Week 6 Winner of a GIGABYTE H55N-USB3 Motherboard

Yet another week of Searching for GIGABYTE’s #1 Biggest Fan has gone by and the search has not yet come to an end. We have several awesome motherboards still waiting to give away, so make sure to keep pace with us and invite your friends to be a GIGABYTE Motherboard Fan. As for last week’s winner, congratulations to Steve Ng from the Lion City – Singapore. Congrats Steve, you have won a brand new GIGABYTE H55N-USB3 motherboard!

The question for Week 6 was: Which GIGABYTE motherboard you have used before for overclocking? What are your best techniques you've used for overclocking by "air-cooling", and what will be the new overclocking features that you will like to see next on GIGABYTE motherboards?

It was a tough call for us to decide the winner for this week, as you all have lots of brilliant ideas to cool off the CPU by “air-cooling”. We have received lots of great comments from you all, thanks everyone!

So, let's take a look at our winner Steve’s best techniques for overclocking.

I had the Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 for the past 2 years and it is still serving me very well - i meant OC'ed state.

That was the time when Intel X48 chipset was introduced and what caught me in the eye was the colourful GA-X48T-DQ6. Can you imagine having a motherboard with pink and lime green DDR-3 dual-channel? I DO!!

I bought the Intel C2Q9450 and packed it with 8GB (4x2GB) DDR-3 from OCZ. The fun began when I put everything together, considering every details, to be OverClocked!!
- Good Chassis with 500W 80PLUS PSU
- Arctic Silver 3 Heatsink-CPU Compound spread thinly and evenly on the C2Q
- Intel-branded Air-Cooler
- A handful of high-performance low-noise 80-mm FANs to suck in cool air and gush out the hot air
- Ensuring as little clutter as possible surrounding the board, CPU and RAM

The best part is the trial and error is pushing the system to the limit without breaking.... first OC the CPU, then Memory, then GPU... then again the same cycle... lots of experimenting for the best application performance.

It's like a delicate operation.... when it hang, my heart also missed a beat.... so exciting in achieving the extra MHz out of my investments.

When Win XP boots up nice and next comes the stress tests to ensure that it is stable and rock solid.... almost a weekend effort to achieve this incredible stun.

If I get a new Gigabyte Motherboard, I'll be spending another weekend doing what I once did 2+ years ago.

Oh yes, new features..... hmmm... I like the 2-oz Copper Board - much needed for stability, over-clocking, reliability, better power-efficiency, etc, and also software like Smart-6 which makes overclocking and testing much easier and convenient.

Go Gigabyte - You are the BEST !!!

We are sure that you will be spending several weekends enjoying this new H55N-UB3 motherboard, Steve.

If you did not win this week's H55N-USB3 or have just learned about our Search for GIGABYTE’s #1 Biggest Fan event don't worry, we still have a lot of boards to give away including 3 GIGABYTE X58 motherboards, as well as the grand prize of a trip to Taiwan for GO OC 2010. So, keep coming back each week for the win! Visit facebook.com/GIGABYTEmotherboards to enter!

10 out of 10, says NAG Tech Editor, Neo Sibeko, about X58A-UD9 board

We've talked about the X58A-UD9 board a fair bit in our blog. It's a board that is clearly impressing overclockers, powerusers and editors all around the globe. I thought I should show one such example from a well known South African publication having a look at UD9.

Somewhere between feedback received from overclockers, the legendary HiCookie, the engineering team and all in between at GIGABYTE, we are possibly looking at the greatest motherboard ever made for any platform.

The ultimate in X58 performance will be found with the X58A-UD9 and if there’s a motherboard that can stand up to it, we’d like to see and try it. Until then, this is the most powerful motherboard we have tested ever.
Neo Sibeko

OverclockingTV release the Go OC Pan Asia 2010 video

OverclockingTV just put up a video "blog" of our GOOC 2010 Pan Asia competition in Jakarta, Indonesia held in mid-June.

HD Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXh0zYoR2uk&fmt=22

Video of GIGABYTE press conference at Computex 2010

For those of you who couldn’t make it to the GIGABYTE press conference during Computex 2010, Overclocking-TV has just uploaded a comprehensive summary of the event with all the important announcements from Henry Kao (Senior VP of global sales and marketing at GIGABYTE), Zane Ball (General Manager Desktop Platforms Division at Intel), Chris Tobias (Director, Worldwide Product Marketing at Intel) and me (Tim Handley).

Henry discussed his vision of making GIGABYTE the No. 1 motherboard brand in the world through hardware/software innovation, performance leadership and the best quality in the industry. Zane and Chris talked about Intel’s desktop CPU ideology and their growing focus on the high-performance desktop PC platform. The last section from me covers GIGABYTE’s leadership in the P55 and H55 chipset space where the new Unlocked CPUs from Intel are targeted, as well as introductions to GIGABYTE Unlocked Power (1500W to the CPU), Hotkey OC (demo from Hicookie),Cloud OC (demo from Rockson) and of course USB 3.0 and 3x USB power.

Feel free to comment on these announcements below.

The Overclocker issue 10 is out.

Nick Ross put out one of his last The Overclocker magazine issues. Check it out, it's an interesting read.



http://cde.cerosmedia.com/the_overclocker_issue_10/1H4c220c15de5f8905.cde

How a motherboard is made – Futurelooks visits the GIGABYTE factory in Nanping

Futurelooks.com visited the GIGABYTE Nanping factory during Computex 2010 – a rare opportunity to take some footage inside a top class manufacturing facility.

Most motherboard makers don’t allow cameras in their manufacturing facilities and I’ve even heard of some that will take you all the way to the factory, but then only allow you to see a PowerPoint presentation with pictures of their manufacturing process in a conference room. At GIGABYTE, we take pride in the quality of our motherboards, so we allow visitors to take video and pictures of the whole production process in order to highlight the continual quality inspection and testing that every single motherboard enjoys. Yes, you didn’t misread that: 100% of GIGABYTE motherboards are quality tested during the manufacturing process! 

This Futurelooks.com video shows the entire process from PCB preparation through to putting the 3 year warranty sticker on the retail box. The screenshot taken above is of the SMT line that attached hundreds of components in only a few seconds. Check it our for yourself in the video.

Go OC 2010 Pan Asia & African regional final results are in

The Pan Asia and Africa GO OC was the 1st regional final event to decide who will represent their country and regions in the September GO OC 2010 global final in Taipei. The event was held in Jakarta, Indonesia this past weekend and brought together the top overclockers from 17 regions around pan Asia and Africa.

The winners who will go through to the final are:

Place	Region	Name	Handle/aka
1st	Thailand	Paizol Maddusah	ZoLKorn
2nd	Middle East	Shahr Sakhtafzar	Shahryar_Neo
3rd	Indonesia	Ekky	Jengkol

Here you can see ZoLKorn amongst the other competitors wearing his signature red cap and holding his US$3,000 winner’s check.

Visit the official website to find out who else competed in the event and to see more pictures. Personally, this was the most memorable GO OC event that I have attended with huge crowds in Jakarta’s Mangga Dua computer mall as can be seen in the picture below.

A point of interest is that our first international OC competition was also in Jakarta back in 2007. It was called GOC (GIGABYTE Overclocking Competition) in those days and we had a mere 7 Asian regional teams participating. It was extremely encouraging for me to see how Go OC has grown over the past 4 years, and I must say I had an absolute blast!

Good luck to the winners and we look forward to seeing you in Taipei at the Go OC 2010 global final in September.

Here is some early coverage of the event from our Indonesian Media friends:

http://www.detikinet.com/read/2010/06/19/130910/1381837/317/overclocker-asing-adu-kebolehan-di-indonesia

http://www.detikinet.com/read/2010/06/18/172555/1381498/317/seperti-apa-spesifikasi-komputer-di-gooc-2010

http://www.detikinet.com/read/2010/06/19/111437/1381762/317/ini-dia-jawara-indonesia-di-kompetisi-overclocking-asia

http://www.detikinet.com/read/2010/06/18/141558/1381284/317/indonesia-tuan-rumah-kompetisi-overclocking-asia/

http://www.jagatreview.com/2010/06/inilah-pemenang-gooc-2010-region-asia-africa/

http://www.jagatreview.com/2010/06/mari-berkenalan-dengan-finalis-gooc-2010-asia-afrika/

http://www.jagatreview.com/2010/06/lebih-dekat-dengan-final-asia-afrika-gooc-2010/

http://www.jagatreview.com/2010/06/final-gooc-2010-asia-afrika-dimulai/

http://www.jagatreview.com/2010/06/video-pengumuman-pemenang-gooc-2010-hari-pertama/

http://www.jagatreview.com/2010/06/overclocker-jagat-review-no-1-di-indonesia/

http://www.jagatreview.com/2010/06/mari-berkenalan-dengan-peserta-gooc-2010/

Week 5 Winner of a GIGABYTE P55A-UD7 Motherboard

The Search for GIGABYTE’s #1 Biggest Fan is getting more excitments as days are getting closer to the final round. This week’s winner of a GIGABYTE P55A-UD7 motherboard is Dev Lopulalan from Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Congrats Dev!

The question for Week 5 was: Do you overclock, and if so, what are your main reasons for doing so and why? For example, do you overclock to save money by buying a lower priced CPU and overclocking it to get performance of a higher priced CPU, do you overclock for the fun of it, or do you overclock for the glory of being the world's greatest hardware master.

We have received lots of great comments from you all, thanks everyone! There are indeed lots of reasons for overclocking, some are for saving money, some are for getting more performance; no matter what reasons you might have, we sure hope you have enjoy the fun that overclocking brings to you.

So, let's take a look at our winner Dev's reason for overclocking.

The main reason for me to do overclocking is to squeeze OPTIMUM performance of my processors, memory modules, graphic cards and also other overclockable peripherals. So my money that spent on those gears wouldn't wasted for nothing, in fact i often tally some unexpected performance more than i need.

The other fun thing about overclocking is: "FUN !"
There are many setups and calculations that we could use for our system to run, i could say it's barely limitless. And the reward? Obviously: "Stability and Satisfaction".
What a great joy if our systems could runs at blazing fast - rock steady stability - stone cold temperature - green energy setups. :D

My daily setups always in overclocking mode, no matter if i use it for heavy tasking or just for browsing the internet. Wasting energy? I don't think so, because modern mainboards has excellent features to adjust performance level based on system load.

How about extreme overclocking? Yep, it isn't taboo for me. I did extreme overclocking several times, mostly in overclocking events, just for fun and also to satisfy my curiousity about hardware's behaviour in super-cool sub-zero environment.

We sure feel your "Fun" for oveclocking, Dev!

If you have not win this week's P55A-UD7 or just learn about our Search for GIGABYTE’s #1 Biggest Fan event,don't worry. We still have a lot of boards to give away including another H55N-USB3 board, as well as the grand prize trip to Taiwan for GO OC 2010. So, keep coming back each week for the win! Visit facebook.com/GIGABYTEmotherboards to enter!

Coolermaster HAF X chassis supports the GIGABYTE X58A-UD9 XL-ATX motherboard

We have just updated the chassis support list for the X58A-UD9 motherboard by adding Coolermaster’s new flagship case, the HAF X. 

The official GIGABYTE XL-ATX motherboard chassis support list is available form the GA-X58A-UD9 and GA-890FXA-UD7 motherboard web pages in the downloads section.

Bit-tech recommends the H55N-USB3 Mini-ITX

Richard from Bit-tech.net had a look at the popular GIGABYTE H55N-USB3 Mini-ITX motherboard and had some good things to say about the quality of the board and it’s overclocking potential.Here are some quotes:

“The H55N is undoubtedly a high-quality motherboard - the generous overclocking potential proves that it's decked out with high-tolerance parts that are likely to survive within a cramped mini-ITX motherboard that's starved of airflow.”

“If you're planning a Blu-ray HTPC, the audio codec of the H55N is a boon, as you won't need to add a PAP-compatible sound card,…”

The full review is available here. The product page and official launch press release are here and here respectively.

Anandtech recommends GIGABYTE H55N-USB3 for Core i5/i3 Mini-ITX platform

Raja from Anandtech had a look at the GIGABYTE H55N-USB3 (that we blogged here) and was clearly impressed enough to call it “the de-facto choice for a Clarkdale based mini-ITX build”. He goes on to say “this is the best mini-ITX board currently available for Clarkdale and certainly the one we’d go for – it’s a keeper.”

The full review is available here. The conclusion page is available here. You can buy it on Newegg.com here.

GIGABYTE X58A-UD9 takes top 10 overclocking benchmarks by storm!

Hicookie and Andre Yang have been busy since Computex pushing their X58A-UD9 motherboards to new heights. Burning an estimated 700 liters of LN2, what are arguably the top 10 OC benchmark records now belong to the UD9 with it’s Unlocked Power CPU VRM design! Have a look at the screenshot below taken from hwbot on June 15th, 2010.

On top of these achievements, the X58A-UD9 is now rated No. 1 on the Futuremark community hall of fame web page and is featured on the Futuremark ORB website as the ‘Fastest System – 3DMark Vantage' configuration:

The significance of these achievements is simply that this motherboard is now No. 1 for the most popular 2D (read CPU) and 3D (read VGA) benchmarks.

Visit the GIGABYTE website for the official press release. We have also uploaded screenshots from hwbot and Futuremark in a new facebook photo album.

Stay tuned for more UD9 results…

Week 5 in the Search for GIGABYTE’s #1 Biggest Fan

This week we are going to give away a P55A-UD7 motherboard. The P55A-UD7 is a great board to be paired with Intel's recently launched K-sku CPUs which allow for more options for overclocking 1156 socket CPUs. So, in honor of these new CPUs, this week's question is:

Do you overclock, and if so, what are your main reasons for doing so and why? For example, do you overclock to save money by buying a lower priced CPU and overclocking it to get performance of a higher priced CPU, do you overclock for the fun of it, or do you overclock for the glory of being the world's greatest hardware master.

To answer this week’s question, please visit Week 5 in the discussion section in the GIGABYTE Motherboard Tech Column facebook fanpage at facebook.com/GIGABYTEmotherboards

Good luck everyone!

Week 4 Winner of a GIGABYTE H55N-USB3 Motherboard

The Search for GIGABYTE’s #1 Biggest Fan is in full swing. This week’s winner of a GIGABYTE H55N-USB3 motherboard is Cin Ionel from Romania. Congrats Cin!

The question was, “GIGABYTE has packed a lot of technology into a small package with the H55N-USB3 mini-ITX motherboard including USB 3.0, On/Off Charge, Ultra Durable 3, etc. If you win this week's contest, what sort of system would you build, and what technologies will you most put to use and for what?”

Thanks everyone for all your great uses for the H55N-USB3! This week was really hard to pick one winner since there were so many great ideas. Some of our top picks were the ones building a HTPC for their parents, entertainment servers, LAN party gaming rigs, and the list goes on.

But, since we can only pick one winner a week, we chose Cin Ionel from Romania who asked GIGABYTE to help him "pimp his ride" with a mini-ITX VW Polo CarPC:

GIGABYTE H55N-USB3 would be ideal for my VW Polo CarPC.

An i3 530 CPU, 2*1gb DDR3 1333, 8" touchscreen monitor and Windows 7 32bit will complete the best setup anyone can get in his car.

A very nice feature for me is On/Off Charge Support because I own an Ipod so I can charge my Ipod faster when i will go tripping.
USB 3.0 support is an awesome feature because I will need the speed for my external SSD(faster transfer of music and movies from my Desktop to CarPC external SSD)
The implementation of Smart QuickBoot and AutoGreen- Greening via Bluetooth cellphone is awesome because i won't have to wait minutes for windows to boot, so I can listen to my favorite music in just seconds after power on, and if by accident i leave the CarPC On, I cand turn it off via Bluetooth.

Gigabyte... will you PIMP MY RIDE? :)

Yes, Cin, we will Pimp it!

If you're feeling blue from not winning this week's H55N-USB3,don't worry. We still have a lot of boards to give away including another H55N-USB3 board, as well as the grand prize trip to Taiwan for GO OC 2010. So, keep coming back each week for the win! Visit facebook.com/GIGABYTEmotherboards to enter!

GIGABYTE mini-ITX pocket rocket H55N-USB3 turns out to be a monster overclocker, how is 5.25GHz on air cooling?

Yes that's right. I thought i'd strap on a desktop heatsink and dwarf this little board we call GIGABYTE H55N-USB3 and pair it up with a Core i5 655K Unlocked Intel CPU. Next thing I know I'm talking to myself, going a bit crazy at the sight in front of me with the CPU steadily climing 4.1GHz, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, ... 5.25GHz.........FAINT!

For more info visit XS.org

321Mhz bclock W.R. by x-powerx800pro from China WOW

This seriously has to be one of the most impressive overclocks i've seen in a long while. Bclock of 321Mhz that x-powerx800pro achieved recently using a GIGABYTE H55M-UD2H deserves a round of applause.

Check out more at XS



Dino

Intel talks about next gen CPUs – Sandy Bridge

Intel’s Chris Tobias spoke to Overclocking-TV during Computex about their next generation CPU platforms codenamed Sandy Bridge. These CPUs will introduce a new socket (1155) and better performance. Watch the video for more details.

USB 3.0 mobos and devices voted hottest products at Computex 2010

Our friends over at Tweaktown held an online poll titled: What is going to be hot at Computex Taipei 2010? Results are in and USB 3.0 mobos and devices were voted the hottest new products with 34% of the votes. Tablets came in second with 26% and Android devices third with 20%. Click on the picture or link above for the full poll results.

Tweaktown published some video and picture-rich articles on GIGABYTE’s USB 3.0 and other products at Computex here and here.

TweakTown Visits GIGABYTE at Computex

 

Image compliments of TweakTown from our Technology Seminar

Another exciting year of Computex is over, long live Computex! GIGABYTE had a great showing this this year, and it was exciting to see so many of our journalist friends from around the world. One of those is Chris Ramseyer from TweakTown, who checked in with us at our reunion party at the Tavern and stopped by our Technology Seminar on Wednesday.

With GIGABYTE having 78% of all USB 3.0 certified motherboards, it is easy to see why nearly every company showing products on the show floor were doing so in conjunction with a GIGABYTE motherboard. Outside of the show GIGABYTE had a presence, too. From local English style pubs to giant banners that hung from buildings, it was clear that GIGABYTE wanted to be seen this year.

Please visit TweakTown to read the complete article.

GIGABYTE’s Search for #1 Biggest Fan Week 3 Winner

Week 3 winner of a GIGABYTE P55A-UD7 motherboard is Marc Bro Beier from Denmark. His answer for what makes GIGABYTE the No. 1 motherboard brand in the world?

What makes Gigabyte the world leader?
* Constant
* Reliability
* Experience
* Humbleness
* Support

* Constant
Gigabyte is always represented well in every segment, Gigabyte is on edge with technology, always prepared for next step

* Reliability
Even if buying a "cheap" Gigabyte product, you are certain that it has a touch of quality, I got the H57M-USB3, not an expensive board, but it goes like a bee from out of hell, it overclocks extremely well, it has stability, it looks good, and the build quality just has a touch to it, the details are near perfect

* Experience
Gigabyte has experience in every single platform, when ever Gigabyte brings a new product, you are sure it is of high quality, this through many years experience.... Some years ago, Gigabyte wasnt the no#1 enthusiast choice, but it is certainly considered among them now! (s478 and previously)

* Humbleness
Gigabyte doesnt promote their product with extraordinary fancy names... Gigabyte is only vendor that keeps things simple... You can look at a model number of Gigabyte and know exactly what you are getting.... GA (Gigabyte) - CHIPSET (A for model, C for another model range... 333 / Ram-combo) - UDx (x for how good it is from the range)
While others have alot of names you can only get confused of unless you know eveyr single product from the vendor....
Gigabyte doesnt need to say it is cool, because the consumers KNOWS what Gigabyte stands for

* Support; Gigabyte is no#1 in supporting the overclocking community in the world, this is a very positive thing for all parties; Gigabyte is insured to get best possible feedback, and end users are entertained by the many contests and events Gigabyte is gladly hosting.

This week's question (Week 4): GIGABYTE has packed a lot of technology into a small package with the H55N-USB3 mini-ITX motherboard including USB 3.0, On/Off Charge, Ultra Durable 3, etc. If you win this week's contest, what sort of system would you build, and what technologies will you most put to use and for what?

To answer this week’s question and for the chance to win a GIGABYTE GA-H55N-USB3 motherboard, please visit the discussion section Week 4 in GIGABYTE Motherboard Tech Column on facebook .

Good luck everyone!

GO OC Asia and Africa regional final website goes live

The Pan Asia and Africa regional final is less than two weeks away as 19 overclockers from Australia, Dubai, Egypt, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, RSA, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Middle East get ready to fight for just three available places in the global final in Taipei. Find out who they are and read up on the details of the event on the Pan Asia and Africa regional final website.

Hicookie shoots to the top of the hwbot rankings using an X58A-UD9

This weekend Hicookie put some time in with his UD9 and took many 2D and most of the single VGA card 3D world records. His accomplishments boosted his points to 1,849.6, making him the No. 1 ranked overclocker on hwbot.org. Stay tuned for more UD9 goodness from him as the week progresses.

GIGABYTE can provide 1500W to your CPU

So this was our big announcement on June 2nd: the GA-X58A-UD9 motherboard with GIGABYTE Unlocked Power technology can provide up to 1500W of power to the CPU! Realizing that this sounds unbelievable we prepared a youtube video called GIGABYTE X58A-UD9 Delivers 1500W CPU Power to demonstrate how we did it.

We were asked why we would do such a thing when there is clearly no CPU that would need that much power and the answer is simple: we over design our motherboards because overclockers tend to push them to the limits. We would rather be able to provide more power than they require than not being able to provide enough power!

GIGABYTE at Computex 2010

For those of you who were not at Computex 2010, the GIGABYTE brand marketing team have been busy collecting media reports about our activities and demos at the show and have created a long list of online coverage on the GIGABYTE virtual Computex website. All the most important new products and announcements are covered there in video or writing, so feel free to brows through it.

hicookie smashes 2D records with X58A-UD9, wow!

Hicookie smashed the current 2D world records using a GIGABYTE X58-UD9 with an incredible set of scores today. I've seen some crazy scores in the past but these literally left me speechless. Have a look at this ladies and gentlemen!

X58A-UD9 is in a league of its own and hicookie is just warming up too. My God!!!

GIGABYTE’s USB 3.0 tech zone a hive of activity

If you’re wondering around Computex wondering what’s hot, visit the GIGABYTE USB 3.0 tech zone on the 36th floor of Taipei 101. The gent in the white shirt is Peter Carcione from SuperTalent showing off their extremely fast RAID USB 3.0 drive.

GIGABYTE at Computex 2010: More people use GIGABYTE USB 3.0 motherboards than any other brand

GIGABYTE’s Computex 2010 messages are No. 1 USB 3.0 motherboards and No. 1 motherboards for CPU power delivery (Unlocked Power).

These pictures are taken before the rush on day 1 in our meeting rooms on the 36th floor of Taipei 101. Here’s a view from the south facing windows of our meeting rooms.

And from the West facing windows.

We’ll have some more pictures and news about the products and tech on display when the media articles go online. Stay tuned…