GIGABYTE Classic Challenge II lucky draw prize announced, GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7!

The old saying, you have to be in it to win it, could not be more true than it is for GIGABYTE Classic Challenge II with the addition of a lucky draw prize rule. GIGABYTE is giving away the Z77X-UP7 as a lucky draw prize as well. You just have to enter the competition to be eligible to win one. If you really want to improve your chance of winning, you can enter as many submissions in the comp as possible as each and every submission is a separate entry into the lucky draw! Sweet huh …GO GO GO!

If you’re like to find out more about this board jump over to the microsite!

HiCookie achieves new high CPU frequency with GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7, hits 7.112GHz!

When we said there was more to come from the Z77X-UP7, we were dead serious. Get a load of this. Our in-house overclocking guru HiCookie has just pushed the limits for an Intel Core i7 3770K to an incredible 7.112GHz. Catch the video below.

We see this as great indicator that the torch has now been passed from our first OC board, the X58-OC to the Z77X-UP7. You can learn more about the board and it’s OC features here.

Overclocking comp you shouldn’t miss!

HWBOT is organising an exciting competition for the month of September called GIGABYTE Classic Challenge2.

We’re talking old school benchmarks in this challenge, 32M SuperPi with unlimited cooling or clocks. 3D round has an interesting twist. It’s a low clock challenge in 3DMARK01 with a nature FPS cap and CPU MHz cap. Let’s see the tweakers come out and show off their skills. The MHz cap on nature opens the door for ATI cards to compete as well. Let’s see who’s got the right mix of hardware and tweaks to reign supreme in this test of efficiency and skill.

Main prize is none other than the GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7. That’s right people, UP7 up for grabs, time to put your benching shoes on!

Here is the competition page link!

cFos: Speeds up your downloads

For those of us who download hefty data packages from the the Internet,maybe Online game services like Steam or Origin or shared HD video content, waiting for the download to finish can of course be a real pain. And having a the best Internet connection isn’t always a guarantee that your throughput is optimal. This is where cFos software can make a difference.

cFos is an app currently bundled on our G1.Sniper M3 and Z77X-UD5H boards, and according to the data, it actually does a very good job of speeding up your downloads – in some cases by more than doubling your speed. Essentially working as a network driver, cFos optimizes data traffic by means of Traffic Shaping.

Check out the difference it can make to your download speeds: http://www.cfos.de/en/cfosspeed/rwin-expansion.htm

Here’s a video that show exactly what it can do:

Building an all-rounder PC with GIGABYTE Z77X-UP4 TH!

I build PCs on an odd occasion with some sort of focus on gaming or overclocking. It's not every day I build an all rounder PC so Here is my take on one.

When GIGABYTE first got talking about the new Ultra Durable 5 at Computex 2012 with the sweet new power design and thunderbolt I thought, here we go I'm finally going to get the old box out and put together a new PC which serves as a multimedia machine, work machine and an occasional gamer. Bottom line is I'm putting together the trusty all-rounder. Let's start with the hardware I'm using first.

·        

• GIGABYTE Z77X-UP5 TH
• Intel Core i7 3770K
• Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD + 64GB mSATA
• Western Digital Velociraptor 600GB + 2x2TB WD Green Drives
• GIGABYTE GTX560 Windforce Graphics Card
• Corsair AX750 Power Supply
• Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB 2133MHz kit
• Corsair Carbide 400R with H100 water cooler installed
• GIGABYTE Aivia Osmium keyboard and Krypton mouse+pad

There are the parts I chose but they could certainly change on various components to suit a different budget or brand preference.

Let's start with the board. It's the latest of the Z77 boards. It has USB3 ports on the back, dual thunderbolt and some usual connectors you'd expect from a mid to high end GIGABYTE motherboard.

GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 gets officially announced

 

The day has finally arrived, our new top-of-the-line 7 series motherboard has been officially announced; introducing the GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7 motherboard. Featuring our new Ultra Durable 5 technology, 32 phase CPU power delivery and exclusive, cool overclocking features including our new LN2 mode switch, the Z77X-UP7 has already proven itself to be a true record breaker – in fact you can watch a video from TweakTown showing the Z77X-UP7 in action hitting 7.102GHz just a few days ago.
Check out the full details including specs and features on our dedicated website here.
The full press release can be found here.

TweakTown catch 7.102GHz Ivy Bridge world record on video

Cameron Wilmot from TweakTown was on hand a few days ago to chat with our resident overclocker HiCookie while he was putting the forthcoming Z77X-UP7 board through its paces. Fortunately, Cam was present as Cookie blasted past the previous world record CPU clock for Ivy Bridge, to hit an astonishing 7.102GHz.
Watch the video below to see Cookie and his record breaking Z77X-UP7 in action.

Watch this space for more on our forthcoming Z77X-UP7 motherboard. This is quite possibly, just the beginning….

Aristidis wins all three Ultra Durable 5 boards in the GIGABYTE ‘Classic Challenge’ OC competition

Earlier today we announced the conclusion of our GIGABYTE Classic Challenge competition hosted on HWBot for the last few weeks. Remarkably, we saw Greek overclocker Aristidis complete the pretty incredible feat of winning both competition stages to win not only the prizes for each stage (an X79S-UP5 WIFI for stage 1 plus a X79-UP4 for stage 2), but also the bonus prize awarded for doing so, a forthcoming GIGABYTE F1A85X-UP4.

Here’s how Aristidis’ scored:

Stage 1 - 3DMark 01 – 160342 marks
Stage 2 – SuperPi 32M – 6 min 55 seconds (CPU Locked at 4.5GHz)

You can check out the full press release with all the details, or visit the HWBot competition page right here.

Congrats to Aristidis!

GIGABYTE G1.Sniper 3: Editor’s Choice at AnandTech

AnandTech chief motherboard reviewer, Ian Cutress, just published an exhaustive appraisal of a several Z77 boards designed with multi-GPU configurations in mind. It’s great to see the GIGABYTE G1.Sniper 3, our flagship Intel Z77 gaming motherboard, pull ahead of the pack with a perfect storm of features, performance and value for money – claiming the prestigious Bronze Editor’s Choice award along the way.Here’s a taste of what Ian had to say;

“It is easy to recommend the Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3 – for the price it provides the performance, the functionality and the extras in the box that a user needs.  Somehow Gigabyte has been able to undercut the competition to good effect, and passing this good value package onto consumers.

With this in mind, I would like to give the Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3 the AnandTech Editors Choice Bronze Award.  For price, performance, and the sense of a good value package, the G1.Sniper 3 offers one of the best price competitive PLX PEX 8747 packages available today.”

 

You can catch the full and comprehensive review on Anandtech.com here.

More details about the GIAGBYTE G1.Sniper 3 can be found on our product page here.

GIGABYTE 7 series Mini-ITX board images make Facebook debut

There have a few images of our forthcoming 7 series Mini-ITX boards floating about on the webospheric ether in the last few days, so we thought it was about time we added some official shots to our Facebook page. The new boards will be loyal to the compact 17cm x 17cm Mini-ITX form factor and sport Intel Centrino WiFi.

Catch the full image set here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151000030542120.419514.209090107119&type=1