MSI Z77A-GD65 Z77 Ivy Bridge Motherboard Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,823 words · ~9 min read
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welcome to my unboxing and first look at the z7 z77a gd65 this is MSI's first
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board that I've had a look at on the brand new z77 platform from Intel so
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this is using a new chipset supporting Intel third generation core i5 and core
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i7 processors on LGA 1155 so yes $22 Nom
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CPU ready it is also SLI ready and Crossfire ready compatible with Windows
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7 it better be and supports Intel Core Series processors which it had better
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all right PCI Express Generation 3 is also supported it should be noted of
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course of course yeah MSI brought this up that they were the first with a PCI
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Express Generation 3 ready motherboard and that was on the z68 platform as well
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as virtu MVP so a little bit more on that in a moment it comes with a
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three-year warranty in USA Canada and Mexico includes their 1 second
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overclocking OC Gen 2 OC geni now overclocks more than just the CPU which
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is a very cool thing as well as click BIOS 2 which is their graphical ufi BIOS
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click BIOS 2 is 10 times better than click BIOS 1 and I would say the best
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UEFI implementation that I have used so far I love click BIOS 2 it's very easy
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to navigate uh we're going to switch spots here change
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places all right OC Genie over clock in
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1 second it probably takes less than a second actually and provides an instant
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performance boost to CPU memory and integrated
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graphics and apparently storage device performance cool at least 36% boost in
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3D gaming performance that's probably assuming you're using the onboard GPU
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all right military class 3 so they are using their uh they're using their Dr
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Moss 2 so this is their next Generation their Dr
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Moss concept was originally introduced used on their p-55 boards and was one of
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the things that drove MSI p55 boards at least herodan C where I work to be one
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of the most popular ones out there so this is a next generation of that proven
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technology we've also got high SE caps super farite chokes as well as solid
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caps built into this board let's go ahead and open it up ah yes okay
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supercharger is awesome because you can charge your iPad iPhone SL mobile at
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highp speed even when your PC is shut down so that is even when your CPU is in
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the lowest possible resting state which is powered Dam certificate of quality
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and stability okay sure um you guys won't need this that's
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for me uh drive that won't be in the retail box drivers and utilities DVD
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download the latest off of the MSI website quick installation guide oh this
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looks really big actually look at that they show you all the different components with little diagrams and
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stuff handy next software and
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application exclusive userfriendly feature collection okay oops so shows
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you how to use their various software applications
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o teaming Genie provides traffic load balancing and redundant Nick operation
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if network connection fails
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cool aha we have oh neat even on a gd65
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level board we've got uh the little cables for measuring the voltage
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directly off the board as opposed to through the BIOS that's very cool all
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right next we've got four SATA 3 6 GB per second right angle cables and yes
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based on my testing it doesn't matter that they're SATA 3 but that's what they are so I'm going to call them what they
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are we've also got an IO Shield aha
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flexible black SLI Bridge my very favorite
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kind the user's guide lots of
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accessories here guys we've also got their M connectors which allow you to
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more easily connect your front panel connectors including USB 2 as well as
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your you know power switch reset switch and all that good stuff and finally the
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board itself I'm really looking forward to checking out this
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board because MSI in the last few Generations has done such a good job on
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the Aesthetics and as you guys know if you watched my video where are you
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standing really close to me for a reason
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I no no I don't want the shadow so sorry about that guys there's a bit of a
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miscommunication where you know I was uncomfortable cuz slick was standing too
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close but he deemed it necessary so uh you know I got over it anyway here we go
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so we've got our LGA 1155 processor as
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well as all of our built-in military class pwm here you can see their
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military class 3 branding and this is this is okay so yes the gun thing is a
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little bit played out but the good news is that on the MSI board you can kind of
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ignore it you know if you're looking at it from a normal angle which would be above it a little bit and at least it's
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Tastefully implemented guys that's all I'm saying here so we've got blue and
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black anodized with silver accents heat sinks I am definitely big into the
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Aesthetics of my motherboards because they make a difference to how your entire system looks and these ones look
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really really sharp all right we've got our 8 Pin CPU power connector in its
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ideal location up at the top left we have support for dual Channel DDR3
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memory this is uh in line with the CPU remember this supports either IV Bridge
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CPUs or last generation sandybridge processors so you can install any lg1155
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processor that you want in this motherboard you're just going to get the
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best performance out of a new Ivy Bridge chip up here we've got some
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LEDs we've got our OC Genie button which I've featured in the past although we
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haven't tried ococ gen2 so I'm looking forward to trying that also our power
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and reset buttons V checkpoints for a wide variety of different motherboard
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components including the onboard graphics on the CPU which to my
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understanding can be overclocked especially since OC gen does it her her
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to my understanding uh our 24 pin connector is at its ideal location along
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the right hand edge of the board we also have a front USB 3 header here so this
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is running off of the Intel USB 3 so there are four Intel usb3 ports that are
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running directly off of the Intel chipset here we have the Intel SATA 36
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GB per second ports which are going to be the highest performance one we've got
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Intel SATA 2 3 GB per second ports as well as thirdparty SATA 3 6 gbit per
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second ports here is a little post meter so you can diagnose easily any posting
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issues as well as their super just a sec sorry guys here's the
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supercharger red coded which means you can charge things faster off of this
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port here's a regular USB two header as well as another one here's our multibio
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switch so it has dual BIOS integrated on the board and you can easily switch
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between them so this is helpful if you have a dialed in overclock you really
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don't want to screw it up and then you want to try something else you can also
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flash different revisions of the BIOS so that you can find out is the new BIOS
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you know perfect for my needs or is it not and if you don't like it you can go
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back to the old one just like that very cool world's first PCI Express gen 3 we
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can take that sticker off there we are and moving along we've got trusted
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platform module we've got some Led guys aha there's our front panel connectors
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as well as our front audio so I was looking for those guys next we have the
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slot layout so we have no Legacy PCI on
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this board 1 2 3 PCI e16 although I'll get into why they're not quite PCI e16
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in just a moment as well as for PCI E1 so this guy runs at 16x if you put a
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single graphics card in up to 16x PCIe 3.0 then if you put in two PCI Express
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3.0 ready graphics cards these two are going to run at 8X and 8x remember PCI
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E3 8X is equivalent to PCI E2 16x so
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even with high-end graphics cards you shouldn't get any bottlenecking as long
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as you're using a PCI E3 ready CPU that is ivybridge two PCI E3 ready slots and
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PCI E3 ready graphics cards this last guy right here due to bandwidth
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limitations so that is how many PCI E3 lanes are running off of the CPU it's
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recommended to only use this one if you're running an ivybridge
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CPU next moving on to the back panel control or back panel I/O we've got four
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USB 2.0 ports a PS2 Port which I still
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do like to see guys clear Simo switch Optical and coaxial audio out HDMI
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gigabit Ethernet two USB 3.0 ports running off the Intel chipset VGA DVI
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and 7.1 audio out here's another thing that you guys may or may not have seen
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just yet actually hold on a second yeah yeah here we go so you see that little
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oh I fell uh you see that little virtue logo right there this board uses virtue
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MVP which is a more flexible updated version of the original Lucid virtue
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which was on the uh z uh the the uh z68
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platform I think hold on sorry guys h67
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I knew that wasn't right um so what this
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allows you to do is you can use your you can use your integrated GPU to do quick
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sync which is your quick video encoding that's running off of the graphics core
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on the CPU itself and with virtue MVP
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you can also use your integrated CPU to boost the performance of even a high
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power dedicated graphics card as long as the the game supports it so that's a
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pretty neat thing I haven't tested this out yet though but I'm very excited to
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check it out don't forget to subscribe to Linus techtips for more unboxings
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reviews and other computer videos sorry guys I forgot the fan headers we've got
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one two three I saw another one three pwm fan headers as well as two three pin
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fan headers