WEBVTT 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:08.400 Welcome to another unboxing and first look. This is a bit of a strange product 00:00:06.640 --> 00:00:13.200 because we're pretty close to the launch of Intel's Haswell architecture and 00:00:11.280 --> 00:00:18.320 that's going to require a new socket, but MSI has just introduced their gaming 00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:24.400 series of motherboards. So, it's going to be pretty obvious right from the 00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:28.880 start that the Z77A GD65 gaming takes a 00:00:24.400 --> 00:00:30.720 lot of cues from the original Z77A GD65 00:00:28.880 --> 00:00:33.920 with some enhancements. So, it doesn't cost that much more, but it does cost 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 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 00:00:40.160 --> 00:00:45.920 network prioritization for your games. The Killer software has some other cool 00:00:43.680 --> 00:00:48.879 features like being able to bandwidth cap certain applications through 00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:52.800 software. Like if you want to limit the speed of a YouTube upload, for example, 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 00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:59.920 know how much Team Fanatic knows about motherboards, but at any rate, this 00:00:58.399 --> 00:01:02.879 particular series of motherboards is recommended by Team Fanatic, and it 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 00:01:06.880 --> 00:01:13.280 essentially pretty much a GD65, which is a very solid board. One of my favorites 00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:16.159 to be perfectly honest on the Z77 platform. And let's have a look at what 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. 00:01:19.759 --> 00:01:25.680 Military class 3, so that's military class components having passed the mil 00:01:23.759 --> 00:01:31.119 STD. Uh, well, I'm sure they mean standard, not STD. Uh, 810G testing. 00:01:28.799 --> 00:01:35.759 Okay. And then there's the killer Ethernet right there, which it's it's 00:01:33.360 --> 00:01:42.720 hard to say how much of a difference that makes over a solid um Intel 00:01:39.920 --> 00:01:48.560 networking solution. But when I was using it, what I can tell you is that I 00:01:45.280 --> 00:01:50.399 did notice for particularly for me the a 00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:54.240 big difference in the convenience level of being able to make on the-fly 00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:57.920 adjustments to how much bandwidth applications are allowed to use. So 00:01:56.640 --> 00:02:01.360 here's that sticker I talked about before. It's a nice sort of solid 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 00:02:04.799 --> 00:02:11.920 here? All right. 00:02:08.959 --> 00:02:16.879 Four SATA 3 6 GB per second right angle cables. All right. We've got M 00:02:14.879 --> 00:02:20.879 connectors. So, those are for people who have trouble plugging in the little 00:02:18.239 --> 00:02:26.080 connectors for front USB 2 as well as front panel sort of switches and 00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:27.680 whatnot. SLI flexible black connector. 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:31.440 Those are my favorites. Drivers and utilities. Download this from the MSI 00:02:29.360 --> 00:02:37.280 website. Uh software and application user guide, quick start guide, user 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:39.599 guide. Ah, a door hanger. Love seeing 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 00:02:41.200 --> 00:02:49.840 two options. Busy gaming and not here at all. All right. So, voltage checkpoints. 00:02:47.120 --> 00:02:54.239 And finally, the back panel connector, which has a new red and black color 00:02:52.640 --> 00:02:58.160 scheme. Can you see that B-roll? Awesome. All right. So, let's have a 00:02:56.640 --> 00:03:01.360 look at the board itself. Actually, I shouldn't have said that the networking 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 00:03:04.959 --> 00:03:10.239 got an allnew cooling solution. So, there's a single heat pipe. It's not a 00:03:08.640 --> 00:03:15.120 super pipe. It's just a regular sized heat pipe that leads between two sort of 00:03:12.959 --> 00:03:18.640 dragon themed looking heat sinks. They look outstanding. I kind of wish that it 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:21.840 was a design element that you could really appreciate from the top because 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:26.080 most of the time you won't be looking at your motherboard from this angle. But 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 00:03:28.239 --> 00:03:33.519 kind of geek out over sort of MOSFET cooling solutions cuz I think they look 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:38.560 cool. Um, so they've changed that. Other than that, the board is pretty much GD65 00:03:36.239 --> 00:03:43.519 DNA. So, you've got your LG 1155 socket here supporting up to second generation 00:03:40.799 --> 00:03:46.959 Core i3, i5, and i7 processors. All the overclocking features of course enabled. 00:03:45.360 --> 00:03:53.200 You've got an eight pin connector here for your CPU power, four pin CPU fan, 00:03:50.879 --> 00:03:57.680 and then some more fans that are elsewhere. We'll show you those later. 00:03:54.640 --> 00:04:00.000 Uh, four DDR3 dim slots supporting up to 00:03:57.680 --> 00:04:03.040 8 gig modules. You've got onboard buttons, which I personally really 00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:07.519 appreciate. I use an open test bench a lot. Power reset and OCI, which is the 00:04:05.599 --> 00:04:11.360 one button overclocking. These little LEDs up here show you how many power 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 00:04:13.920 --> 00:04:19.840 just an indicator of what your CPU load looks like. Here's your V checkpoint so 00:04:17.680 --> 00:04:23.120 you can check CPU voltage, DDR voltage, a few other key voltages using a 00:04:21.359 --> 00:04:27.360 multimeter rather than relying on software. Your 24 pin connectors and at 00:04:25.600 --> 00:04:32.720 its ideal location along the right hand edge of the board. This I love. This is 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 00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:41.360 with a right angle USB 3 because those connectors are so bulky and the cables 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 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 00:04:46.320 --> 00:04:53.840 run it somewhere directly without ending up with a big huge loop. So love to see 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:55.520 that we've got two SATA 3 6 Gbit per 00:04:53.840 --> 00:04:59.199 second connections that are running off the Intel chipset. two SATA 3 6 gigbit 00:04:58.000 --> 00:05:03.440 per second connections running off a third-party chipset and four more SATA 2 00:05:01.759 --> 00:05:08.639 3 Gbit per second connections running off the Intel chipset. You've got three 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:12.320 USB 2 headers. This particular one supports supercharger. So that's their 00:05:10.560 --> 00:05:16.880 fast charging for tablets regardless of whether it's iOS or whatever else. A 00:05:14.400 --> 00:05:22.080 hardware dedicated multibio switch. And I'd like to tell a little story here 00:05:18.639 --> 00:05:24.560 about my GD65 board which saved my butt 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 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 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 00:05:34.960 --> 00:05:40.560 review deadline that was coming up and it just totally saved our butts. So, 00:05:39.039 --> 00:05:44.720 that made me pretty happy. So, I love that switch. You've got an LED readout 00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:48.320 for post problems. Another sort of dragon designed, you know, selfbridge 00:05:46.960 --> 00:05:54.400 heat sink. Honestly, these aren't cooling much these days anymore, so you 00:05:50.880 --> 00:05:58.240 know, it's mostly for show. um three 00:05:54.400 --> 00:05:59.840 four PCIe 1X slots, three PCIe 16X 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:03.759 slots. However, it's strongly recommended not to use this one unless 00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:06.880 you are running a third generation core processor. So, that's an IV bridge 00:06:05.280 --> 00:06:11.199 processor. It should be noted that you're going to be running an 8x8x mode 00:06:09.199 --> 00:06:15.759 if you're running SLI or Crossfire. And I do not recommend using really any Z77 00:06:13.680 --> 00:06:19.759 board for three-way SLI or Crossfire configurations because even the ones 00:06:17.280 --> 00:06:24.720 that have uh switches on them, I mean, there are latency implications to do 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:28.560 with that as well. So, all right, the other the other improvement that's being 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:31.600 made here is a Sound Blaster Cinema implementation. However, this is a 00:06:30.160 --> 00:06:35.759 software implementation. It's still using a Realtech chipset. Um, so it's 00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:40.000 hard to say how much of an improvement that's going to deliver in terms of 00:06:38.160 --> 00:06:43.919 things like, you know, headphone clarity or whatever else, but at least you get 00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:48.240 some more software functionality to go along with your new gaming motherboard. 00:06:46.479 --> 00:06:52.240 Ah, and the last thing that I did miss initially was gaming ports. So, they do 00:06:50.639 --> 00:06:55.919 have USB ports on the board that are specifically optimized for 1,000 Hz 00:06:54.319 --> 00:06:59.440 pulling rates, which some high-end peripherals do support. So, you've got a 00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:05.199 PS2 keyboard mouse combo port. I do still like to see these. Four USB 2.0 00:07:01.919 --> 00:07:08.319 ports. SIMOS clear switch, uh, optical 00:07:05.199 --> 00:07:11.840 and coaxial digital audio out, HDMI, 00:07:08.319 --> 00:07:14.160 VGA, and DVI, two USB 3.0 ports. There's 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 00:07:17.599 --> 00:07:22.800 a GD65. It's a GD65 with a better color 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 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 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 00:07:35.039 --> 00:07:42.960 or a GD65 and you're going to have a pretty similar experience. Um, you know, 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:44.240 the Empower is obviously O OC certified, 00:07:42.960 --> 00:07:47.919 which means that they hand test every board for overclocking. The gaming one 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:52.240 has the better LAN and sound implementations, and then the GD65 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:54.720 Vanilla is the vanilla board, but they all have pretty much the same 00:07:53.199 --> 00:07:57.919 functionality and pretty much the same performance when it comes down to it. 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 00:08:00.720 --> 00:08:05.840 this video about the Z77 AD65 gaming.