Monday, October 31, 2011

Share your thoughts with us and win a G1. Sniper 2!

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Fancy walking away with a top-of-line Z68 gaming motherboard? well, today might just be your lucky day. In an attempt to get close and personal with our loyal customers, we’ve just launched a simple questionnaire on the GIGABYTE website. Of course as a tempter, all entrants will have their names added to a prize draw where one lucky winner will receive a G1.Sniper 2, a gamers dream motherboard replete with discrete Creative Audio and an advanced Bigfoot networking.

Interested? Sure you are. All you have to do is hope along to our Facebook page, give us a ‘like’ and move on to the questionnaire itself.

Click the icon below to get started. icon-go

You can also visit the GIGABYTE Motherboard Facebook page (check the icon on the left side).

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You can learn more about the G1.Sniper 2 motherboard here.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Viva Los GIGABYTE Blog: Portuguese Tech Daily launched

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Today we are delighted to announce that a Portuguese language version of our beloved GIGABYTE Tech Daily blog has been launched. If you’re more apt to enjoy your motherboard musings in português, then be sure to check out Muno GIGABYTE at http://mundogigabyte.blogspot.com

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Deep Silver: "There is a clear technology gap"

We recently wrote an article highlighting how much better the game play experience is on the PC vs consoles and showed a youtube video highlighting massive differences in quality from Xbox360 to PS3 to PC. I wanted to follow up that article and tell you what Risen 2’s brand manager Daniel Oberlerchner spoke out about recently. He thinks there is an obvious technology gap in different gaming platforms these days saying some studios are ignoring or cutting quality on PC platform to be able to provide a similar gaming experience across all platforms. 0021468

It is good to see an industry rep put a foot down and say they will stick to making the absolute max quality for every platform (hence if you want best gaming experience, PC platform is the way to go).

Here is a quote from Mr. Oberlerchner that can be found at Strategy Informer website

Some studios say they are going to have the same quality across all platforms, which is to say you take the weakest platform - the Xbox 360 - and you have the same crappy textures for the Playstation 3 and the PC.

We want to make sure everything is maxed out on every platform - for example on the Playstation 3, it is a bit better in terms of Aliasing, but then extra memory is going to be better on the Xbox 360 because the PS3 doesn't have direct memory - so it has to share everything.

PC gaming is and always will be way ahead of consoles. Ignoring this fact will make developers’ tech obsolete sooner rather than later.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Dino flirts with Bulldozer world record during LITS 2011

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As we mentioned yesterday, Dino, one of our in-house Overclocking gurus, was in attendance last weekend at the London International Technology Show in the UK. While we knew that Dino had been turning on the style doing some live audience overclocking, what we didn’t know until a few hours ago is that, on Sunday he actually managed to get perilously close to some world records, hitting 8150MHz on LN2 using our GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD7 board!

Validation

Ok, so the world record is slightly higher, but those guys had the pick of a big bunch CPU-wise, plus they were using Liquid Helium (theoretical low temp of -269 °C), not Liquid Nitrogen (-196 °C). Huge kudos to Dino for his efforts during a live public show. This puts Dino 9th in the world for CPU frequency ranking, 3rd for FX-81350 ranking. Outstanding work.

Validation URL here. HWBot page here.

GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD7 board here.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Entire GIGABYTE X79 Series Motherboards Revealed

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Last week we gave you all a sneak preview of our forthcoming G1. Assassin 2 board on our facebook page, today we’ve just uploaded some more X79 series motherboard images. Aside from letting us engage with you in some blatant and gratuitous board-voyeurism, it’s also a cool way for us to introduce you to the whole GIGABYTE X79 family.

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Because we still have to be very respectful of Intel’s launch plans, all we can really say at this point is that all of these boards will Rock!..and of course that they will support Intel® Core™  processors for the 2011 socket…

Check out the full photo set on our Facebook page here. And remember to click ‘Like’ if you’re feeling the GIGABYTE love…

Video: Overclock 3D Meet GIGABYTE at LITS 2011

Tom Logan from Overclock 3D met up with team GIGABYTE during the London International Trade Show (LITS) this weekend. Tom was impressed with our efforts to break Bulldozer records live at the show in front of the British public, firing up some serious LN2 and pushing hard on the tails of that record. Check out the video below where you can also see our pal Dino cherry picking some freshly plucked 2700k i7 chips.

Thanks to YoYoTech for their support at LITS 2011, and also cheers to Tom for the video.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

GIGABYTE Z68AP-D3 board is 'Talk of the Town’ in the UK – Wins ‘Amazing Value’ Award on Vortex.net

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We’ve seen plenty of our Z68 boards enjoy the expert scrutiny of tech reviewers worldwide, including our flagship UD7 and G1. Sniper 2 offerings. Vortex however have published a review where our value segment is the focus of attention. Available in the UK for mite under 80 British pounds, the concept behind the GIGABYTE Z68AP-D3 is an easy one to grasp; you get to enjoy all the benefits of the Intel Z68 platform, including things like Smart Response, Virtu graphics switching and GIAGBYTE Touch BIOS, without deepening anyone’s economic woes. This is what reviewer David Mitchelson had to say on the subject:

GIGABYTE’s Z68AP-D3 is the talk of the town at the moment with retailers really pushing it into the market-place but is it worth your consideration? Consider the performance, overclocking and features and you have yourself some real ‘bang for buck. …compared against high-end offerings and flagships –  the D3 actually did admirably and can be commended. You wouldn’t expect a board of its calibre to overclock so well either, 4.9GHz was possible under air cooling…

The bottom line is GIGABYTE’s Z68AP-D3 stands out as a great value for money offering. Those who just need a Z68 motherboard that performs great for a low cost should consider the D3, you will be hard pushed to find something for such a low cost.”

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Find the full review here on Vortez.net

The Z68AP-D3 board and all it’s details can be examined here.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

X79 GIGABYTE G1. Assassin 2 Motherboard Revealed

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Today we have a special treat for those of you who are eagerly awaiting the arrival of our forthcoming X79 series motherboards, with a glimpse of the GIGABYTE G1. Assassin 2 in all its glory; the first G1-Killer series board to support Intel® Core™  processors for the 2011 socket.

As with all GIGABYTE G1-Killer motherboards, the emphasis is on serious gaming performance, with onboard audio and networking processors that ensure you’re getting the ultimate 3D gaming experience. Bigfoot Networks’ Killer E2100 platform is again present and correct on the G1.Assassin 2 to make sure your pings are as low as possible and provide advanced network  and application management. And as you’d expect, there’s the onboard Creative Soundblaster X-Fi digital audio processor, providing HD audio fidelity akin to that of a high-end discrete add-in sound card.

Surely the most eye-catching feature on the G1.Assassin 2 is the revised and updated ‘Locked and Loaded’ heatsink array. After all, what’s the point of assembling one of the deadliest and fiercest 3D gaming rigs ever, if doesn’t actually look the part?

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Check out the complete GIGABYTE G1.Assassin 2 photo gallery on our facebook page. Don’t be shy to click the ‘like’ button if you feel so inclined.  

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Reviewers see outstanding value in GIGABYTE A55 series

In the last few weeks we’ve seen our AMD A55 platform motherboards hit store shelves around the world. It’s been great to see these new boards have been accompanied by a splattering of really positive reviews that underline what great value these boards represent to entry level and mainstream DIY builders. Here are three examples that garnered a bunch of awards.

Last week Hi Tech Legion were more than impressed with our A55M-DS2 board, awarding it their Gold Award. This is what Eric Stemplewski had to say:

“This is a great motherboard for keeping the costs as low as possible when building an all in one Llano APU system. Average users, HTPC enthusiasts, and casual gamers can all benefit from the GA-A55M-DS2.”

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Review link here.

This week we’ve also seen Shane Baxtor from TweakTown give his opinion on our A55-M-S2V motherboard, awarding it the Editor’s Choice ‘Must Have’ Award:

“I really found myself pleasantly surprised with the GIGABYTE A55M-S2V and just the A55 chipset in general. Considering the price tag of the board coming in at $74.99 US, paired with an A6 or A8 series APU from AMD, you can get some really nice performance out of the board….the GIGABYTE A55M-S2V is an awesome board at an awesome price.”TT-MustHaveReview link here.

And just yesterday Stuart Davidson at Hardware Heaven published a review of our A55-DS3P board, once collecting an award; this time the ‘Hardware Heaven Value Award’

“…the same care and attention has gone into this board as we would expect from a more expensive model, even down to the use of decent Southbridge heatsink and the inclusion of dual BIOS for easy recovery from problems. A solid board from Gigabyte which offers a low cost entry into the APU market.

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Full review here.

You can find lots more details about our A55 series boards at the GIGABYTE website.

Team Immunity win back-to-back WCG Australian National Title in CS1.6 & save the day with GIGABYTE sponsored PCs to keep the tournament running!

174717_134960709860498_6082348_nTeam Immunity had a successful WCG tournament in 2011 once again and dominated CS1.6 to take out the national title and represent Australia in Korea.

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Here is what they had to say: The Australian World Cyber Games has now come to an end for 2011. Our Counter-Strike 1.6 team have been crowned as the Australian champions (back-to-back 2010-2011) after beating DinQ 2-0 (16-11, 16-2). They will now have the chance to play in South Korea for the World Finals in December this year. FIFA 11 player Mark Azzi placed 2nd after a nail biting match in front of over 500 people and ‘YYJ’ our Starcraft2 Player finished in 7th place after an unlucky run in the bracket. Collectively this weekend our players took home over $10,000 in prizes!

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A last minute request from event organisers from Team Immunity to supply GIGABYTE sponsored gaming PC hardware  to compete on saved the day to keep the competition running at this year’s World Cyber Games (WCG) Australian National Final.

Congrats guys!

Monday, October 17, 2011

Building your own NAS with a GIGABYTE E350N-USB3 motherboard

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Here’s a great article by Nate Ralph on PC World that show’s you how to put together your own Network Attached Storage (NAS) system. NAS systems are basically dedicated storage devices that help to store and backup your data which you then access over a network. It makes more sense than having several machines at home with your data spread across all of them. Today they can be picked up at most major electronics and PC retailers, becoming more and more popular as we tend to have more digital data than ever before – but where’s the fun in purchasing a ready-made NAS rig, when you can put one together yourself.

Although Nate suggests that you can of course recycle an old motherboard platform that you’ve already penciled-in for retirement, in this step-by-step guide, he opts for the GIGABYTE E350N-USB3 board; an excellent choice with its compact 17’ x 17’ Mini-ITX form factor, low power dual core AMD Fusion processor, not to mention great USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s connectivity – exactly the characteristics you need for a NAS.

“For my FreeNAS build, I pulled a few spare parts together. My NAS centers on a Gigabyte E350N motherboard, equipped with an AMD E-350 processor. I picked this motherboard because it's small, it draws little power, and it can fit into small spaces, yet it offers four SATA ports for my hard drives. When choosing a system (or building your own), make sure that the motherboard has room to support all of the drives you want to use for storage.”

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On the software side of things, Nate wisely chose to go with FreeNAS, a free open source OS based on FreeBSD. It’s easy to install, manage and supports Windows, iOS and Linux based OSes. You can download the FreeNAS .iso file here.

Check the full guide on PC World here.

GIGABYTE E350N-USB3 here.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

If you want high performance on AMD platform, there is only one board you need, GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD7!

Tiborrr (Niko) from Slovenia is a veteran AMD overclocker and knows exactly what he wants when he benchmarks his hardware. He replaced his Asus Crosshair 5 with the GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD7 recently and fired up 3DMARK01 and destroyed his previous OC results after “disappointing experience with Asus Crosshair 5”. He also said in his article at OC-Lab that “Gigabyte the plate(motherboard) are simply better than the ASUS Crosshair's the formula” after setting the new 3DMARK01 AMD platform world record with GIGABYTE.

Check out the video he made of the OC session…Congrats on the new platform record Niko!

I also noticed in another thread of his that he broke his PB 32M SuperPi results he held with Asus board by 15 seconds when he swapped to GIGABYTE. More results in this thread. For your reference, his best 3DMARK01 result with Asus Crosshair 5 was 101,344points while he managed to get 114,400 points with GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD7. F3 bios he used with UD7 is the first shipping bios, performance is there from the start, just sayin’ ;-).

Experienced overclockers are uncompromising, it’s ALL ABOUT PERFORMANCE!

Friday, October 14, 2011

Overclocking Bulldozer: The Guide

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Just in case you were wondering just how the mechanics of AMD’s new Bulldozer CPUs work in terms of Overclocking, here is a cool and expansive guide that covers in detail the key nuts and bolts of how you’re going to get to that 4.7GHz and beyond. Ardent Overclocker and author Sin0822 has done a great job of creating an Overclocking guide that will be really useful for novices and experienced players alike.

Regarding the new AMD chip itself, Sin0822 clearly sees plenty of potential for hours, upon hours of Overclocking pleasure:

“Bulldozer overclocks like Sandy Bridge for the most part, but even better in many cases. Even on air/water you will be looking at 4.8 GHz-5.2 GHz per CPU, even with an 8-core CPU. That will undoubtedly scale with voltage and cooling, as Bulldozer holds the max CPU frequency World Record, this CPU is really fun to overclock. Now this might seem kind of crazy, that AMD was able to increase the core count, yet increase the overclocking potential of the CPU, and in the end that might just save AMD. From what I have seen Bulldozer needs to be overclocked a lot, and tuned very finely, to produce any comparable results. That is what I am going to show you today, my results on air/water, and I will update this guide with LN2 cooling results. I used an Antec Kuhler 920, it’s a decent CPU cooler, it’s one of those all-in-one solutions. It has its limitations, but it does a pretty good job of cooling, but if you have a high quality air cooler, they will do about the same. Here is what you need to use, or what I used to get overclocking!”

You can find the guide on a number of forums, including Overclockers.com, ExtremeSystems.org, Overclock.net and TweakTown.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Kit Guru take Bulldozer to 4.8GHz on air using GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD7

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Earlier today, or perhaps late yesterday if like us you live in Taiwan, AMD launched their latest and highly anticipated FX series series processors. Codenamed ‘Bulldozer’ these new 6 and 8-core CPUs have dominated the PC hardware news and review sites over the last 24 hours, with absolutely tons of benchmark and overclock stats appearing online for us to examine and pour over.

One of the more detailed and eye-catching reviews to surface is by Zardon at KitGuru.net in the UK. Zardon used our high-end 990FXA-UD7 motherboard as the platform from which to examine his AMD FX 8150 Black Edition processor. As well as benchmarking the FX 8150 at stock settings, Zardon also wanted to overcock the CPU to see what hidden performance lay within. By all accounts, he found the UD7 a pleasure to work with;

We have a lot of experience with the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 motherboard and have always achieved great overclocked results with it. For this section of the review, we wanted to get the system stable to 4.6ghz so we could compare clock for clock against the Core i5 2500k and Core i7 2600k, on the next page.

The bios is really straightforward to use and due to the ‘no compromises’ design has fantastic power regulation and stability in an overclocked state.We changed the hardware thermal control to disabled. By adding another 0.100V we managed to get the system stable at 4.6ghz. As simple as that. It really is a testament to the quality of the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 that a 1 GHZ overclock is such a painfree process.”

What is also very encouraging is that having devised a healthy overclock of 1GHz, he opted to go back into BIOS and try and crank that clock speed just a little further:

“As we noted earlier in the review, hitting a clock speed of 4.6ghz only required a 0.100 voltage increase and a simple change of the multiplier. Achieving 4.8ghz required a little extra voltage – +0.125 according to the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 bios as shown above. We also changed the Load Line Control to the ‘extreme’ setting for complete stability. Until now we didn’t need to use this setting.

We think this is very impressive for air cooling and is around 400mhz better than we achieved with the last generation X6 1100T.”

Here’s the CPUz validation screen.

System-Validation-4.8GHz

An overclock of 4.82GHz is pretty much the highest we’ve spotted on the web for the FX 8130 on air. Most other reviewers seemed to have faced stability issues crossing the 4.6GHz line, so of course we’re very proud to see our UD7 leading the pack in terms of overclocking performance. Off course, we also have to say hats off to Zardon for his efforts. For those of you wanting to try and replicate these results, our latest F6E version BIOS was used in the review, which you can download here.

Be sure to read the full review here.

Catch the 990FXA-UD7 board on our site here.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

SinHardware does a video OC guide on the 990FXA-UD7 and Bulldozer, check it out!

If you’re not a fan of videos he also put a written guide on Xtremesystems.org forum for you to check out.

LINK TO THREAD HERE

Hi Tech Legion give GIGABYTE A55M-DS2 Gold Award

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Designed as an affordable alternative to the AMD A75 chipset boards, motherboards based the AMD A55 chipset offer a great value proposition for mainstream DIYers who want to take advantage of AMD Llano APUs and their ability to offer surprisingly good 3D gaming without a discrete GPU. The first GIGABYTE A55 series boards have started showing up in the market place in recent weeks, and we’re now starting to see some media reviews crop up too. Hi Tech Legion have just published their review of our A55M-DS2 board, and it would seem that they see great potential for people building a PC on a budget, without compromising on gaming or multimedia performance.

Reviewer Eric Stemplewski notes that MicroATX boards our A55M-DS2 that use the new APUs from AMD, are in fact perfectly positioned for smaller, multi-media focused systems:

“When I thought about Llano and the Lynx platform, something more like this is what I pictured. I never thought of a full size desktop computer as having an all in one type system really defeats the purpose. I pictured microATX boards in a small, compact case. I envisioned a HTPC system that could actually fit near the TV, and offer desktop like performance. Everything that I saw last CES regarding Llano made me think compact computing, such as notebooks. The first taste of AMD's fusion technology came in their Brazos form which was miniITX. I figured Llano would be a little better in the microATX, while Bulldozer would be the one to hit the enthusiast market in the usual full ATX size.

The perfect situation for the GA-A55M-DS2 is in a budget system. Let me piece together a quick system with price; GA-A55M-DS2 ($68), A6-3650($120), 4GB G.Skill DDR3 1600 ($27); Segate Baraccuda Green 1TB ($50); MicroATX Case w/ PSU ($80); Extras like Optical and Keyboard Mouse ($40). That is a complete budget system in small Micro ATX size that only totals $385…..The Gigabyte GA-A55M-DS2 does a good job offering all of the performance of a full desktop when paired with the right APU.”

Here’s a short overview video from Eric which goes through all the important features of the board.

Of course we’re proud to see Eric goes on to award the Hi Tech Legion ‘Gold Award’.

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Check the full and detailed review on Hi Tech Legion here.

More on the GIGABYTE A55M-DS2 can be found here.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

hicookie hits 8GHz on LN2 with AMD Bulldozer

Hicookie jumped on facebook today and showed off an 8GHz Bulldozer LN2 OC with GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD7. Here is what he said:

8GHz on 990FXA-UD7, not hard to reach without cherry pick CPU, LN2 Cooled -192°C http://valid.canardpc.com/show​_oc.php?id=2040266

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If you’ve got a 990FXA-UD5 or 990FXA-UD7 make sure you jump on the support site and get the latest bios to get the most out of Bulldozer CPUs. Here are the bios download links:

BIOS for 990FXA-UD5

BIOS for 990FXA-UD7

Thursday, October 6, 2011

GIGABYTE Tech Show visits New Zealand and offers a generous donation to a kids mentoring project!

GIGABYTE, with help of Intel and Corsair, has recently spent time in New Zealand showcasing some of the latest technology and developments in PC DIY market.

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We were fortunate enough to meet NZICT Group and participate in the Rutherford Innovation Showcase to update some of leading innovators on latest product developments from GIGABYTE, Intel and Corsair.

We met a very clever school girl, Lucia Kennedy, from Christchurch who told us about her www.takeachance.co.nz project which has seen Margaret Court, famous Australian tennis player, also contribute to the project.

Lucy said that the project is designed to empower and enable kids to get free mentoring with a specialist in their dream area to help them make their big dreams happen.

For more information please visit the Take a Chance website.

Computer Lounge from Auckland, a leading gaming PC shop in NZ, along with GIGABYTE, Intel and Corsair were inspired by Lucia’s project and put together an extremely powerful gaming PC worth close to $4000 which will be donated to this fantastic charity to help the kids of Christchurch rebuild their lives after terrible 2011 earth quakes and give them the ability to chase and realise their dreams.

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GIGABYTE H61N-USB3 takes Editor’s Choice on TweakTown

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Veteran motherboard reviewer Shane Baxtor over on TweakTown has just this minute published his in depth review of our Intel H61 Mini-ITX offering, the H61N-USB3 board. The board did exceptionally well in the majority of benchmarks, out pacing the competition in several of them, but what clearly impressed Shane most of all, is clearly what a great value for money proposition the board represents.

“The one thing that stands out about the GIGABYTE H61N-USB3 is the price tag. At $79.99 US this isn't just a cheap mITX motherboard, but just a cheap motherboard period. With USB 3.0 support and PCIe x16 as well, it's quite strong in the features department and as you can see from our testing today, it offers some strong performance….the price is really strong, performance is really good as we've seen from recent mITX offerings …..

The H61N-USB3 is just a really nice little mITX board that hits at a really awesome price point. Combined with something like a 2500 or 2600 and a nice video card and you're able to have a bucket load of performance depending on the video card you go for. GIGABYTE has just put together a really nice little mITX that performs as you'd hope and expect.

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You can read the full and detailed review over here on TweakTown.

For more specs and details regarding our award winning H61N-USB3 board, click here.

GIGABYTE E-Sports Starcraft 2 Championships Concludes

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September 24th 2011, Australia's top StarCraft 2 players descended on Melbourne to compete in the GIGABYTE E-Sports Championships 2011 Starcraft 2 Invitational. Here invitees battled it out in a best of 3 double-elimination format for their share in over $6,500 in cash and prizes.

1st - Timothy ‘Mafia’ He (Zerg) - Xeria Gaming
2nd - Yo Jun ‘YYJ’ Yun (Terran) - Team Immunity
3rd - David ‘Rossi’ Rossi (Terran) - Archaic
4th - Zi Ray ‘Light’ Wang (Protoss) - Xeria Gaming

Notably Daniel ‘deth’ Haynes took fifth place, and the up-and-coming Terran player Lucas ‘Techtron’ Tan managed to take sixth place in the overall competition. Techtron has been gaining ground in the Top-50 of the Grand Master league for South East Asia, and was able to pull off some impressive matches against higher ranked players on the day.

It was great to see the amazing level of skill displayed by top Australian players at the tournament. The sportsmanship shown by all players was equally impressive, making it a great event for all attendees and the local community who stopped by to spectate the matches.

We’d like to thank our partners Intel & GeIL for providing some of the most powerful components on the market. Congratulations to the winners and thank-you to all attendees for making the event a success, we look forward to seeing you all again soon.

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Wednesday, October 5, 2011

MissingRemote.com recommend A75M-UD2H Micro-ATX for Llano HTPC

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MissingRemote.com, as the name would suggest, are a bunch of techies interested in the kinds of PCs that we’d use in our living rooms instead of a straight up TV. So if you’re thinking of building a dedicated Media Center PC or Home Theater PC, you’d do very well indeed to pay heed to what these guys have to say.

With that in mind, they’ve just explored the new possibilities offered by AMD’s new Llano APUs, which claim pretty raunchy graphics and HD video capabilities with their best in class onboard graphics. Of course, what better to compliment Llano in a HTPC build than our very own Micro-ATX from factor A75M-UD2H. The A75M-UD2H features a wealth of display options that include D-Sub, DVI, HDMI and Display ports as well as a 10 channel Realtek ALC889 audio codec, just the kind of features you need for an affordable, media-centric PC build.

“The GIGABYTE A75M-UD2H includes almost every feature and I/O method available from a mainstream microATX motherboard, including: internal and external USB 3.0, FireWire, legacy PS/2 keyboard/mouse support, DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-D, D-SUB (VGA), TOSLINK and multi-channel analog audio, as well as two internal connectors which can be critical to some segments of the HTPC crowd – serial (for RS-232) and parallel (for older vacuum florescent displays).  One feature that was not obvious, but greatly appreciated (only discovered while reading the manual – we do it so you don’t have to ;)), are the high output USB ports which provide up to 1.5A for USB 2.0 and 2.7A for USB 3.0m speeding device charging, as well as removing the need for dual connector cables when attaching a 2.5” USB hard drive.

With so many features available, it would not be unexpected for some expansion options to limit the overall usefulness of the system (USB/FireWire connectors between the PCI/PCIe slots for example); but that was not the case as the board is laid out in an intelligent and usable way. ….Offering solid general performance alongside a full featured GPU, the AMD A8-3800 and GIGABYTE A75M-UD2H provide an extremely compelling solution for a dedicated HTPC system.” - Andrew Van Til – MissingRemote.com

You can find the full and detailed review from Andrew on MissingRemote.com right here.

Detailed specs and info about the A75M-UD2H Micro-ATX board here.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Sin0822 reviews Z68X-UD3H in resplendent detail

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Reviewer Sin0822 has recently published his review of our mainstream Z68X-UD3H motherboard. As you’d expect from Sin, there’s absolutely tons of in-depth analysis regarding the motherboards components, which he lists and examines in full. From Firewire and network controllers, to Super I/O and COM chips, you can expect Sin to have covered it all here in full detail.

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It’s interesting to see that Sin has taken a good long look at the PCIe implementation on the board, with a critical eye as to how PCIe Gen 3 will work. Here’s a diagram that explains quite clearly what is going on, with two 8x lanes, or one x16 available direct from the CPU.

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Check out the full and detailed review article, posted here on overclock.net

Rbuass doing some great OC-ing with X58A-OC & loving it

474111Brazil’s top overclocker, Ronaldo(known as rbuass online), just put up some very strong benchmarks on HWBOT with a 45K single card 3DMARK Vantage. He switched to GIGABYTE X58A-OC and saw an unprecedented OC on his CPU.

Here is what he had to say in his submission:

Nice hardmodded GTX 580 + crap CPU I loved X58-OC...this crap CPU can not run 5600 Mhz in another board...

…..

I was amazed with X58A-OC board....is really for overclockers...
Really disappointed with the crap 990X...

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Seems “another board” was from ROG range judging by the CPUz skin in the screen. Ronaldo was being polite, that’s understandable.

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I don’t know about you but i like putting a name to a face. Here is Ronaldo (middle) with OC friends chew* (left) and FUGGER (right) during last year’s Campus Party in Brazil.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Crazy memory clocking by youngpro with X58A-UD7!

HWBOT held a competition for the month of September called GeIL FFA II Overclocking Challenge. One of the stages was highest frequency with 16GB RAM configuration. Youngpro joined the race with a GIGABYTE X58A-UD7 and 16GB of G.Skill Trident RAM with a stunning 2720MHz overclock. How awesome is that!

He wins a kit of GeIL 2133MHz C9 Evo Corsa 8GB (2x4GB) Dual Channel Memory Kit, congrats.