So, Virtue MVP is the

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upgraded version of Lucid Virtue that comes with the Z77 platform. So, you've

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got their um Virtual VSYNC as well as some

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performance improvements and less of a performance hit when using Virtue uh

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versus just using a dedicated graphics card card compared to previous

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generation products. All right, we got so we got the poster I showed you.

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Here's some, you know, stickers that I guess you might think are cool. Uh,

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here's a user's manual as well as an installation DVD, which you can not use

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and download latest off the Gigabyte website as find as well as finally a

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multilingual installation guide book. We've got six SATA cables, uh, three

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right angle and three straight. We have a black flexible SLI cable, the very

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best kind, and we have an IO shield with everything conveniently labeled. Next we

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have the motherboard itself. Gigabyte has done a fant seriously like the old

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Gigabyte is just out of sight, out of

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mind for me at this point because the

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new Gigabyte which seems to be all about

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wicked awesome color schemes, great aesthetics, as well as their stable

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highquality design is just yeah way very

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much improved and I love it. So check out this board. It looks fantastic.

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We've got a stylish looking heat sink. No guns, no bullets, just a sleek

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overall look. Four pin power connector up here. Now, some people have uh in our

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assembly department actually commented on the four pin power connector in spite

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of this being a performance board to which I said, "Come on, guys. The

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platform the highest TDP CPU on it is a

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95 watt TDP CPU. We're not talking, you

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know, high power consumption here." And I thought it was silly back when we were

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putting dual eight pins on 1155 boards. Anyway, a four pin is going to be just

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fine. Don't worry about it. All right, so there is your digital power delivery,

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uh, your four pin power as well as your four DIMs supporting dual channel

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memory. So remember guys, with Z77 as

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well as third generation Core series processors, we do find it easier to

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overclock the memory and get high frequencies out of your memory. So, if you wanted to invest in a higherend

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memory kit, I guess now's as good a time as any. Your 24 pin connectors in its

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ideal location along the right hand edge and your front USB 3.0 header is right

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about here. Remember guys, this is running off the dedicated Intel USB 3

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that is built in to the Intel chipset. These are no longer running off of

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third-party chipsets. Here we have two SATA 3 6 Gbit per second ports running

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off the Intel chipset as well as three SATA 2 3 Gbit per second ports also

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running off the Intel chipset. The sixth one running off the chipset is right

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there on the back panel. And yeah. Okay.

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Uh we'll cover the fan headers later. Here's your front panel connectors as

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well as your um increased power front

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USB 2 header. So, you want to plug that into your front USB 2 as opposed to the

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other ones here because it'll allow you to quickly charge even a high draw

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device such as an iPad. Here are two regular USB 2 front panel headers as

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well as the trusted platform module and front panel audio. You can see the

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dedicated section of the PCB is right over here, which is good. Okay. PCI

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Express slot layout. So, this is a 16x slot. This is an You got to be kidding

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me. Really? Oh, that's a very strange layout. Okay. Well, this is a PCIe 16X

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slot that is only wired for 4x. So, this is going to be the one that is not

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preferable to use. Um, especially if you

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aren't running a third generation processor. This one is wired for 8x. So,

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if you're running Crossfire or SLI, these two are going to give you the

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ideal bandwidth split. This guy's running at PCIe 1x. I never actually

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covered the socket. So whether you're running Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, or

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even um yeah, Sandy Bridge or Ivy

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Bridge, this will have full support including the onboard GPU, which brings

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us around to the back of the board where we've got 1 2 3 4 USB 2.0 ports, a PS2

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port. I still do like to see this VGA,

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DVI, DisplayPort, as well as HDMI

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output. So you have the full range of outputs. Remember the uh the IGP on the

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third generation core processors actually supports three monitors out

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which is very very cool. E SATA, two more USB 3.0 ports uh provided by the

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Intel chipset, a an Intel gigabit Ethernet as well as 7.1 audio out

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including optical audio out. On the back of the board, we find your typical back

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plate and that is a matte black PCB. I know I've stopped commenting on it as

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much these days, but that doesn't mean I like it any less. matte black PCB is

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still the way to go. Aha, the fan headers. So, we've got 1 2 3 four four

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pin PWM fan headers. And I think that pretty much covers it. So, if you're

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putting together an MATX performance rig with the new IV Bridge CPU and some kind

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of combination of high-end graphics and an SSD and all kinds, oh, right, Intel

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SRT technology. If you don't want to run a dedicated SSD for your boot drive, you

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can still use your SSD as a cache. that is supported as part of the Z77

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platform. And I don't even see anything about it on the box. Oh, yeah, there it

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is. See, easy smart response. Gigabytes

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way of setting up smart response is actually easier than anyone else's by a

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long shot. It's basically like a one-touch setup to get everything

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running. So, thank you for checking out this unboxing and don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more

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