The GIGABYTE Hidden Gems competition has been running since mid-June, and we’re pleased to see hundreds of our fans and followers submit photos and videos and of their old GIGABYTE PCs, make comments and get involved with voting. It’s been fantastic. But the final 24 hours are now upon us.

All those GIGABYTE Gems will themselves soon be frozen in cyber-based amber, with submissions, votes and comments closing tomorrow, July 31st at 12am midnight- (Pacific Standard Time).

So this is your last chance to submit and share with us your old GIGABYTE build. Your last chance to vote and chip in with a comment.

Remember however that even though you don’t have the oldest motherboard, and of course it’s probably too late to drum up a thousand votes, there remains hope for you yet. The ‘Team GIGABYTE Prize’ – a Z77X-UD3H no less – will be chosen entirely at the whim of our GIGABYTE team here in Taipei.

In short, there is still time for you do something incredible, something astounding or even damn right silly to clinch a great prize. What are you waiting for?

Here’s the link: http://event.gigabyte.com/hidden_gems/index.aspx

Motherboard power guru, sin0822, has posted his in depth review of GIGABYTE’s latest Ultra Durable 5 technology as part of his Z77X-UP5 TH review. As always he explores the PWM and VRM zone in a lot of detail with special attention to the new IR PWM chip, IR PowIRstages and high-current (60A) rated chokes.

He looks at everything from the bundled goodies…

…to the anti surge ICs next to the onboard power connector.

Not to mention the dual Thunderbolt ports.

It’s really quite incredible how much attention he pays to the onboard components, and this is why we at GIGABYTE love sin’s reviews:

 

Besides looking at all the onboard chips and layout, he also looks at the BIOS and compares various benchmarks, so if you’re looking for performance information be sure to read all the way to the end of the review.

If you are interested in the CPU VRM on your motherboard and would like to find out more, then I suggest you shoot over to sin0822’s website for a look at his extensive VRM list. It includes most current motherboard models and is good for:

 

This has been a busy week for our new baby, the GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7. Not only have photos of the final design including its new black and orange paint job been published for the first time (Facebook, PCPowerPlay, NinjaLane, TonymacX86), but we have also spent the past few days trying to find out how much actual power the Z77x-UP7 can handle with its 32 CPU power phases and Ultra Durable™ 5 design. Watch the video to fine out just how much total power the UP7 was able to handle (hint: it’s enough to power 25 Intel Core i7 3770K CPUs)!