In the last two years, DeskTop market has changed. OC market becomes smaller.
The main reason is mainstream CPU can afford most application requirements.
Also, only high end CPU and chipset structure can do more OC.
If you would like to have higher frequency or save video converting time, OC is still a good way.
Besides OC and performance, the other key selling point of high end PC is Gaming market.
You may hear about eSport. PC still has more advantage in high performance 3D field.
This review is Ivy Bridge most high end platform. It owns high performance OC and Gaming specs.
CPU is LGA 1155 3rd Gen. Intel Core i7-3770K
K series is unlocked. There are only two for Ivy Bridge, 3570K and 3770K.
Intel packing, 2nd and 3rd Core I series both use same product pictures.
Contents are CPU, original cooler, product manual, and Intel sticker.
Intel 4 Cores CPU all use cooper bottom cooler.
3770K frequency is 3.5GHz. It supports latest Turbo Boost 2.0 technology, max speed is 3.90GHz.
It’s physical 4-Core and Hyper-Threading technology supports 8 threads. It calls 4C8T.
22nm manufacturing, power consumption is 77W, L3 Cache has 8MB.
MB uses GIGABYTE last year new series - G1Killer. G1.SNIPER3 has special designs for gaming.
Since X58, Z68, X79 and current Z77, GIGABYTE all has G1 models. SNIPER is 3rd generation now.
G1 colors are different with the other brands black and red. It uses black and green as own style.
As some jungle war games, PCI-E and DDR3 green slots all fit the concept.
It’s E-ATX, 30.5cm x 26.4cm.
As long as it’s not diminished version ATX Case, standard ATX Case can support this form factor.
G1 is for Gaming market. GIGABYTE uses better level chips for audio and LAN.
Bundled Accessories
Product manual, software installation guide, drivers CD, IO panel, SLI / CrossFireX bride.
3.5†front control panel, BT 4.0/WiFi card and arena, SATA extended panel, SATA cables.
Lower-Left Corner
4 X PCI-E X16 support max 4-Way AMD CrossFireX/nVIDIA SLI technology.
Bandwidth is X16 + X8 + X16 + X8 or X8 + X8 + X8 + X8.
2 X PCI-E X1
1 X PCI
LAN are rare Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2200 Chip and Intel GbE LAN Chip.
It builds in Creative CA0132 audio chip supports 5.1 channels and High Definition Audio technology.
Design in Taipei
Lower-Right Corner
2 X White SATA, provided by Z77 chipset and support SATA3
4 X Black SATA provided by Z77 chipset and support SATA2
It supports hybrid RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10. The performance is based on the installed SATA devices.
4 X Gray SATA provded by Marvell 88SE9172 and support SATA3. It also supports RAID 0 and RAID 1.
1 X mSATA
2 X 64 Mbit flash for Dual BIOS. 1 X front USB 3.0 and TPM module header.
Upper-Right Corner
4 X DIMM DDR3 support 1066/1333/1600/2666(OC). DDR3 max capacity is 32GB.
It supports Extreme Memory Profile technology. Next is 24-PIN power connector.
Red is power button, black is Clear CMOS and blue is Restart. Right side has 7 contact points for hardware voltage measurement.
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The PWM is all digital design. There are 17 phases divided into 12-phase CPU, 1-phase VTT, 2-phase DDR and 2-phase GPU.
IO
1 X PS2 KB/Mouse
1 X D-Sub / DVI-D / HDMI / DisplayPort
6 X USB 3.0/2.0(Blue)
2 X RJ-45 LAN
1 X S/PDIF optical output
5 X audio jacks
mSATA SSD slot for small capacity SSD users.
Bundling with Intel Smart Response technology, you can enhance your system performance. After installing mSATA, SATA2 5th port will not work.
Even though heat sink is still gun liked design, the military feeling is not as strong as former G1.
VRM heat sink new design provides more surface. The appearance is better than former design in my own opinion.
The matte processed design makes better texture. Also the radiating ability is better.
UEFI Interface and OC Setup
Intel Core i7-3770K default ratio is 35. I set it at 48, which means 4800MHz.
X.M.P. item enabled. This CORSAIR DDR3 will set at 2133 parameters.
System Memory Multiplier adjusted by DDR3 quality. In the picture, I set at 24, means DDR3 2600.
Advanced CPU Items
You can set individual CPU Core ratio here. You also can choose how many cores to work.
I used to disable C1E/C3C6 and EIST power saving features when OC.
DDR3 2400 latency setting is CL10 12-11-27 1T.
Capacity is 4GB X 4 => 16GB
This 3770K, OC to 4.8GHz needs CPU Vcore to set at 1.380V.
DDR3 2400 1T needs DRAM Voltage to set at 1.600V.
Ivy Bridge structure temperature is higher than former one when OC to 4.5GHz.
No matter 3770K or 3570K, there are some conditions to OC to 4.5~4.8GHz with Z77.
Besides CPU quality, you still need better CPU cooler. High end fan or ware cooler is better choice.
Memory Controller OC ability is much improved in Ivy Bridge. But you need better quality IC to reach 2133~2600.
