1 00:00:00,560 --> 00:00:08,400 Welcome to another unboxing and first look. This is a bit of a strange product 2 00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:13,200 because we're pretty close to the launch of Intel's Haswell architecture and 3 00:00:11,280 --> 00:00:18,320 that's going to require a new socket, but MSI has just introduced their gaming 4 00:00:16,800 --> 00:00:24,400 series of motherboards. So, it's going to be pretty obvious right from the 5 00:00:19,920 --> 00:00:28,880 start that the Z77A GD65 gaming takes a 6 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:30,720 lot of cues from the original Z77A GD65 7 00:00:28,880 --> 00:00:33,920 with some enhancements. So, it doesn't cost that much more, but it does cost 8 00:00:32,480 --> 00:00:36,960 more, but you get a couple of things for your money. So, number one is right here 9 00:00:35,680 --> 00:00:42,079 on the front of the box, and that's the Killer E2200 game networking. So, that's 10 00:00:40,160 --> 00:00:45,920 network prioritization for your games. The Killer software has some other cool 11 00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:48,879 features like being able to bandwidth cap certain applications through 12 00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:52,800 software. Like if you want to limit the speed of a YouTube upload, for example, 13 00:00:50,719 --> 00:00:56,239 you can do that. Um, they've also got some Fanatic branding on it. I don't 14 00:00:54,399 --> 00:00:59,920 know how much Team Fanatic knows about motherboards, but at any rate, this 15 00:00:58,399 --> 00:01:02,879 particular series of motherboards is recommended by Team Fanatic, and it 16 00:01:01,680 --> 00:01:08,960 comes with this pretty sweet sticker that looks a little something like this. Other than that, we've got what is 17 00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:13,280 essentially pretty much a GD65, which is a very solid board. One of my favorites 18 00:01:10,960 --> 00:01:16,159 to be perfectly honest on the Z77 platform. And let's have a look at what 19 00:01:15,040 --> 00:01:22,000 they've got to say for themselves on the back. So, yeah, you still get OCG2, which is one button overclocking. 20 00:01:19,759 --> 00:01:25,680 Military class 3, so that's military class components having passed the mil 21 00:01:23,759 --> 00:01:31,119 STD. Uh, well, I'm sure they mean standard, not STD. Uh, 810G testing. 22 00:01:28,799 --> 00:01:35,759 Okay. And then there's the killer Ethernet right there, which it's it's 23 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:42,720 hard to say how much of a difference that makes over a solid um Intel 24 00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:48,560 networking solution. But when I was using it, what I can tell you is that I 25 00:01:45,280 --> 00:01:50,399 did notice for particularly for me the a 26 00:01:48,560 --> 00:01:54,240 big difference in the convenience level of being able to make on the-fly 27 00:01:52,640 --> 00:01:57,920 adjustments to how much bandwidth applications are allowed to use. So 28 00:01:56,640 --> 00:02:01,360 here's that sticker I talked about before. It's a nice sort of solid 29 00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:06,799 sticker. Got a 3M backing on it. You put that on your case. Should look pretty cool. There you go. What else we got in 30 00:02:04,799 --> 00:02:11,920 here? All right. 31 00:02:08,959 --> 00:02:16,879 Four SATA 3 6 GB per second right angle cables. All right. We've got M 32 00:02:14,879 --> 00:02:20,879 connectors. So, those are for people who have trouble plugging in the little 33 00:02:18,239 --> 00:02:26,080 connectors for front USB 2 as well as front panel sort of switches and 34 00:02:22,319 --> 00:02:27,680 whatnot. SLI flexible black connector. 35 00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:31,440 Those are my favorites. Drivers and utilities. Download this from the MSI 36 00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:37,280 website. Uh software and application user guide, quick start guide, user 37 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:39,599 guide. Ah, a door hanger. Love seeing 38 00:02:37,280 --> 00:02:44,000 these included. I'm sorry. Busy gaming and I'm not here. So, those are the only 39 00:02:41,200 --> 00:02:49,840 two options. Busy gaming and not here at all. All right. So, voltage checkpoints. 40 00:02:47,120 --> 00:02:54,239 And finally, the back panel connector, which has a new red and black color 41 00:02:52,640 --> 00:02:58,160 scheme. Can you see that B-roll? Awesome. All right. So, let's have a 42 00:02:56,640 --> 00:03:01,360 look at the board itself. Actually, I shouldn't have said that the networking 43 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:07,120 thing was the only thing that changed about it, cuz there were some other things as well. So, layout-wise, we've 44 00:03:04,959 --> 00:03:10,239 got an allnew cooling solution. So, there's a single heat pipe. It's not a 45 00:03:08,640 --> 00:03:15,120 super pipe. It's just a regular sized heat pipe that leads between two sort of 46 00:03:12,959 --> 00:03:18,640 dragon themed looking heat sinks. They look outstanding. I kind of wish that it 47 00:03:17,280 --> 00:03:21,840 was a design element that you could really appreciate from the top because 48 00:03:20,400 --> 00:03:26,080 most of the time you won't be looking at your motherboard from this angle. But 49 00:03:24,159 --> 00:03:29,920 either way, it does look outstanding, and I do really I I mean, I kind of I 50 00:03:28,239 --> 00:03:33,519 kind of geek out over sort of MOSFET cooling solutions cuz I think they look 51 00:03:31,280 --> 00:03:38,560 cool. Um, so they've changed that. Other than that, the board is pretty much GD65 52 00:03:36,239 --> 00:03:43,519 DNA. So, you've got your LG 1155 socket here supporting up to second generation 53 00:03:40,799 --> 00:03:46,959 Core i3, i5, and i7 processors. All the overclocking features of course enabled. 54 00:03:45,360 --> 00:03:53,200 You've got an eight pin connector here for your CPU power, four pin CPU fan, 55 00:03:50,879 --> 00:03:57,680 and then some more fans that are elsewhere. We'll show you those later. 56 00:03:54,640 --> 00:04:00,000 Uh, four DDR3 dim slots supporting up to 57 00:03:57,680 --> 00:04:03,040 8 gig modules. You've got onboard buttons, which I personally really 58 00:04:01,360 --> 00:04:07,519 appreciate. I use an open test bench a lot. Power reset and OCI, which is the 59 00:04:05,599 --> 00:04:11,360 one button overclocking. These little LEDs up here show you how many power 60 00:04:09,599 --> 00:04:15,680 phases are enabled. Up to eight power phases on your CPU. So it'll really it's 61 00:04:13,920 --> 00:04:19,840 just an indicator of what your CPU load looks like. Here's your V checkpoint so 62 00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:23,120 you can check CPU voltage, DDR voltage, a few other key voltages using a 63 00:04:21,359 --> 00:04:27,360 multimeter rather than relying on software. Your 24 pin connectors and at 64 00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:32,720 its ideal location along the right hand edge of the board. This I love. This is 65 00:04:30,080 --> 00:04:36,880 probably worth like money to me. Like I'd pay an extra few bucks for a board 66 00:04:34,639 --> 00:04:41,360 with a right angle USB 3 because those connectors are so bulky and the cables 67 00:04:39,199 --> 00:04:44,560 are so stiff that when you have to when you try to cable management, it ends up 68 00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:48,240 coming in a big loop like this. Whereas if it's on the side, you can actually 69 00:04:46,320 --> 00:04:53,840 run it somewhere directly without ending up with a big huge loop. So love to see 70 00:04:50,160 --> 00:04:55,520 that we've got two SATA 3 6 Gbit per 71 00:04:53,840 --> 00:04:59,199 second connections that are running off the Intel chipset. two SATA 3 6 gigbit 72 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:03,440 per second connections running off a third-party chipset and four more SATA 2 73 00:05:01,759 --> 00:05:08,639 3 Gbit per second connections running off the Intel chipset. You've got three 74 00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:12,320 USB 2 headers. This particular one supports supercharger. So that's their 75 00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:16,880 fast charging for tablets regardless of whether it's iOS or whatever else. A 76 00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:22,080 hardware dedicated multibio switch. And I'd like to tell a little story here 77 00:05:18,639 --> 00:05:24,560 about my GD65 board which saved my butt 78 00:05:22,080 --> 00:05:28,720 because we've got we had a bad flash in the middle of a power outage. Okay, so 79 00:05:26,560 --> 00:05:33,280 we were flashing the BIOS, power went out. We had no UPS. It bricked it. All I 80 00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:36,960 had to do was flip the switch and we were back up and running and we had a 81 00:05:34,960 --> 00:05:40,560 review deadline that was coming up and it just totally saved our butts. So, 82 00:05:39,039 --> 00:05:44,720 that made me pretty happy. So, I love that switch. You've got an LED readout 83 00:05:42,560 --> 00:05:48,320 for post problems. Another sort of dragon designed, you know, selfbridge 84 00:05:46,960 --> 00:05:54,400 heat sink. Honestly, these aren't cooling much these days anymore, so you 85 00:05:50,880 --> 00:05:58,240 know, it's mostly for show. um three 86 00:05:54,400 --> 00:05:59,840 four PCIe 1X slots, three PCIe 16X 87 00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:03,759 slots. However, it's strongly recommended not to use this one unless 88 00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:06,880 you are running a third generation core processor. So, that's an IV bridge 89 00:06:05,280 --> 00:06:11,199 processor. It should be noted that you're going to be running an 8x8x mode 90 00:06:09,199 --> 00:06:15,759 if you're running SLI or Crossfire. And I do not recommend using really any Z77 91 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:19,759 board for three-way SLI or Crossfire configurations because even the ones 92 00:06:17,280 --> 00:06:24,720 that have uh switches on them, I mean, there are latency implications to do 93 00:06:22,240 --> 00:06:28,560 with that as well. So, all right, the other the other improvement that's being 94 00:06:26,720 --> 00:06:31,600 made here is a Sound Blaster Cinema implementation. However, this is a 95 00:06:30,160 --> 00:06:35,759 software implementation. It's still using a Realtech chipset. Um, so it's 96 00:06:34,240 --> 00:06:40,000 hard to say how much of an improvement that's going to deliver in terms of 97 00:06:38,160 --> 00:06:43,919 things like, you know, headphone clarity or whatever else, but at least you get 98 00:06:41,759 --> 00:06:48,240 some more software functionality to go along with your new gaming motherboard. 99 00:06:46,479 --> 00:06:52,240 Ah, and the last thing that I did miss initially was gaming ports. So, they do 100 00:06:50,639 --> 00:06:55,919 have USB ports on the board that are specifically optimized for 1,000 Hz 101 00:06:54,319 --> 00:06:59,440 pulling rates, which some high-end peripherals do support. So, you've got a 102 00:06:57,600 --> 00:07:05,199 PS2 keyboard mouse combo port. I do still like to see these. Four USB 2.0 103 00:07:01,919 --> 00:07:08,319 ports. SIMOS clear switch, uh, optical 104 00:07:05,199 --> 00:07:11,840 and coaxial digital audio out, HDMI, 105 00:07:08,319 --> 00:07:14,160 VGA, and DVI, two USB 3.0 ports. There's 106 00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:20,720 that killer nick port, and you've also got 7.1 audio out. Other than that, it's 107 00:07:17,599 --> 00:07:22,800 a GD65. It's a GD65 with a better color 108 00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:28,319 scheme that costs a little bit more. Do I object to this? No. I mean, I mean, if 109 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:30,960 if you really think about it, it's like, what kind of a build do you want to 110 00:07:29,680 --> 00:07:37,199 make? Do you want a red one, a yellow one, or a blue one? because you could buy yourself an Empower, a GD65 gaming 111 00:07:35,039 --> 00:07:42,960 or a GD65 and you're going to have a pretty similar experience. Um, you know, 112 00:07:39,680 --> 00:07:44,240 the Empower is obviously O OC certified, 113 00:07:42,960 --> 00:07:47,919 which means that they hand test every board for overclocking. The gaming one 114 00:07:46,160 --> 00:07:52,240 has the better LAN and sound implementations, and then the GD65 115 00:07:50,160 --> 00:07:54,720 Vanilla is the vanilla board, but they all have pretty much the same 116 00:07:53,199 --> 00:07:57,919 functionality and pretty much the same performance when it comes down to it. 117 00:07:56,479 --> 00:08:05,840 Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos. And I hope you enjoyed 118 00:08:00,720 --> 00:08:05,840 this video about the Z77 AD65 gaming.