Gigabyte Components Suite - 4K Running on Onboard Video & Thin Mini ITX Linus Tech Tips CES 2013
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
2,122 words · ~10 min read
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in Gigabyte Suite the emphasis is on different uses for Thunderbolt now we've
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been able to do storage for a while and you know you can talk about storage all
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day but now let's talk about something different so the z77x P5 th is the
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world's only dual Thunderbolt motherboard has two Thunderbolts built
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Thunderbolt ports built right into the back of it and what I'd like you guys to
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notice first about this demo system is the fact that there is no video card in
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it so we are outputting to four 1080p displays as a bit of a 4K simulation if
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you will over here on the left from the
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onboard Graphics so this is native 4K
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content that you can see here and we're using a couple of adapters so we can
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take those Min Thunderbolts remember guys the Thunderbolt connector does
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carry a DisplayPort signal and we can split it out to multiple display ports
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in order to achieve this kind of a huge resolution so the reason for this
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solution with the ergotron stand and four DisplayPort monitors is right now
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it's pretty hard to get your hands on a 4K display but it proves the point of
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what it is capable of doing in the near future now Thunderbolt again like I said
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not just about storage anymore check this out so this is the Blackmagic
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design I believe it is the ultra Studio Express and this guy is a Thunderbolt
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capture card so you're able to actually capture footage on your notebook or your
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desktop that's equipped with a Thunderbolt Port it is PC compatible not
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just Mac so it's not limited to just the Apple users anymore and this is
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something that Diesel's very excited about he's actually had this camera on pre-order for months now this is black
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Magic's new Cinema Camera it is a 2.5k
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camera and again it does not use Thunderbolt but it does use DisplayPort
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out so that's one of the other reasons they've had it on demo
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here now diesel clarified a point for me and that is that it comes with thousand
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software just for Scopes and it can actually output scope and waveform data
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so I was a little bit incorrect there this is a Thunderbolt Port you can see
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it's clearly labeled Thunderbolt and I got a little confused cuz I found out
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the port is for monitoring only however it does not just output display data
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which is what makes it not just DisplayPort it is capable of daisy chaining and
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it is outputting some additional data as well now with some of the improvements
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Intel's made in terms of thermals and power efficiency over the last few years
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we've seen a huge number of solutions
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that are allowing us to shrink performance Computing down to smaller
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and smaller sizes this is a regular miniitx board this is a z77 board with a
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PCI e6x slot and it's now capable of running a very powerful gaming machine
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the only thing you can't do on a board this size it seems these days is run
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dual Graphics however not content to leave it at that Intel has and Gigabyte
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has implemented a new standard so this is a thin Mini ITX they've got a couple
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of boards b75 as well as h77 so the b75
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is obviously more business oriented we're going to focus on that one they're
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pretty much the same layout so it's just a chipset change and what this is is it
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is a well thinner version of mini ITX so
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it's got the same mounting holes but you can see the io plate is much much
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flatter and there's a very good reason for that it is meant for all-in-one
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do-it-yourself so you can build your own all-in-one PC now Gigabyte has a couple
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of unique implementations here so number one is we're using sodium so that's part
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of the spec you can see there's built-in power so power comes in from the back
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from a from a power brick as opposed to using a normal power supply with a fan
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that we're used to seeing for a desktop PC they've also got mini PCIe for your
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wireless card as well as m data so you'll have the option of either using
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an SSD mount in the all-in-one enclosure or you can throw an MSA SSD on there
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maybe use it for caching and you throw a hard drive in uh there's a PCI e4x slot
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now I don't expect you to be able to use that with a card sticking out of it
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because I'm going to show you guys what it looks like once it's in the AO but
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there are PCI Express extension cables so if someone implemented an AIO where
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you could actually run a graphics card that would be pretty cool so I'm going to turn this around you guys probably
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had no idea that this isn't a fully built computer already this well it is a
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fully built computer already was a custom fully built computer so there are
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several manufacturers launching these DIY capable all-in ones they come with
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the thermal solution they come with the power brick that you need because this
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is all standardized for this thin Mini ITX uh configuration you can see there's
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a Kingston MSA card here there's a PCI
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mini PCI Express wireless card got some memory going and one of the most notable
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things about this is the fact that no matter what the machine is doing these
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heat pipes stay quite cool we saw a demo before the video actually started where
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they were running some intensive programs and these are barely warm to
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the touch now like I said before you don't have to stick with MSA they do
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also have as part of the standard the ability to mount drives in it so you can
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see you can throw a three and a half inch drive there and this particular
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model right here and I would expect most of them now that uh Windows 8 is past is
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well not past but is the present and the future is multi touch ready so you can
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actually here if we go and fire up Ms paint which should be around here
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somewhere oh that's notepad that's okay
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we can find paint we're good at this we've done this before and swiping and
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paint okay I'm going to need my my lovely assistant to come in here and
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sort of use her five fingers so that we can show that it is accepting 10 inputs
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all at the same time and of course there's some
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evolution to the desktop boards now because Intel or AMD are not launching
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any new chipsets or any new CPUs here at CES we don't have a whole refresh or
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anything like that but Gigabyte is introducing the HD Series so these are
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z77 boards that are aimed at the value segment and what's different about these
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compared to other boards is the fact that they're coming in at very aggressive price points and they do
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feature DisplayPort hence the HD designation so you don't have some of
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the bells and whistles like you know 16 phase power or your four-way SLI
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capability or any of that stuff but if you're looking to build a basic machine
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it's still got USB 3 it's a actually Four ports of USB 3 that's part of the
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z77 spec it's still Crossfire ready it does support dual graphics and you've
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got DisplayPort out on board so it means you can take advantage of the
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features of z77 without sort of going
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over the top in terms of the price and in terms of the expense of manufacturing
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so obviously if you're going to bring a motherboard to Market at a lower price
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it has to Cost Less to manufacturer so that is why they've gone for something
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like the Slimmer motherboard design so you can see you can save a little bit on
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the PCB right here but it still does require a standard ATX case to install
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we've seen this many times in the past on value oriented boards don't miss any
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of our CES 2013 coverage by making sure that you're subscribed to lonus Tech
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tips North American customers might not be as familiar with them as some other
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territories but Gigabyte also has a variety of Notebook tablet and
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all-in-one Solutions on display here at the show so we have a Windows 8 tablet
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with a celon processor that actually has a dock that allows you to add an optical
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drive as well as additional expansion they have a convertible Ultra Book so
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this guy rotates around and becomes a tablet should you see fit they've also
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got this is a fairly unique solution so this is a magnetic dock as well as a
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stand that pops out of the back of this particular tablet to make it more like
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uh you know more competitive with something like Microsoft Surface they've
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also got a couple more displays on here so this this is just another Ultra Book
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and sort of a more performance oriented looking gaming machine here in in a
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matte black finish this has a GTX 660m
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so it's going to be quite powerful and actually not as thin as some of the
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other notebooks that we've seen with maybe a GTX 670 or 680 so that's a
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compromise that you have to decide if you're willing to make now behind me
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over here we've got their new lineup of all-in ones so these are fully compliant
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with the Windows 8 experience and what you might notice about these ones is the
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fact that there is absolutely no Gigabyte branding on them whatsoever so
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these are intended for the white box Market which refers to sort of a
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distributor or a system integrator or a retailer who wants to develop their own
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all-in-one and do their own branding behind it so gigabytes basically
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providing the motherboard the chassis itself and the screen itself and there's
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no there isn't going to be a Gigabyte name on it so what you might want to
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make a habit of doing is well not too much okay not make a habit of but check
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these out sort of look at the industrial design of them and if you see something
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that looks like these particular models here you'll know who actually built it
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which I mean might give you more confidence in the case of you're going okay look well this is a fairly
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inexpensive AO do I trust this thing or not who made this at least you'll know
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that it was actually manufactured by Gigabyte with their expertise so don't
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miss any of our CES 2013 coverage by making sure that you're subscribed to
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Linus Tech tips quite honestly we missed this one our first time around because
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it looked like a normal 24in all-in-one
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it sort of from the front there's like you know a webcam and a bezel and sort
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of nothing that seems out of the ordinary but then when you get around to
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the back you find a 2 and 1/2 in expansion Drive slot so that means you
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can quickly and easily expand the storage of the device and uh Diesel and
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I are going to switch places over here I'd like him to come check out this side
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of the unit where the real magic happens so it's actually not that thick but
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check that out at the bottom you can install a full-sized graphics card in
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this all-in-one PC the uh the example that they've had running so internally
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they've had running as high as a GTX
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680 off of this machine so you actually
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have the capability now of taking the all-in-one form factor I'll be it a
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little bit thicker and having what would essentially be a full-size gaming
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desktop performance out of it