What is it with using plural verbs following "Gigabyte", as in "Gigabyte have...." and "Gigabyte do....". This sounds atrocious in an otherwise well written article. Verbs should be "Gigabyte has...." and "Gigabyte does...." because "Gigabyte" is a singular noun. Where's the editor?
Then Anandtech isn't being consistent, because they treat Apple, for example, as a singular entity, see iPad2 and iOS 4.3 reviews ("Apple has..."). As a non native English speaker, I agree with DBissett, reading "Gigabyte have..." is not very intuitive and distracts. Otherwise, nice article. I'm still using a i7 860 and a AMD 5770 and will use those until the 28nm GFX and 22nm CPUs are around.
Actually, you would be incorrect in stating that it should be written "a SSD." The usage of "a" vs "an" is in regards to the beginning vowel sound of a word, not if it begins with a vowel. Since SSD begins with an "es" vowel sound it requires "an" placed before it. Thus, "an SSD" is 100% correct.
"As a non native English speaker, I agree with DBissett, reading "Gigabyte have..." is not very intuitive and distracts."
As a native English speaker, I agree as well. I can count on my fingers the number of times I have seen corporations treated as plural nouns, and it's always a distraction. It makes me suspect that the editor is someone who got their Master's in English without having actually used the language much for anything other than a topic of study. "Proper" or not, it's not common practice, at least in the US.
This is standard British usage. It's just different, it's not incorrect. You will rarely encounter it in writing by American writers, though the British usage is starting to make some beachheads. It's not at all clear to me that or the other way is more proper or correct. The British just interpret corporate entities as representing multiple people - thus plural.
I disagree. I've been writing in the US for 50 years and the use of singular verbs with corporate names has only recently begun to creep into otherwise good writing. Check any publication you like. Further, AT is very inconsistent in this regard both between and within articles. The responder below points this out. Also, look in this article's summary, where Gigabyte is used with a mixture of singular and plural verbs.
I have checked several publications, such as the MLA and APA manuals, and both are quite consistent with giving the recommendation that corp/company names be treated as singular entities, and has been this way for decades upon decades. Even going back to the grammar texts from the early 1950's shows this.....just happen to have some around from when my Mother taught school.
Maybe you should check out some writing guides instead of depending upon "popular" and colloquial writing in magazines.
The Gregg Reference Manual, Ninth Edition, by William Sabin says that when using organizational names, treat them as either singular or plural (but not both). Ordinarily, it suggests you treat the name as singular unless you wish to emphasize the individuals who make up the organization. In that case, use the plural.
Gregg uses these examples to make sure there’s subject-verb agreement:
Brooks & Rice has lost its lease. It is not looking for a new location. OR Brooks & Rice have lost their lease. They are now looking for…But NOT Brooks & Rice has lost its lease. They are now looking…
If the organization is referred to as “they” or “who,” use a plural verb with the company name. If the organization is referred to as “it” or “which,” use a singular verb.
Professor Charles Darling says, “The names of companies and other organizations are usually regarded as singular, regardless of their ending: ‘General Motors has announced its fall lineup of new vehicles.’ Try to avoid the inconsistency that is almost inevitable when you think of corporate entities as a group of individuals: ‘General Motors has announced their fall lineup of new vehicles.’”
No they're not. Corps. are treated as singular entities. Substitute for any corp's name, be it Intel, Gigabyte, Apple, et al, the word company, and you have your answer. You wouldn't say "The company have good products", would you?
No, just like it's incorrect to say Intel have or Gigabyte have. A company, corporation, or any group is treated as a single entity. like Congress, Parliament, or any other cohesive group.
I don't think so. Apparently, In the US and in England, Corporations apparently are treated as single nouns. This is correct as Corporations are viewed legally as single entities.
I cite the following: The Associated Press (ap.org) about us page http://www.ap.org/company/about-us: "The AP is one of the largest ... AP is neither privately held... AP employs the lastest..."
IBM press release http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/379... entitled "IBM Completes Acquisition of Tealeaf Technology", first sentence: "ARMONK, N.Y. - 13 Jun 2012: IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced IT (emphasis mine) has completed its acquisition of Tealeaf Technology, Inc., ..."
Financial Times website "about us": http://aboutus.ft.com/corporate-information/#axzz1... : "The FT IS... (emphasis mine)" and feel free to peruse any of their articles refering to corporations (or countries). All singular.
While the US and UK are not technically "most English-speaking countries", the English ostensibly invented the language and the US one the IP rights to it from them in a war in the 18th century.
I edited this article for Brendan - there's a UK/US split on whether a company should be singular or plural (I would cite web sources and style guides on this, but they are easy to find). I understand AT is a mainly US based web-site, and when concentrating to write in a US style it's frustrating to find that what both Brendan and I know is emphatically correct, others consider it totally wrong, and it sometimes creeps through unnoticed as a result. Our apologies.
Don't worry about it man. I personally prefer it be treated as a singular, especially when we are treating it as a single entity. But, I understand there are always going to be differences among English speaking countries. Just as someone was so sure of the horrible use of "an SSD" when in fact it is the correct use, people need to relax a little.
Everyone has their preferences...some we can argue over, some are just annoyances.. I personally hate the phrase 'that being said' (and its derivatives) because it's ambiguous and pointless, but I must be in the minority because of how often it's used.
I'd not usually be bothered by something like this, and would generally find it to be fairly trivial, but upon reading the rest of this article it becomes incredibly clear that it is not fit for publishing and is in dire need of a proofreader. I do not know if Brendan's 1st language is English or not, but as his 1st article on the site this should really have been scrutinised by an editor before signing off on it.
Aside from the issue with treating Gigabyte as a plural entity, here are just a few other issues with the writing that were immediately apparent upon reading:
- using the phrase "in my eyes" instead of "to my eyes" - "with regards to" instead of "with regard to" - "after comparing to" instead of "after comparing with" - "one port which points out" instead of "one port that points out" - "Gigabyte have put all of the features in their relative submenus that makes them easy to find." instead of "Gigabyte have put all of the features in their relative submenus which makes them easy to find." - "it's in the center board" - "it's in the center of the board" - "CPU, memory, graphics card(s) as well as..." instead of "CPU, memory and graphics card(s), as well as..."
Then there is the confusing inconsistency between the uses of "display port" and "DisplayPort".
Apart from all this, the whole article is littered with clumsy sentences. There are too many to quote directly, but by way of example:
"Unfortunately, the CPU core voltage isn’t displayed correctly by CPUZ which means you have to use the EasyTune6 software, which seems to do a better job although I wouldn’t rely on it entirely."
I'm sorry, but I expect higher standards of writing from this site. I don't blame the author directly, but the fact that this clearly hasn't been proofread is pretty bad.
People see it as a "trifle" but it really is annoying if used very often. It's breaks your train of reading/thought and eventually invokes the Hulk in anyone who cares :D But I've long trained myself to ignore such trifles as blogs, reviews and even news on the Internet are horrible to begin with. Now books are another matter :D
Use of plurals for a single entity derives from not knowing which part of that entity the speaker is talking about. It is very curious. I may be wrong but I cannot remember, "IBM have", "Apple have", "Asus have". They are all upstanding members of their trade and craft. But, while Gigabyte is good enough, there is something about it that prevents people from looking at it as a solid entity that deserves a singular reference. In fact, I would go as far as saying that the message is that the unpredictable collection known as Gigabyte has given us this, this time at this price. Gigabyte could as well have priced it $420. As if the pipeline is just cut off at random by a random part of that collection and a product shipped to the market. Not the case with Asus or IBM. Hence, IBM "has", Asus "has".
Of course, with regards to the British the plural is a sign of respect. Remember, they are a monarchy, with hereditary parliament membership, and apparently very happy and proud of it. It is absurd to refer to a member of the house of lords in singular terms. Each is a well known clan. Oh, and well respected!!
I'm glad someone brought this up. Anandtech editors should edit articles to be consistent.
The problem is that American English has a different rule than European English. The American English rule is the correct one. A well-edited scientific site like ArsTechnica recognizes this and edits all of its articles (notice that I used the singular possessive pronoun "its" there) to that end. Anand himself does a nice job with this since he's an American.
Some of the other American writers are being influenced by Wikipedia, British writers, and other sources of confusion. The fact is that number must agree throughout the entire sentence. Logically, the British rule can never accomplish this harmony of number because the corporate entity is always singular. Writers can easily avoid ambiguous constructs by making the subject more specific which helps convey meaning, eg., "Apple's engineers have" or "nVidia's marketing gurus are," etc.
Grammar can be an observance of and more than, rules. Style may be approached. Cautiously.
"I'm glad someone brought this up. Anandtech editors should edit articles to be consistent."
I'm glad someone brought this up. Anandtech editors should edit articles for consistency.
English writers have and are not considered a source of confusion with the English language any more than writers of other nationality's, Americans included.
Corporations and other entities can be personified perfectly well.
'Apple has pursued it's singular goal' is acceptable as the intention of one entity, further distinctions are made with relevant reference.
'Jobs has a plan for apple"
Two comments above
"Of course, with regards to the British the plural is a sign of respect. Remember, they are a monarchy, with hereditary parliament membership, and apparently very happy and proud of it. It is absurd to refer to a member of the house of lords in singular terms. Each is a well known clan. Oh, and well respected!!"
'The right honorable' is considered the appropriate honorific (they rarely are), it is singular and they, depending on who you ask, are sometimes respected.
British English is adequate until you reach then end of it, then you can use American English if you must. ;)
"The problem is that American English has a different rule than European English. The American English rule is the correct one. "
Look buddy, American English is not correct. Americans cannot spell and if, like me, you have ever had to read a document drafted by an American lawyer, punctuation is not an American strong point but verbal diarrhoea is.
I would say that the only correct form of English is what you call British English, but fact is that English is very flexible. As long as Anandtech are consistent that is fine.
Anyway back to the board. Fan control. Do Gigabyte own shares in one of those companies who make separate fan controller? Because that is the only excuse for such a pitiful on board control
It's funny how you can determine with such certainty that one rule is correct and another is not. Language is not based in math, it is an arbitrary set of rules driven by speaker inertia. If both variants of the rule set are equivalent in functionality, neither can be considered correct or even superior. In "Gigabyte has/have released a new motherboard", "Gigabyte" could mean either "the Gigabyte corporation" or "the people at Gigabyte". I could argue that the singular variant is illogical because a corporation, an abstract entity, cannot perform any action other than perhaps come into existence. Or I could argue that the plural variant is wrong because fewer people use it. This, of course, would be pointless.
nice board, but without speed control on the sys fans, it is less interesting than other options... also very few sata ports for a new product. Gyigabyte is really keeping it "safe and cheap".
One of the great things about UEFI is the faster boot times. Does this hybrid BIOS allow the same? If it's merely a question of cosmetics, then the classic BIOS look would not bother me.
... and most motherboard manufacturers are guilty of this, is the fact that they stick the PCIe-1x slots directly below the PCIe-16x slot and leave the outdated PCI slots wide open down at the bottom of the board. It really burns me that these guys don't think of the fact that most new add-in cards are being produced to use in the more modern PCIe-1x and PCIe-4x slots. An example is that I have a PCIe sound card, a high speed network card and a raid controller. Because I also have an Asus GTX 570 Cu II video card (eats 3 slots), I can't use any more than two of these (If I don't mind losing 8x lanes to by x16 card and don't mind snuggling up the shortest one of these PCIe cards really close to the backside of that really HOT video card). Yet I have 2 ncie cool PCI slots sitting out there in the open airstream with no hot components anywhere near them. Video cards are challenging enough to cool without crowding cards within a couple millimeters of them.
In order to use all my PCI devices I have to find one of the very few and more expensive motherboards that provide nothing but PCIe slots (No PCI bridge = more expensive - where is the logic in that?)
Grrrr! I have no gripe in mobo makers including a couple PCI slots. There are users out there that will still use them for a few years to come yet. They just need to think that as we progress in technology that these older slots are being abandoned by users in favor of the more modern PCIe versions of their add in cards.
Though your specific case leads a problem, I still think there are more PCI cards in use in the world's PC's than PCIe x1 cards. Also, why did you get a 3-slot GPU when you had 3 other expansion cards you wanted to use??
Gigabyte DOES do the right thing by placing an x1 slot ABOVE the highest x16 slot. This should be standard practice on all motherboards and sadly it is not.
The point I was trying to make is that PCI cards are on the way out. They are obsolete. In order to implement them on the latest chipsets, the motherboard manufacturer actually has to include extra components to bridge the PCI slots to PCIe. Yes, there are still people using PCI cards - I agree, but that number is decreasing every year in favor of PCIe cards.
As to why I am using a video card that uses 3 slots... I wanted a video card with very high performance that runs nice and cool. Simple. Very high performance video cards that run cool use coolers that take up 3 slots.
Yes, having that one slot above the PCIe x16 slot helps - as long as the PCIe card is small like a cheap network controller or 2-port SATA software raid controller. Some mobo makers put a BIG northbtridge heatsink just inboard of that 1x slot which blocks all but the shortest cards. I would not advise putting a Creative Labs Fatility Titanium pro soundcard there though. The metal shield gets awful close to the backside of the video card (granted would be a problem with any PC with loaded slots) and blocks airflow (video cards need airflow on the backside as well as the cooler side).
There are some motherboards that do away with the PCI slots altogether, but they suppliment the PCIe slots with a secondary PCIe controller/bridge (i.e. Maximus IV Extreme-Z), but you are going to pay dearly for that.
@On-topic: I don't see any reference to the limitations of the Intel RST when used with RAID configurations. If anyone succeeds to enable SSD caching/acceleration of an array with two existing volumes, please let me know. I know that Intel RST 10.5 , combined with mixed configurations, such a 2 drives array with one striped volume and with a secondary mirrored volume aren't too popular, but this kind of configuration can't be accelerated with Z68's SSD caching combined with iRST ver. 10.5.
@Cyberguyz: I see that you are trying to suggest toat PCI devices are obsolete. Let me share some of my experience. Chapter one: I've used a PCIe sound card: SB X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro until one of the SMDs burnt. After that event, the sound card wasn't able to use the analogic inputs/outputs and the driver provided by the vendor no longer installed properly. I believe that the burnt SMD was responsible with the power delivery to the analogue I/O part of the sound card.
Chapter two: I tought that 'using PCI Express' will 'bring me to today', so I bought an Asus Xonar D2X instead of an Asus Xonar D2/PM. I'think i've made a bad decision, and I'll explain why. The D2X has two things different from the D2/PM: it includes a PCI Express-to-PCI bridge [a supplemental component], and it needs to be powered by a molex/floppy connector. So... why would anyone want to add latency to the audio system and take care of the extra power cable ? It may be useful ONLY IF the PCI variant, D2/PM can't fit into the computer. When I bought my Asus sound card, I wanted something 'new', not the obsolete PCI version, but today I would choose the PCI version if I must buy a new sound card.
Chapter three. Recently, I was looking for a PCI Express USB3 controller. I wasn't able to find one without: a) a molex/floppy power connector; b) PCI Express X4 connector. I'm trying to show that the power provided by a PCI Express X1 is not always enough for some devices.
I think that the PCI slots are mature and powerful enough, even for today's standards, to be taken into consideration. A PCI Express X1 slot provides less power than a PCI slot, which may imply the need for an additional power connector to the card.
On the Intel 486 / Pentium days there was a sound card, the AWE32 and AWE64. None of them were PCI-based, even if PCI was mature at the time. The bandwidth provided by the ISA slots was enough for these cards.
Let's do some math. A sound card using 4 channels , 16 bit/sample at 44,1 kHz sampling rate requires approx. 3,4 Mbit/sec bandwidth. Multiplying the number of channels, the sampling rate and the bits per sample, to today's standards, a sound card does not need more than 70 Mbps bandwidth. A PCI bus, 33 bit, 33 MHz, can provide 1 Gbps bandwidth, meaning that a sound card at today's standards can use only 1/16 of the bandwidth of the PCI/32bit/33MHz bus.
For me finding a PCle Sound card (locally) is a real pain. Atleast one I'd actually buy. PCI variants are around in abundance so there's still a call for it.
There's no single layout that will suit all GPU layouts; so it behooves you to pick a board with a good layout for what you want. With 3 slot GPUs being much rarer than 2 slot SLI configurations you can expect to remain on the short end of the stick for the number of suitable layouts.
As for legacy PCI remaining on boards I don't expect to see it go away on full size ATX boards any time soon. With only 8 1x lanes available on the southbridge there isn't enough connectivity available to fill out all 5 slots and attach all the misc devices. Firewire, audio, non intel SATA, non intel nic (x2?), USB3 port pair (x2? x3?) all eat away at the SBs limited connectivity. If thunderbolt starts showing up in future systems it'll only make the connectivity situation worse.
A 1 PCIe to 4 PCI bridge chip brings the situation back to roughly what it was in the prior generation; FW, and audio fire easily on PCI . It's not quite as good as it was on last generation chipsets though since you only have 11 connections vs 13 (8 + 5); I suspect this may be behind the drop in the number of boards with an x4 slot. While they could use a 1:4 PCIe bridge instead, older PCI parts are probably cheaper and they don't want to lose out on sales to the minority with at least one PCI device they still need. Exposing those ports to end users could have issues as well since they could bottleneck at much lower system load levels than DMI would.
Unless Intel bumps the SB PCIe lane count to 12 (or goes PCIe 3.0 on the SB), goes all up SATA 3.0, and adds at least a half dozen USB3 ports (if not all up) to the next generation chipset I expect we'll see legacy PCI lanes on most of next years crop of boards as well.
What (could have been )an amusing comment, if it wasnt for the fact that no one on his right mind would put a GTX 570 on any machine he cares about a High end Pcie sound card.
not to mention total disregard of the simple (& obvious) fact that most professionals/users if theyr'e at all using an expensive pro card, 80% of it is PCI.
But hey you have a point, they should have consulted you, not the market analysts.
totally blows about the bios' lack of graphical layout. The asus boards are so convenient for having the newer bios' and i feel like im in 2011. These old bios' screens belong to the 90's that everyone still uses..:p
I would agree. I'd pass up this board on that fact alone. Everyone else has their act together when it comes to a UEFI interface, what the major malfunction here? Not acceptable from a tier one board manufacturer.
Y'know - the UEFI in those others do have an advanced mode that does all the same things as the old char mode bios. I kinda like the bootup UEFI and really don't want to dual-boot Windows on my Linux box just to fart around with a graphical bios (and yes, I have been working with character mode bios as long as character mode bios have existed - my earliest adventures with overclocking was with jumper caps on a 486 board ;D ).
Of course we can do that, but it's time for the industry to move on. Actually, the rest of the industry has moved on. It's just Gigabyte dragging their feet. Put new features on your new boards, or we'll find someone who does!
In the immediate need to build a multi-purpose lab and either this board or the UD4 (need x4 pcie for raid card) are contenders. Other than maybe putting an intel NIC on it, will it work with esxi 4.1?
My googling has not found anything conclusive and I trust Anandtech.com before any hack out there.
I wouldn't count on support for a bleeding-edge consumer-grade chipset. You're asking for trouble. Google hasn't found anything because nobody has tried it yet.
Do you find that smart to use an overdimensioned 1250W PS to measure the power consumption???
At max 106W consumption your PSU is only used at less than 10W. At ilde it's even worse. The problem is that under 15% load the PSU has an horrible efficiency even a Gold rated one, why spent so much money if a low power bronze PSU works better in such a power range....
Your power consumption numbers are nothing worse, sorry, and promoting sure overdimensed power supply doesn't help the final consumer because manufacturers don't develop low power PSU, there aren't enough available (under 250-300W Gold) on the market, because site like anandtech promote the "the bigger than better", that's totally stupid especially since our CPU consumes less.
We understand this - it's not an oversight on our part. In order to be consistent through reviews, we like to keep the PSU constant - even when it comes to testing Fusion boards or triple SLI, a comparison between them for readers is always good. With completely different power supplies, no comparison between the numbers could be justified. There's also the fact that we don't have access to a mountain of PSUs available (actually, Brendan had a couple die on him during this review alone and had to keep redoing tests until one worked the whole way through) to test a system with a PSU which has its peak efficiency in this area, which again merits the comment above about providing comparable and meaningful power reading comparisons.
I got this motherboard a couple of days ago for $130 with a $180 i5-2500k at Microcenter during their $40 off any 1155 motherboard CPU combo deal. So far it's been a great motherboard. I haven't really tried overclocking that much, other than setting the multiplier to 42 to get 4.2ghz but it's been very stable with no issues running prime 95 for several hours. I tried getting it to 4.3ghz using stock voltage but it would crash, so I went back to 4.2 and called it a day.
The only issue I've come across was after I installed an Intel 320 120GB SSD. For some reason it would hang at the "Loading Operating System" screen. For whatever reason, in your BIOS, you may want to change the First Boot device to Hard Drive, otherwise it will hang there for a while. If you set the First Boot device to a DVD drive, make sure it has the name of the Device, like "BenQ 20x" instead of "CDROM" otherwise it might hang again. However, once that was changed, the issue stopped.
Another word of advice, don't "Install ALL" from the Gigabyte DVD Driver CD. It will install a bunch of crap you don't want, so install the drivers you need individually.
All in all, for 130 bucks, it's a great board for those that want to do mild overclocking and get a bunch of features for a fantastic price.
"1x D-Sub port 1x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200 *The DVI-D port does not support D-Sub connection by adapter. 1x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200 1x DisplayPort, supporting a maximum resolution of 2560x1600p"
By definition, DVI-D is digital only and cannot support the analogue D-Sub with an adapter (it would have to be DVI-I or the rarely seen DVI-A to support an analogue connection). Besides, as the board has a D-Sub port anyway, why would you use an adapter as it can only degrade the quality? (except the unlikely scenario these days where you are using a monitor with only an analogue input and have only a DVI to D-Sub cable available to connect it with).
Could someone point me to a Gigabyte Z68 mobo that comes with 3.5” front panel USB 3.0 adapter? I couldn't find any on the Gigabyte web site.
The only one I can find is a P67 model from Asus: P8P67 Deluxe.
With so few cases coming with the required dual front USB 3.0 connectors plus the cable and motherboard plug, the front panel 3.0 adapter is a big plus.
I have this board and its too noisy even at idle since it runs the case fans at near full speed. No way to adjust them in BIOS. Had Intel P67 board with the exact same config/components, and it was silent at idle. It sucks that reviews like these focus primary on price/performance and ignore other important factors.
P.S. The non-graphic BIOS is just fine, pretty straight forward, its not like you access BIOS every day.
I bought one of these from Newegg a couple weeks ago and I'm very happy with it.
2600K with a 45x multiplier for 4.5GHz GSKill RipSaw DDR3 ( 4 Gig ) - system recognizes memory as 2133 with enhanced profile H70 Corsair Water Cooler
Runs great, Have not touched voltage - it's still all stock.
I've stressed tested it, running some h264 encodes, getting nearly 100% utilization on the CPU for 6hrs and never a hiccup. Temp rarely cracks 50C on the CPU. Very happy with this build
Only thing I have issues with is the Virtu Softare. It recognizes the board but I thought I was getting a licence to use it, and all I can get is a demo mode.
So they implement TouchBIOS but not a GUI? That's just being lazy. FFS, even Biostar has a GUI. Then of course there's the boot loop issue that wasted a lot of my time. http://www.overclock.net/intel-motherboards/103472...
GUI for bios is *really* a waste of time. Imagine having to connect a keyboard AND a mouse to fix the machine when it breaks...
That's like finding a use for a mouse in DR Dos 6.0
Awesome motherboard... lack of fan control shouldn't be too problematic.
Just had a thought though.... if CPUs were delivered in larger packages with the connectors situated off-die, with a vertical arrangement it would be possible to cool both sides of the die at once in a sandwich style cooler.
Twice the surface area to cool means that we'd be in overclocking heaven!
Now we just need Intel to decide to change the sockets again!
I agree with EnzoFX. If the bios does not cause a boot time slowdown that is pretty well a non issue. However, this day and age lack of fan control in the bios is more than stupid. More and more you are going to see a move to more efficient and power saving features. There is no point in a cpu clocking down and powergating and idling if the fan is going to blast on along like a jet. This is especially true for htpc use which alot are going to use the sandy bridge z68 for. Speaking of that, gigabyte is the one that actually has a z68 board out without a video out on the board at all right? What are they smoking these days :P
"Based on the benchmarks and performance figures seen in this review, it shows that you do not have to spend big amounts of money on a motherboard to get on to the Z68 platform. A motherboard that could arguably be aimed at the budget end of the spectrum has performed well "
This would fit my needs perfectly. Just wondering why with the comment above it's not a "pick" from you/Anandtech? What's lacking to make it so?
Why not run CDM in 0xFF fill mode? Sure, the perfectly compressible data is unrealistic, but it would largely take the flash out of the equation making the benchmark purely about the interface. And when benchmarking a motherboard is it not the limits of the interfaces it provides that really matter?
I can't see any hardware reason that the Gigabyte should be slower than the Asus. Maybe there is a BIOS or Lucid driver update that brings the performance back in par. that is the probelm with reviews, issues are rarely revisited or updated leaving a bad opinion about a product.
This is defiantly a budget MB - I got mine for $105 (!) after $15 rebate, at microcenter this past weekend, with a 2500k for $180. What a bargain. :-)
Why do reviews such as this ignore that which is fundamental to product quality? Namely, Customer Support. I will never purchase another Gigabyte product as in my experience their support is incompetent and unprofessional. Until these tech companies are called out on it they will continue to provide abysmal support. Product reviews should provide a measure of tech support capacity just as they measure a products technical features.
I've played with this board and it's little cousin, the GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3. I've found that both boards are a little quirky almost as though the bios versions are not quite mature. Small little nagging things that are hard to pin down.
The SSD Caching is an interesting feature. I don't notice a big improvement but it's there for sure... even though the Windows 7 Experience index doesn't show it. If you change hardware frequently then you run into issues as well (or I have anyway) forcing you into the setup utility to disable the cache drive and reset it back up after the fact. Things have gotten better since the last bios update but... not quite there yet. (imo)
No gimmick, just a great show if you are interested. For the linguist or anyone interested in words and such, the program runs every week on the weekends. I highly recommend it as I listen to them weekly.
Thank you for posting an article for this Motherboard, as it made my decision to buy it. One thing though, I wasn't sure if you had come across this but after upgrading the BIOS from F2 to F4, the option to set ACPI Suspend Type S1(POS)/S3(STR) disappeared. Any ideas as to why they would make a change to fix some issues, but removed a feature that's printed in their manual?
First review I read of a motherboard that gives dpc. Thats so great for us who play (and ofc for those that do audio processing).
For the next review I would like to know: Was the system under load as you took those dpc measurements? Listening to music, harddisk usage, anything loading the cpu? Was it in 'idle' mode or was it 'clocked' up? Where sounddrivers installed? Which ones. Was hpet on or off? What nic (model and driver version). What intel inf version.
I wonder at these numbers cause I have ~60 microseconds in dpc with my msi z68 gd80. I have done two things to lower dpc: 1) Install brainbits low dpc drivers for my Asus essence 2) I have timerresolution.exe running which increases the dpc timer resolution thereby possibly decreasing dpc somewhat.
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DBissett - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
What is it with using plural verbs following "Gigabyte", as in "Gigabyte have...." and "Gigabyte do....". This sounds atrocious in an otherwise well written article. Verbs should be "Gigabyte has...." and "Gigabyte does...." because "Gigabyte" is a singular noun. Where's the editor?LtGoonRush - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Corporations are treated as plural nouns in most English-speaking countries.Death666Angel - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Then Anandtech isn't being consistent, because they treat Apple, for example, as a singular entity, see iPad2 and iOS 4.3 reviews ("Apple has...").As a non native English speaker, I agree with DBissett, reading "Gigabyte have..." is not very intuitive and distracts.
Otherwise, nice article. I'm still using a i7 860 and a AMD 5770 and will use those until the 28nm GFX and 22nm CPUs are around.
Snotling - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
I noticed it too, but "an SSD" is just as bad... its "a SSD"Exodus220 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Actually, you would be incorrect in stating that it should be written "a SSD." The usage of "a" vs "an" is in regards to the beginning vowel sound of a word, not if it begins with a vowel. Since SSD begins with an "es" vowel sound it requires "an" placed before it. Thus, "an SSD" is 100% correct.awaken688 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Yep. 100% correct.roboray - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
"As a non native English speaker, I agree with DBissett, reading "Gigabyte have..." is not very intuitive and distracts."As a native English speaker, I agree as well. I can count on my fingers the number of times I have seen corporations treated as plural nouns, and it's always a distraction. It makes me suspect that the editor is someone who got their Master's in English without having actually used the language much for anything other than a topic of study. "Proper" or not, it's not common practice, at least in the US.
Jambe - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Get over yourself.I like to go all Grammar Nazi from time to time myself, but seriously. This is a trifle.
joshv - Wednesday, July 13, 2011 - link
This is standard British usage. It's just different, it's not incorrect. You will rarely encounter it in writing by American writers, though the British usage is starting to make some beachheads. It's not at all clear to me that or the other way is more proper or correct. The British just interpret corporate entities as representing multiple people - thus plural.DBissett - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
I disagree. I've been writing in the US for 50 years and the use of singular verbs with corporate names has only recently begun to creep into otherwise good writing. Check any publication you like. Further, AT is very inconsistent in this regard both between and within articles. The responder below points this out. Also, look in this article's summary, where Gigabyte is used with a mixture of singular and plural verbs.Meghan54 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
I have checked several publications, such as the MLA and APA manuals, and both are quite consistent with giving the recommendation that corp/company names be treated as singular entities, and has been this way for decades upon decades. Even going back to the grammar texts from the early 1950's shows this.....just happen to have some around from when my Mother taught school.Maybe you should check out some writing guides instead of depending upon "popular" and colloquial writing in magazines.
Exodus220 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
The Gregg Reference Manual, Ninth Edition, by William Sabin says that when using organizational names, treat them as either singular or plural (but not both). Ordinarily, it suggests you treat the name as singular unless you wish to emphasize the individuals who make up the organization. In that case, use the plural.Gregg uses these examples to make sure there’s subject-verb agreement:
Brooks & Rice has lost its lease. It is not looking for a new location. OR Brooks & Rice have lost their lease. They are now looking for…But NOT Brooks & Rice has lost its lease. They are now looking…
If the organization is referred to as “they” or “who,” use a plural verb with the company name. If the organization is referred to as “it” or “which,” use a singular verb.
Professor Charles Darling says, “The names of companies and other organizations are usually regarded as singular, regardless of their ending: ‘General Motors has announced its fall lineup of new vehicles.’ Try to avoid the inconsistency that is almost inevitable when you think of corporate entities as a group of individuals: ‘General Motors has announced their fall lineup of new vehicles.’”
Meghan54 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
No they're not. Corps. are treated as singular entities. Substitute for any corp's name, be it Intel, Gigabyte, Apple, et al, the word company, and you have your answer. You wouldn't say "The company have good products", would you?No, just like it's incorrect to say Intel have or Gigabyte have. A company, corporation, or any group is treated as a single entity. like Congress, Parliament, or any other cohesive group.
Learn English grammar.
mickyfinn - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - link
I don't think so. Apparently, In the US and in England, Corporations apparently are treated as single nouns. This is correct as Corporations are viewed legally as single entities.I cite the following:
The Associated Press (ap.org) about us page http://www.ap.org/company/about-us: "The AP is one of the largest ... AP is neither privately held... AP employs the lastest..."
IBM press release http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/379... entitled "IBM Completes Acquisition of Tealeaf Technology", first sentence: "ARMONK, N.Y. - 13 Jun 2012: IBM (NYSE:IBM) today announced IT (emphasis mine) has completed its acquisition of Tealeaf Technology, Inc., ..."
Financial Times website "about us": http://aboutus.ft.com/corporate-information/#axzz1... : "The FT IS... (emphasis mine)" and feel free to peruse any of their articles refering to corporations (or countries). All singular.
Oxford University Press release, http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2012/120614... entitled "Oxford Tops Times Good University Guide for 11th Year"
While the US and UK are not technically "most English-speaking countries", the English ostensibly invented the language and the US one the IP rights to it from them in a war in the 18th century.
mickyfinn - Wednesday, June 20, 2012 - link
oy... I mean "won". :(IanCutress - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
I edited this article for Brendan - there's a UK/US split on whether a company should be singular or plural (I would cite web sources and style guides on this, but they are easy to find). I understand AT is a mainly US based web-site, and when concentrating to write in a US style it's frustrating to find that what both Brendan and I know is emphatically correct, others consider it totally wrong, and it sometimes creeps through unnoticed as a result. Our apologies.awaken688 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Don't worry about it man. I personally prefer it be treated as a singular, especially when we are treating it as a single entity. But, I understand there are always going to be differences among English speaking countries. Just as someone was so sure of the horrible use of "an SSD" when in fact it is the correct use, people need to relax a little.MilwaukeeMike - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Everyone has their preferences...some we can argue over, some are just annoyances.. I personally hate the phrase 'that being said' (and its derivatives) because it's ambiguous and pointless, but I must be in the minority because of how often it's used.irreverence - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
I'd not usually be bothered by something like this, and would generally find it to be fairly trivial, but upon reading the rest of this article it becomes incredibly clear that it is not fit for publishing and is in dire need of a proofreader. I do not know if Brendan's 1st language is English or not, but as his 1st article on the site this should really have been scrutinised by an editor before signing off on it.Aside from the issue with treating Gigabyte as a plural entity, here are just a few other issues with the writing that were immediately apparent upon reading:
- using the phrase "in my eyes" instead of "to my eyes"
- "with regards to" instead of "with regard to"
- "after comparing to" instead of "after comparing with"
- "one port which points out" instead of "one port that points out"
- "Gigabyte have put all of the features in their relative submenus that makes them easy to find." instead of "Gigabyte have put all of the features in their relative submenus which makes them easy to find."
- "it's in the center board" - "it's in the center of the board"
- "CPU, memory, graphics card(s) as well as..." instead of "CPU, memory and graphics card(s), as well as..."
Then there is the confusing inconsistency between the uses of "display port" and "DisplayPort".
Apart from all this, the whole article is littered with clumsy sentences. There are too many to quote directly, but by way of example:
"Unfortunately, the CPU core voltage isn’t displayed correctly by CPUZ which means you have to use the EasyTune6 software, which seems to do a better job although I wouldn’t rely on it entirely."
I'm sorry, but I expect higher standards of writing from this site. I don't blame the author directly, but the fact that this clearly hasn't been proofread is pretty bad.
The0ne - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
People see it as a "trifle" but it really is annoying if used very often. It's breaks your train of reading/thought and eventually invokes the Hulk in anyone who cares :D But I've long trained myself to ignore such trifles as blogs, reviews and even news on the Internet are horrible to begin with. Now books are another matter :Dversesuvius - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Use of plurals for a single entity derives from not knowing which part of that entity the speaker is talking about. It is very curious. I may be wrong but I cannot remember, "IBM have", "Apple have", "Asus have". They are all upstanding members of their trade and craft. But, while Gigabyte is good enough, there is something about it that prevents people from looking at it as a solid entity that deserves a singular reference. In fact, I would go as far as saying that the message is that the unpredictable collection known as Gigabyte has given us this, this time at this price. Gigabyte could as well have priced it $420. As if the pipeline is just cut off at random by a random part of that collection and a product shipped to the market. Not the case with Asus or IBM. Hence, IBM "has", Asus "has".Of course, with regards to the British the plural is a sign of respect. Remember, they are a monarchy, with hereditary parliament membership, and apparently very happy and proud of it. It is absurd to refer to a member of the house of lords in singular terms. Each is a well known clan. Oh, and well respected!!
Andypro - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
I'm glad someone brought this up. Anandtech editors should edit articles to be consistent.The problem is that American English has a different rule than European English. The American English rule is the correct one. A well-edited scientific site like ArsTechnica recognizes this and edits all of its articles (notice that I used the singular possessive pronoun "its" there) to that end. Anand himself does a nice job with this since he's an American.
Some of the other American writers are being influenced by Wikipedia, British writers, and other sources of confusion. The fact is that number must agree throughout the entire sentence. Logically, the British rule can never accomplish this harmony of number because the corporate entity is always singular. Writers can easily avoid ambiguous constructs by making the subject more specific which helps convey meaning, eg., "Apple's engineers have" or "nVidia's marketing gurus are," etc.
byr - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Grammar can be an observance of and more than, rules. Style may be approached. Cautiously."I'm glad someone brought this up. Anandtech editors should edit articles to be consistent."
I'm glad someone brought this up. Anandtech editors should edit articles for consistency.
English writers have and are not considered a source of confusion with the English language any more than writers of other nationality's, Americans included.
Corporations and other entities can be personified perfectly well.
'Apple has pursued it's singular goal' is acceptable as the intention of one entity, further distinctions are made with relevant reference.
'Jobs has a plan for apple"
Two comments above
"Of course, with regards to the British the plural is a sign of respect. Remember, they are a monarchy, with hereditary parliament membership, and apparently very happy and proud of it. It is absurd to refer to a member of the house of lords in singular terms. Each is a well known clan. Oh, and well respected!!"
'The right honorable' is considered the appropriate honorific (they rarely are), it is singular and they, depending on who you ask, are sometimes respected.
British English is adequate until you reach then end of it, then you can use American English if you must. ;)
irreverence - Thursday, July 14, 2011 - link
Byr,I have literally no idea what you were trying to say there. Reading your post made me feel like I had been drugged.
cjs150 - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
"The problem is that American English has a different rule than European English. The American English rule is the correct one. "Look buddy, American English is not correct. Americans cannot spell and if, like me, you have ever had to read a document drafted by an American lawyer, punctuation is not an American strong point but verbal diarrhoea is.
I would say that the only correct form of English is what you call British English, but fact is that English is very flexible. As long as Anandtech are consistent that is fine.
Anyway back to the board. Fan control. Do Gigabyte own shares in one of those companies who make separate fan controller? Because that is the only excuse for such a pitiful on board control
MadMinstrel - Wednesday, July 13, 2011 - link
It's funny how you can determine with such certainty that one rule is correct and another is not. Language is not based in math, it is an arbitrary set of rules driven by speaker inertia. If both variants of the rule set are equivalent in functionality, neither can be considered correct or even superior. In "Gigabyte has/have released a new motherboard", "Gigabyte" could mean either "the Gigabyte corporation" or "the people at Gigabyte". I could argue that the singular variant is illogical because a corporation, an abstract entity, cannot perform any action other than perhaps come into existence. Or I could argue that the plural variant is wrong because fewer people use it. This, of course, would be pointless.marc1000 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
nice board, but without speed control on the sys fans, it is less interesting than other options... also very few sata ports for a new product. Gyigabyte is really keeping it "safe and cheap".EnzoFX - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
One of the great things about UEFI is the faster boot times. Does this hybrid BIOS allow the same? If it's merely a question of cosmetics, then the classic BIOS look would not bother me.paul878 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
How was the cpu temperature measured?cyberguyz - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
... and most motherboard manufacturers are guilty of this, is the fact that they stick the PCIe-1x slots directly below the PCIe-16x slot and leave the outdated PCI slots wide open down at the bottom of the board. It really burns me that these guys don't think of the fact that most new add-in cards are being produced to use in the more modern PCIe-1x and PCIe-4x slots. An example is that I have a PCIe sound card, a high speed network card and a raid controller. Because I also have an Asus GTX 570 Cu II video card (eats 3 slots), I can't use any more than two of these (If I don't mind losing 8x lanes to by x16 card and don't mind snuggling up the shortest one of these PCIe cards really close to the backside of that really HOT video card). Yet I have 2 ncie cool PCI slots sitting out there in the open airstream with no hot components anywhere near them. Video cards are challenging enough to cool without crowding cards within a couple millimeters of them.In order to use all my PCI devices I have to find one of the very few and more expensive motherboards that provide nothing but PCIe slots (No PCI bridge = more expensive - where is the logic in that?)
Grrrr! I have no gripe in mobo makers including a couple PCI slots. There are users out there that will still use them for a few years to come yet. They just need to think that as we progress in technology that these older slots are being abandoned by users in favor of the more modern PCIe versions of their add in cards.
Taft12 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Though your specific case leads a problem, I still think there are more PCI cards in use in the world's PC's than PCIe x1 cards. Also, why did you get a 3-slot GPU when you had 3 other expansion cards you wanted to use??Gigabyte DOES do the right thing by placing an x1 slot ABOVE the highest x16 slot. This should be standard practice on all motherboards and sadly it is not.
cyberguyz - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
The point I was trying to make is that PCI cards are on the way out. They are obsolete. In order to implement them on the latest chipsets, the motherboard manufacturer actually has to include extra components to bridge the PCI slots to PCIe. Yes, there are still people using PCI cards - I agree, but that number is decreasing every year in favor of PCIe cards.As to why I am using a video card that uses 3 slots... I wanted a video card with very high performance that runs nice and cool. Simple. Very high performance video cards that run cool use coolers that take up 3 slots.
Yes, having that one slot above the PCIe x16 slot helps - as long as the PCIe card is small like a cheap network controller or 2-port SATA software raid controller. Some mobo makers put a BIG northbtridge heatsink just inboard of that 1x slot which blocks all but the shortest cards. I would not advise putting a Creative Labs Fatility Titanium pro soundcard there though. The metal shield gets awful close to the backside of the video card (granted would be a problem with any PC with loaded slots) and blocks airflow (video cards need airflow on the backside as well as the cooler side).
There are some motherboards that do away with the PCI slots altogether, but they suppliment the PCIe slots with a secondary PCIe controller/bridge (i.e. Maximus IV Extreme-Z), but you are going to pay dearly for that.
enterco - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
@On-topic: I don't see any reference to the limitations of the Intel RST when used with RAID configurations. If anyone succeeds to enable SSD caching/acceleration of an array with two existing volumes, please let me know. I know that Intel RST 10.5 , combined with mixed configurations, such a 2 drives array with one striped volume and with a secondary mirrored volume aren't too popular, but this kind of configuration can't be accelerated with Z68's SSD caching combined with iRST ver. 10.5.@Cyberguyz: I see that you are trying to suggest toat PCI devices are obsolete.
Let me share some of my experience.
Chapter one: I've used a PCIe sound card: SB X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro until one of the SMDs burnt. After that event, the sound card wasn't able to use the analogic inputs/outputs and the driver provided by the vendor no longer installed properly. I believe that the burnt SMD was responsible with the power delivery to the analogue I/O part of the sound card.
Chapter two: I tought that 'using PCI Express' will 'bring me to today', so I bought an Asus Xonar D2X instead of an Asus Xonar D2/PM. I'think i've made a bad decision, and I'll explain why. The D2X has two things different from the D2/PM: it includes a PCI Express-to-PCI bridge [a supplemental component], and it needs to be powered by a molex/floppy connector.
So... why would anyone want to add latency to the audio system and take care of the extra power cable ? It may be useful ONLY IF the PCI variant, D2/PM can't fit into the computer.
When I bought my Asus sound card, I wanted something 'new', not the obsolete PCI version, but today I would choose the PCI version if I must buy a new sound card.
Chapter three. Recently, I was looking for a PCI Express USB3 controller. I wasn't able to find one without: a) a molex/floppy power connector; b) PCI Express X4 connector. I'm trying to show that the power provided by a PCI Express X1 is not always enough for some devices.
I think that the PCI slots are mature and powerful enough, even for today's standards, to be taken into consideration. A PCI Express X1 slot provides less power than a PCI slot, which may imply the need for an additional power connector to the card.
On the Intel 486 / Pentium days there was a sound card, the AWE32 and AWE64. None of them were PCI-based, even if PCI was mature at the time. The bandwidth provided by the ISA slots was enough for these cards.
Let's do some math. A sound card using 4 channels , 16 bit/sample at 44,1 kHz sampling rate requires approx. 3,4 Mbit/sec bandwidth. Multiplying the number of channels, the sampling rate and the bits per sample, to today's standards, a sound card does not need more than 70 Mbps bandwidth. A PCI bus, 33 bit, 33 MHz, can provide 1 Gbps bandwidth, meaning that a sound card at today's standards can use only 1/16 of the bandwidth of the PCI/32bit/33MHz bus.
just4U - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
For me finding a PCle Sound card (locally) is a real pain. Atleast one I'd actually buy. PCI variants are around in abundance so there's still a call for it.DanNeely - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
There's no single layout that will suit all GPU layouts; so it behooves you to pick a board with a good layout for what you want. With 3 slot GPUs being much rarer than 2 slot SLI configurations you can expect to remain on the short end of the stick for the number of suitable layouts.As for legacy PCI remaining on boards I don't expect to see it go away on full size ATX boards any time soon. With only 8 1x lanes available on the southbridge there isn't enough connectivity available to fill out all 5 slots and attach all the misc devices. Firewire, audio, non intel SATA, non intel nic (x2?), USB3 port pair (x2? x3?) all eat away at the SBs limited connectivity. If thunderbolt starts showing up in future systems it'll only make the connectivity situation worse.
A 1 PCIe to 4 PCI bridge chip brings the situation back to roughly what it was in the prior generation; FW, and audio fire easily on PCI . It's not quite as good as it was on last generation chipsets though since you only have 11 connections vs 13 (8 + 5); I suspect this may be behind the drop in the number of boards with an x4 slot. While they could use a 1:4 PCIe bridge instead, older PCI parts are probably cheaper and they don't want to lose out on sales to the minority with at least one PCI device they still need. Exposing those ports to end users could have issues as well since they could bottleneck at much lower system load levels than DMI would.
Unless Intel bumps the SB PCIe lane count to 12 (or goes PCIe 3.0 on the SB), goes all up SATA 3.0, and adds at least a half dozen USB3 ports (if not all up) to the next generation chipset I expect we'll see legacy PCI lanes on most of next years crop of boards as well.
PR3ACH3R - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
What (could have been )an amusing comment,if it wasnt for the fact that no one on his right mind would put a GTX 570 on any machine he cares about a High end Pcie sound card.
not to mention total disregard of the simple (& obvious) fact that most professionals/users if theyr'e at all using an expensive pro card, 80% of it is PCI.
But hey you have a point, they should have consulted you, not the market analysts.
poohbear - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
totally blows about the bios' lack of graphical layout. The asus boards are so convenient for having the newer bios' and i feel like im in 2011. These old bios' screens belong to the 90's that everyone still uses..:pMr Perfect - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
I would agree. I'd pass up this board on that fact alone. Everyone else has their act together when it comes to a UEFI interface, what the major malfunction here? Not acceptable from a tier one board manufacturer.Taft12 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
I dunno guys, if you can't handle a keyboard-only interface, you should hand in your geek-cred cards now. This is Anandtech after all!cyberguyz - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
Y'know - the UEFI in those others do have an advanced mode that does all the same things as the old char mode bios. I kinda like the bootup UEFI and really don't want to dual-boot Windows on my Linux box just to fart around with a graphical bios (and yes, I have been working with character mode bios as long as character mode bios have existed - my earliest adventures with overclocking was with jumper caps on a 486 board ;D ).But to each their own.
Mr Perfect - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
Of course we can do that, but it's time for the industry to move on. Actually, the rest of the industry has moved on. It's just Gigabyte dragging their feet. Put new features on your new boards, or we'll find someone who does!Lord 666 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
In the immediate need to build a multi-purpose lab and either this board or the UD4 (need x4 pcie for raid card) are contenders. Other than maybe putting an intel NIC on it, will it work with esxi 4.1?My googling has not found anything conclusive and I trust Anandtech.com before any hack out there.
Taft12 - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
I wouldn't count on support for a bleeding-edge consumer-grade chipset. You're asking for trouble. Google hasn't found anything because nobody has tried it yet.-=Hulk=- - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Do you find that smart to use an overdimensioned 1250W PS to measure the power consumption???At max 106W consumption your PSU is only used at less than 10W. At ilde it's even worse. The problem is that under 15% load the PSU has an horrible efficiency even a Gold rated one, why spent so much money if a low power bronze PSU works better in such a power range....
Your power consumption numbers are nothing worse, sorry, and promoting sure overdimensed power supply doesn't help the final consumer because manufacturers don't develop low power PSU, there aren't enough available (under 250-300W Gold) on the market, because site like anandtech promote the "the bigger than better", that's totally stupid especially since our CPU consumes less.
IanCutress - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
We understand this - it's not an oversight on our part. In order to be consistent through reviews, we like to keep the PSU constant - even when it comes to testing Fusion boards or triple SLI, a comparison between them for readers is always good. With completely different power supplies, no comparison between the numbers could be justified. There's also the fact that we don't have access to a mountain of PSUs available (actually, Brendan had a couple die on him during this review alone and had to keep redoing tests until one worked the whole way through) to test a system with a PSU which has its peak efficiency in this area, which again merits the comment above about providing comparable and meaningful power reading comparisons.JWatson - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
I got this motherboard a couple of days ago for $130 with a $180 i5-2500k at Microcenter during their $40 off any 1155 motherboard CPU combo deal. So far it's been a great motherboard. I haven't really tried overclocking that much, other than setting the multiplier to 42 to get 4.2ghz but it's been very stable with no issues running prime 95 for several hours. I tried getting it to 4.3ghz using stock voltage but it would crash, so I went back to 4.2 and called it a day.The only issue I've come across was after I installed an Intel 320 120GB SSD. For some reason it would hang at the "Loading Operating System" screen. For whatever reason, in your BIOS, you may want to change the First Boot device to Hard Drive, otherwise it will hang there for a while. If you set the First Boot device to a DVD drive, make sure it has the name of the Device, like "BenQ 20x" instead of "CDROM" otherwise it might hang again. However, once that was changed, the issue stopped.
Another word of advice, don't "Install ALL" from the Gigabyte DVD Driver CD. It will install a bunch of crap you don't want, so install the drivers you need individually.
All in all, for 130 bucks, it's a great board for those that want to do mild overclocking and get a bunch of features for a fantastic price.
PrinceGaz - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
In the specifications:"1x D-Sub port
1x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200
*The DVI-D port does not support D-Sub connection by adapter.
1x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200
1x DisplayPort, supporting a maximum resolution of 2560x1600p"
By definition, DVI-D is digital only and cannot support the analogue D-Sub with an adapter (it would have to be DVI-I or the rarely seen DVI-A to support an analogue connection). Besides, as the board has a D-Sub port anyway, why would you use an adapter as it can only degrade the quality? (except the unlikely scenario these days where you are using a monitor with only an analogue input and have only a DVI to D-Sub cable available to connect it with).
Vhozard - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Congratz Brendan, awesome article.Couldn't find any mistakes :P
BernardP - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Could someone point me to a Gigabyte Z68 mobo that comes with 3.5” front panel USB 3.0 adapter? I couldn't find any on the Gigabyte web site.The only one I can find is a P67 model from Asus: P8P67 Deluxe.
With so few cases coming with the required dual front USB 3.0 connectors plus the cable and motherboard plug, the front panel 3.0 adapter is a big plus.
gevorg - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
I have this board and its too noisy even at idle since it runs the case fans at near full speed. No way to adjust them in BIOS. Had Intel P67 board with the exact same config/components, and it was silent at idle. It sucks that reviews like these focus primary on price/performance and ignore other important factors.P.S. The non-graphic BIOS is just fine, pretty straight forward, its not like you access BIOS every day.
Brutus1234 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
I bought one of these from Newegg a couple weeks ago and I'm very happy with it.2600K with a 45x multiplier for 4.5GHz
GSKill RipSaw DDR3 ( 4 Gig ) - system recognizes memory as 2133 with enhanced profile
H70 Corsair Water Cooler
Runs great, Have not touched voltage - it's still all stock.
I've stressed tested it, running some h264 encodes, getting nearly 100% utilization on the CPU for 6hrs and never a hiccup. Temp rarely cracks 50C on the CPU. Very happy with this build
Only thing I have issues with is the Virtu Softare. It recognizes the board but I thought I was getting a licence to use it, and all I can get is a demo mode.
Patrick Wolf - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
So they implement TouchBIOS but not a GUI? That's just being lazy. FFS, even Biostar has a GUI. Then of course there's the boot loop issue that wasted a lot of my time.http://www.overclock.net/intel-motherboards/103472...
789427 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
GUI for bios is *really* a waste of time. Imagine having to connect a keyboard AND a mouse to fix the machine when it breaks...That's like finding a use for a mouse in DR Dos 6.0
Awesome motherboard... lack of fan control shouldn't be too problematic.
Just had a thought though.... if CPUs were delivered in larger packages with the connectors situated off-die, with a vertical arrangement it would be possible to cool both sides of the die at once in a sandwich style cooler.
Twice the surface area to cool means that we'd be in overclocking heaven!
Now we just need Intel to decide to change the sockets again!
86waterpumper - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
I agree with EnzoFX. If the bios does not cause a boot time slowdown that is pretty well a non issue. However, this day and age lack of fan control in the bios is more than stupid. More and more you are going to see a move to more efficient and power saving features. There is no point in a cpu clocking down and powergating and idling if the fan is going to blast on along like a jet. This is especially true for htpc use which alot are going to use the sandy bridge z68 for. Speaking of that, gigabyte is the one that actually has a z68 board out without a video out on the board at all right? What are they smoking these days :PThe0ne - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
"Based on the benchmarks and performance figures seen in this review, it shows that you do not have to spend big amounts of money on a motherboard to get on to the Z68 platform. A motherboard that could arguably be aimed at the budget end of the spectrum has performed well "This would fit my needs perfectly. Just wondering why with the comment above it's not a "pick" from you/Anandtech? What's lacking to make it so?
jigglywiggly - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
U GRAMMAR FARTSSTFU
READ THE ARTICLE FOR THE INFO
fb39ca4 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
How is $170 a budget motherboard? This is mid range territory.ratbert1 - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Enjoying your baptism by fire? I was going to post about the grammar, but it seems to have all be said.Mr Alpha - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Why not run CDM in 0xFF fill mode? Sure, the perfectly compressible data is unrealistic, but it would largely take the flash out of the equation making the benchmark purely about the interface. And when benchmarking a motherboard is it not the limits of the interfaces it provides that really matter?nemitech - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
The test does;t say what version of Lucid was used on the Gigabyte MB vs the Asus one. a new version was released yesterday on the Gigabyte site:http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx...
I can't see any hardware reason that the Gigabyte should be slower than the Asus. Maybe there is a BIOS or Lucid driver update that brings the performance back in par. that is the probelm with reviews, issues are rarely revisited or updated leaving a bad opinion about a product.
This is defiantly a budget MB - I got mine for $105 (!) after $15 rebate, at microcenter this past weekend, with a 2500k for $180. What a bargain. :-)
kamiyo - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
hopefully this will inspire me to upgrade the rest of my rigbas94041 - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
Why do reviews such as this ignore that which is fundamental to product quality?Namely, Customer Support.
I will never purchase another Gigabyte product as in my experience their support is incompetent and unprofessional.
Until these tech companies are called out on it they will continue to provide abysmal support. Product reviews should provide a measure of tech support capacity just as they measure a products technical features.
just4U - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
I've played with this board and it's little cousin, the GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3. I've found that both boards are a little quirky almost as though the bios versions are not quite mature. Small little nagging things that are hard to pin down.The SSD Caching is an interesting feature. I don't notice a big improvement but it's there for sure... even though the Windows 7 Experience index doesn't show it. If you change hardware frequently then you run into issues as well (or I have anyway) forcing you into the setup utility to disable the cache drive and reset it back up after the fact. Things have gotten better since the last bios update but... not quite there yet. (imo)
The0ne - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
No gimmick, just a great show if you are interested. For the linguist or anyone interested in words and such, the program runs every week on the weekends. I highly recommend it as I listen to them weekly.http://www.waywordradio.org/
Hope you enjoy them as much as I do :D
henhaohenhao - Wednesday, July 13, 2011 - link
Come go and see, will not regret it Oh look
http://www.ifancyshop.com
henhaohenhao - Wednesday, July 13, 2011 - link
Come go and see, will not regret it Oh look
http://www.ifancyshop.com
Diagrafeas - Saturday, July 16, 2011 - link
This is from the manual."Please note the HDMI audio output only supports AC3, DTS and 2-channel-LPCM formats."
Is this correct?
What about 8-channel LPCM, Dolby TrueHD bitstream, DTS-HD Master Audio bitstream?
goodzhang - Sunday, July 17, 2011 - link
Come go and see, will not regret it Oh lookhttp://www.ifancyshop.com
catchmyevo - Monday, July 25, 2011 - link
Brendan,Thank you for posting an article for this Motherboard, as it made my decision to buy it. One thing though, I wasn't sure if you had come across this but after upgrading the BIOS from F2 to F4, the option to set ACPI Suspend Type S1(POS)/S3(STR) disappeared. Any ideas as to why they would make a change to fix some issues, but removed a feature that's printed in their manual?
Conditioned - Wednesday, July 27, 2011 - link
First review I read of a motherboard that gives dpc. Thats so great for us who play (and ofc for those that do audio processing).For the next review I would like to know:
Was the system under load as you took those dpc measurements? Listening to music, harddisk usage, anything loading the cpu?
Was it in 'idle' mode or was it 'clocked' up?
Where sounddrivers installed? Which ones.
Was hpet on or off?
What nic (model and driver version).
What intel inf version.
I wonder at these numbers cause I have ~60 microseconds in dpc with my msi z68 gd80.
I have done two things to lower dpc:
1) Install brainbits low dpc drivers for my Asus essence
2) I have timerresolution.exe running which increases the dpc timer resolution thereby possibly decreasing dpc somewhat.