msi Z77A-GD65 gaming general information

[bigmen 2007]

At the ceBIT 2013, msi presented the new gaming mainboards.

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/Z77-GAMING.html

What's your opinions? Will it be something better than those we've seen until today?

Why now? Only 4 months before haswell?

 

[Neurotic_X]

If these motherboard features are as good as they sound, they might have a winning product here if the price is right. If they could come at a sub-$200 price tag, it would be a nice deal.

I'm not digging the dragon logo on the motherboard though. It kinda goes against their "military class" theme.

 

[dma0991]

Gaming motherboards are mostly a gimmick. They add some improvement but so miniscule that it makes no sense for an upgrade or a new build. I see no point in getting anything more than the MSI Z77A-GD65. The Killer NIC is an unnecessary added feature.

 

[bigmen 2007]

TBH I want to upgrade my old E8600 system with ivy 3770k. I don't want to wait till August, for a fully working Haswell. Also from what I've heard untill now, the performance increase is minimal, in compute power, the difference are at the integrated GPU and power consuption.

As for the motherboard, I kinda like it, especially for the sound blaster feature.

In my opinion, they dumped the military idea, due to competition (maximus v series). Which by the way is the one that I chose for my new built.

 

[dma0991]

I do recommend staying away from extra features like Sound Blaster, etc which is often poorly implemented when driver support is poor. I was very interested with the Network Genie that my board is supposed to be capable of, they even list it as one of the downloadable utilities. Turns out it doesn't work with the Intel network chipset that comes with my board.

The same goes for the Sound Blaster feature mine had. The onboard sound, Realtek ALC898 was supposed to be a good chipset but I find it terrible. Sounded weak and volume wasn't even loud enough for my headphones. Tried the Sound Blaster software provided and it sounded artificial. Hated it and went with an external DAC.

You're better off getting a dedicated sound card if you're keen on great quality audio.