Table of Contents:
Now I’ve been writing reviews for a little while now and I rarely have gotten very excited over a new product. This board is an exception. I’ve wanted to test this board out since I first heard about it a few months ago. Now that I’ve had a chance to see it in person I can tell you that it is a thing of beauty. This is perhaps the most well organized and fully featured motherboard that I’ve ever seen. There are times where we’ve gotten a board in and I’ve thought “if only they added that it would have been perfect”. Well Gigabyte seems to have read my mind. This board has everything and the kitchen sink.
Gigabyte has added a really stand out feature to this board which is the large cluster of buttons located above the 24 pin power connector. These buttons are extremely convenient for the overclocker and those that will be running this on a test bench. At the top of the cluster is the onboard power button, and located directly beneath it is a gear button. You’ll notice that Located besides these buttons are the increase and decrease buttons for increasing and decreasing your clock frequencies and your clock ratios. With the Gear button changes to the BLCK stepping can be increased or decreased by .1 MHz. Overclockers and enthusiasts are going to love this feature and this is going to set this board at the top of the list for these markets.
As far as pricing goes we Gigabyte’s suggested price for this board will be about 380 dollars. This is going to put this board the enthusiast level range and the final price will be up to the retail vendor that’s selling it. So this board isn’t cheap and that’s to be expected from such killer looks and the whole gamut of features. Let me start off with one of the most obvious features that are prominently shown on the box.
This is Gigabytes all new 3D Power Utility. This is essentially a 3D BIOS interface. It features 3 sides that each has their own functions. Voltage Control is the first one. This one allows for the adjustment of Turbo Voltage Response, Load Line Calibration and Overvoltage Protection. Phase Control allows for the adjustment of CPU Phase Control, Over Current Protection and PWM Thermal Protection.
Frequency Control is the third and it allows for CPU PWM Frequency control, VTT PWM Frequency control, IMC PWM Frequency control and DDR PWM Frequency controls. These controls will allow overclockers to really push their hardware and get every last bit of performance that they are capable of. This is the easiest interface that I’ve seen yet for overclocking and it allows for incredibly fine tuning of just about every setting that you can think of.
