There is something magical about rolling up your sleeves and getting stuck into a custom PC build of your own. Every person has an interesting take on how to do it best and the greatest part is that there is no right or wrong way. That is what I personally love the most when I’ve done my own builds. I’ve shared them on social media and seen the praise and criticism. Nothing wrong with either.

I want to share a really interesting build for you today done by Hans Peder Sahl. I have to say, this video that I’ve come across is one of the finest looking works of custom PCs I have seen. If this doesn’t fire you up to try do something with your next PC build, I don’t know what will.

Every Overclocker has their favorite chipset that allows them to perform their best. This is why GIGABYTE is allowing overclockers to use whatever chipset they please in its next overclocking competition, Target OC: Open Target.

In this competition Overclockers will be tasked with hitting challenging targets in XTU and Geekbench 3 from November 8 until December 27. New targets will be revealed weekly, and users will be able to compete in both Extreme and Ambient categories. Overclockers are free to use any GIGABYTE motherboard and there are no restrictions on chipset.

We're giving away some big prizes for this contest that you don't want to miss out on. Contestants will have a chance to win awesome GIGABYTE prizes like GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming 3 and GIGABYTE Z170X-SOC FORCE motherboards as well as USD $250 for those that achieve a global first place. At the end of the contest there will be a lucky draw for USD $500 and a GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 motherboard.

The contest kicks off November 8. You can find out more information on HWBOT.

Happy Overclocking!

Not everyone has the same budget when they are building a PC. While some enthusiasts might have be willing to spend a lot to ensure that they have the best that money can buy, others are on more modest budgets that require some restraint when purchasing parts.

GIGABYTE understands and has a number of motherboards geared towards users on a budget. Recently TweakTown's Steven Bassiri has a chance to review one of these boards, the GIGABYTE Z170XP-SLI, and gave it top marks. 

For those that don't know, the Z170XP-SLI is a value-oriented board that has support for NVIDIA's SLI as well as AMD's CrossFireX technology. This means that the board will support more than one NVIDIA or AMD card, which is great for users that want the power that two video cards can provide.

Steven says he liked the SLI support on the board, solid memory support at 3600 MHz, upgraded audio, and Intel NIC on the board.

Here are his final thoughts on the board:

The Z170XP-SLI has a lot of the latest features I come to expect from a Z170 motherboard above the $150 price range; USB 3.1, upgraded audio, Intel NIC, solid performance, and decent overclocking capabilities. That being said, this motherboard only costs $136 on Amazon making it a very good deal for those on a budget.The Z170XP-SLI can perform like more expensive motherboards and even overclock like them in the right conditions, but producing those conditions might be difficult, and that is why people pay more for better overclocking.

You can find out more on the GIGABYTE Z170XP-SLI here.  

We are always excited when overclockers break records, especially when it's on our hardware. Our friend 8Pack recently crushed a number of World Records and Global First Place with 3D Mark Fire Strike and 3D Mark Vantage on a GIGABYTE X99 Champion motherboard.

Let's take a look at at the records 8Pack crushed.

First up is his Fire Strike score of 44583, which is a World Record. Aside from his GIGABYTE motherboard, he hit this score using 4x NVIDIA GTX 980 Ti cards and a Intel Core i7-5960X CPU clocked at 5,860 MHz.

On FireStrike Extreme, 8Pack was able to attain equally impressive results. Check it out below:

Next up lets take a look at his Vantage score. This was done on the same hardware, and as you can see the result was nothing short of stellar.

Moving down to the 3x FireStrike Vantage category, you can see that 8Pack maintains his lead. For this entry his CPU is clocked slightly higher at 5,865 MHz.

Finally, in the 2x GPU category 8Pack was able to break two Global First Place records.

First on FireStrike he was able to hit 36498:

And on Vantage he was able to bring in another Global First Place score of P111069:

8Pack's phenomenal scores is just another example of why GIGABYTE motherboards lead the industry in overclocking.

The Z170X-SOC Force is GIGABYTE's overclocker-focused board for the Intel 100 series chipset.

While you can overclock on any of our boards, the SOC Force is specially tuned for overclocking and provides features like the OC Touch panel on the front which make adjustments easy for those that have the motherboard out on a test bench.

Recently Steven Bassiri from TweakTown reviewed the Z170X-SOC Force and gave it a rating of 93%. Steven said that he liked the 4-Way SLI and three M.2 32Gb/s Slots, the High-Quality VRM, and excellent overclocking features available on the board.

Here's a summarized version of his final thoughts on the board:

The Z170X-SOC Force is built to be the largest, and most equipped overclocking motherboard GIGABYTE has to offer for Skylake, and it lives up to its legacy. The Z170X-SOC Force is the result of a long line of predecessors that filled in the same price range and feature set, and while there aren't many people who might make use of all its features, many people still look at it as their dream motherboard. The aesthetics of the Z170X-SOC Force are possibly the best of any OC series motherboard from GIGABYTE thus far.The Z170X-SOC Force is aimed at two different segments of the enthusiast population; those who want crazy amounts of GPUs and M.2 storage, and those who want strong overclocking features and performance. The Z170X-SOC Force is currently one of the better options if you are going to go for Z170 multi-GPU world records on HWBot, or if you want to build a super equipped gaming rig with the latest in storage technology.

The GIGABYTE 100 Series motherboards have a number of exciting features, but one of the most interesting has to be the Killer Network Controller from Rivet Networks.

Now normally network controllers aren't a huge source of innovation. People simply don't think of them as they do the CPU, GPU, or memory connectivity like M.2 or PCI-E. But the Killer NIC, found in select GIGABYTE Z170 boards, isn't an ordinary network controller. Its proprietary software can classify and prioritize traffic ensuring that latency sensitive applications, such as multiplayer games, will not be impacted while other things like downloads run in the background.

Recently Mark Nelson from The Tech Report visited Rivet Networks' headquarters for a briefing and posted a great writeup on the Killer NICs, explaining how the controllers work and putting them through their paces on various benchmarks.

Here's a brief rundown of the advantages it brings gamers:

Killer tells us its driver has been tweaked to minimize latency, so as soon as it gets any amount of data to send, it puts that data straight onto the wire. In contrast, a driver that doesn't prioritize latency may hold off on sending to do a couple of things. Such a driver might wait to combine multiple small payloads into a single packet if the destination is the same, or it may queue up multiple sends at a time to minimize the number of interrupts taken. Games usually send out data in 128-byte chunks or less, so Killer's driver should minimize the amount of time that game data spends in the network stack. In fact, the Killer Networking folks claim the E2400's latency performance beats the competition by up to 50% during single-application usage.

Here's what Mark found out during his benchmarking. As you can see, the Killer NIC beats the competition by a healthy margin. Check it out:

 If you want to learn more, check out the full article here on The Tech Report.

As you might remember, we recently announced the Grand Prize Winners of the GIGABYTE Heroes of the Storm™ Sweepstakes as well as the 2nd Round of Winners for GIGABYTE Prizes. There are some great prizes on the list, which include GIGABYTE motherboards and a trip to Blizzcon in California!

We sent out an email to winners recently, but sometimes these get stuck in spam filters and won't make it to your inbox. You can check the full list of winners here.

If you won the Grand Prize of a free trip to Blizzcon we'll need to hear back from you ASAP! Don't lose your chance to go to Blizzcon!

Hey guys,

I have for you the GIGABYTE Tweak Launcher (GTL) software to use on the Z170 chipset GIGABYTE motherboards to help you overclock in Windows. We’ve tested it on all versions of Windows OSes and it operates well. You can change various frequencies including base clock, CPU and Uncore ratios, various volts and voltage related parameters.

Happy OCing and be careful with this software, don’t go setting crazy voltage because you can kill hardware (for example, the settings in the screenshot were done using liquid nitrogen so we could use high voltage such as 1.45vcore on CPU and 1.84v on memory). On air cooling, these settings are not advisable. I would stick to 10% overvolt at most for regular OC rigs.

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f4loxilzn1prbhg/gtl%202.2%20b15.0923.1.rar?dl=0

Over at eTeknix, Ryan Leiserowitz posted a review of our GIGABYTE GA-X99-SOC Chamption motherboard. Ryan is a hardcore overclocker, and this was his chance to put the board through its paces.

Ryan mentions in his review that the board has enough features for pro-overclockers, and is priced competitively enough that amateur overclockers don't have to think twice about including one in their next system build.

“From pro-overclockers to enthusiast system builders, if you’re wanting to push your hardware to the limit, the GX-X99-SOC is the perfect tool for the job,”  Ryan writes. 

In the end eTeknix gave the board their "Overclockers Dream" award. Thanks guys!

GIGABYTE continues to lead the way with world records and global first places.

Over at 3D Mark, you can find the latest benchmark scores posted for FireStrike Extreme. The top score belongs to "Mad" and as you can see, he hit 34665 using a GIGABYTE X-99 SOC Champion-CF motherboard. Check it out below:

Aside from being a world record this score is remarkable for two reasons. It's the first time that the 34,000 barrier has been broken with a quad-VGA card setup, and it's also a full 1,000 points above the competition. 

Next up is a Global First Place for Fire Strike Extreme with just one GPU. 

As you can see, the 14,000 barrier has been broken. A first for a single card setup. 

And finally the regular Fire Strike with one GPU:

For those curious, here's a peak at what the rig used looks like:

Case modding is growing in popularity as many look to create that finishing touch on their PC to make it unique and original. The possibilities are really infinite, some people want a complete redesign of their case while others just want to add an enhanced water cooling solution.

Regardless of how extensive you want your case mod to be, you will need one thing: light. Without illumination you can't appreciate the clean cable runs, elaborate water cooling setups, or simply the components themselves. 

GIGABYTE has a solution: LED lights along the motherboard. On select GIGABYTE 100 series models, including the Gaming G1, there is a multi-color LED trace path around the board. With the Ambient LED app in the GIGABYTE APP center you can customize the light pattern, with three different options, and seven different color options. 

Check out this video from the GIGABYTE Motherboard and Brix YouTube channel for more information:

With all the color and light pattern options the possibilities are endless. The LED lights can compliment case mods or additions like high-end coolers, illuminating them so you can show them off. Or simply on their own they can provide a cool, custom look for your rig.

MacOS X has a loyal following, even among PC users. While many PC users, especially enthusiasts, would never buy an Apple computer because of the price premium they command and lack of upgradeability it would be hard to find someone that won't admit even a slight affinity for OS X.

But unfortunately for PC loving fans of OS X, Apple has ruled out ever officially licensing its operating system to PC vendors. However there is a solution if you want to run OS X on your PC: build a CustoMac.

A CustoMac is a PC that the user builds specifically for running OS X. TonyMacx86 is one of the largest communities on the web dedicated to building CustoMacs. Recently we covered their guide on how to turn a GIGABYTE Brix-S into a CustoMac-mini. Of course not all PC hardware is compatible with OS X, so TonyMacx86 has put together an extensive guide to show you what you need to build your very own CustoMac.

If you have an interest in running OS X on your PC, head on over to to TonyMac x86 now to check out the guide. You'll notice that GIGABYTE motherboards are extensively supported!

The average PC refresh cycle is getting longer and longer. While at one time a person was likely to refresh their PCs every two-to-three years, this cycle has stretched on to now be between five to seven years. While hardcore gamers might update their hardware on a 12 month cycle, the average person that doesn't have a budget to do yearly upgrades might still be using hardware form 2010.

And for the average person this might work -- but it won't work well. While hardware from 2010 might be able to play 2015's latest games, it will only do so with choppy frame rates at the lowest resolutions and graphics settings. This is far from an enjoyable gaming experience, and is not how the developers intended the games to be played.

Just to show you the performance advantage a modern system featuring an Intel® 6th. Gen™ CPU, DDR4 RAM, an Intel 750-series SSD, a GIGABYTE WindForce GeForce 980 Ti graphics card on a GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 motherboard has over a system with a 2010-era high-end hardware we've prepared a video demonstrating the vast difference in performance. As you will see, our benchmarking of the resource demanding Grand Theft Auto V and the benchmark suite Catzilla shows that the 2010-era system struggles while the GIGABYTE G1 Gaming motherboard based system has no problem.

Check out the video below from the GIGABYTE Motherboard and Brix YouTube channel:

Building a 2015 gaming machine

For the benchmarking tests we chose to put together a system that would represent what an average user would be after if they wanted to build a high-end system. Of course, there are those that have the budget for an extreme system with multiple graphics cards and extensive watercooling systems but many gamers simply don't have the budget for that and want high-end gaming at an affordable price.

Let's go through the parts used in building the PC and why we chose them.

GIGABYTE 100 Series Motherboard: For this video we used the GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 motherboard, the flagship Gaming motherboard of GIGABYTE's 100 Series lineup. The Gaming G1 motherboard has many high-end features that set it miles apart from the competition.

For audiophiles looking to game with crystal-clear sound the Gaming G1 motherboard has a Creative® Sound Core3D™ Quad-Core audio processor with a Burr-Brown high end 127 dB DAC which is Creative® certified ZxRi 120+dB SNR . For those with an interest in overclocking, the GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 board features enhanced BCLK frequency tuning, allowing overclockers to make adjustments outside of the traditional 5% straps. In addition, for gamers that play online, lag is a thing of the past: this board features the lag-killing Killer DoubleShot-X3™ Pro which intelligently routes traffic over the board's available connections ensuring that online games run silky smooth even as downloads continue in the background.

While this motherboard might be right for someone with a bigger budget for a system build, there's also the GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming 7 or the Z170X-Gaming 3 for those that need to stay within a smaller budget. All of these GIGABYTE's 100 Series motherboards support the latest Intel 6th.® Gen™ CPU, DDR4 RAM, feature onboard USB Type-C™ and have other innovative and award-winning GIGABYTE features.


Intel 6th. Gen CPU: For those wanting the best in price-performance, there's no better choice than an Intel 6th. Gen CPU. As you can see in the video it offers double-digit performance gains over a CPU from the last generation. Under the lid Intel has made improvements to the micro architecture to make it more efficient.

One of the things Intel has improved is the processor's ability to fetch and dispatch up to six instructions at once and store up to 224 instructions in its out-of-order buffer at once (up from 192 in Haswell).  

In addition, it has enhanced support for DDR4, support for USB 3.1 over USB Type C, and better baseclock tuning for enhanced overclocking support.

If you're after some more in-depth benchmarking and analysis check out these reviews from around the web.

DDR4 RAM: First supported on Intel fifth-generation CPUs, DDR4 is the latest generation of RAM offering a range of improvements over over DDR2 and DDR3.

The primary advantages of DDR4 is that is offers higher speeds -- between 800 to 1600 MHz -- than DDR3 which had a maximum frequency of 1067 MHz, as well as it runs at a lower voltage.

The big speed increases that DDR4 offers makes it a must have for any gamer looking to get the most out of his system.

Intel 750 Series SSD: Over the past five years SSDs have gone down in price dramatically while increasing in speed and storage.  Now, the cost per gigabyte of an SSD is getting to be very competitive to an HDD for the average user (with the cost/GB approaching $1). SSDs are faster than HDDs because they use something called non-volatile NAND memory instead of a magnetic platter and actuator arm. On average, a PCIe-based SSD will offer a 4X speed improvement over an HDD. For a more detailed explainer of the differences between an HDD and SSD, you can check out this post from PC Mag.

For our system we used the Intel 750 Series SSD. This SSD fits right into the motherboard's PCI-e slot, and uses a controller protocol developed by Intel called Non-Volatile Memory Express (commonly shortened as NVMe). Benchmarks published online show that the SSD can push 2.4GB/sec of read and 1.2GB/sec of write bandwidth. For gamers this means that demanding games (such as Grand Theft Auto V which we tested) can run at a better FPS as the system has faster access to  the game's data and high-resolution textures.

It's time to upgrade 

While many users might think that their 2010 era PC is good enough, that's simply not the case. Yes it might be able to struggle with running some games, but you won't be able to appreciate them to their full extent. You'll need to run the games at their lowest resolution and lowest graphics settings, which is hardly the way they were meant to be played. 

We understand that some users are having trouble installing Windows 7 by USB drive on their systems that have a  GIGABYTE 100 series motherboard inside.

The problem lies in the fact that Windows 7's installer is only compatible with an older type of USB driver. The GIGABYTE 100 series motherboard uses a newer kind of USB driver, meaning you will get an error when trying to install Windows 7.

Thankfully there is a fix for this which allows you to package the updated driver on to your USB driver.

In order to build the patched version of Windows 7, you'll need a few things:

1) A genuine copy of Windows 7 or iso file
2) A USB drive with over 4GB of storage
3) A separate computer
4) The Windows Image Tool available for free from GIGABYTE 

Once you download the Windows Image Tool from GIGABYTE the process is fairly easy. Here's the process you need to follow step-by-step:

1) Open the tool from GIGABYTE. There's no need to install it.
2) In the source option select your disc drive
3) In the destination path pick your USB drive.
4) Make sure the 'add USB drivers' option is selected
5) Click start and wait for the process to finish.


Note: if you just need to add the USB drivers to an existing ISO you can do that from the source option.

Check out this video from our YouTube channel to learn more:

The GIGABYTE Z97 Last Hurrah wrapped up last week and now the results are official.

We would like to congratulate Xtreme Addict and Arhaam for winning the contest. Xtreme Addict took first place in the Extreme Cooling category with 79 points and won a GIGABYTE Z170X-SOC Force motherboard. Arhaam won the ambient cooling category with 73 points and is also taking home a GIGABYTE Z170X-SOC Force board.

For more information on the contest and the official results, head on over to HWBOT's OC E-Sports portal.

Heroes of the Storm™ is one of the hottest games to come out of Blizzard® in a long time. Using familiar gameplay mechanics found in games such as DOTA, Heroes of the Storm allows players to battle it out with their favorite characters from the Blizzard universe. The game is free-to-play and supported by micro-transactions for in-game character upgrades.

Heroes of the Storm will be one of the highlights of Blizzard's BlizzCon expo which kicks off in November in Anaheim, California. GIGABYTE is the official motherboard partner of BlizzCon and we want to send you to the show!

While supplies last, when you purchase select GIGABYTE motherboards you are eligible for participation in the sweepstakes where you could instantly win a variety of prizes including a Kerrigan hero, a Succubus skin and a GRAND PRIZE Trip to Anaheim, CA to attend BlizzCon® 2015.

Find out more at: http://event.gigabyte.com/heroes/.

The GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 motherboard certainly is an exciting product, and one of the most interesting parts on the board is the Killer Wireless AC-1535 controller from Rivet Networks.

Wireless network controllers are a part that's often forgotten about on the motherboard. For the most part they work, and work well, so that's good enough for most users. However, the Killer Wireless AC-1535 brings a load of new features that goes above and beyond what a standard built-in adapter can offer.

Recently Forbes' contributor Marco Chiappetta had a chance to review a  Killer Wireless AC-1535 and he had this to say about it:

Virtually across the board, the Killer Wireless-AC 1535 outpaced the Intel solution. To give some examples, when using the Nighthawk X6 router in the real-world environment, and connected at a range of 5M, the Killer NIC offered up 676.28Mbs to Intel’s 666.9Mb/s. At 15 meters the Killer NIC offered 607.6Mb/s to the Intel controller’s 508.2Mb/s. And at 25M, the delta remained significant—399.1MB/s to 338.8MBs. When connected to a Linksys E8500 in a real-world environment, the numbers are similar. The Killer Wireless-AC 1535 offered up 622.9, 635.6, and 499.5MB/s, at 5M, 15M, and 25M, respectively, to the Intel 7265’s 621.8, 608.7, and 454MB/s. Performance in the clean environment showed similar, and sometimes larger, deltas in the Killer’s favor, though the real-world numbers are far more likely to mirror what an end-user is going to see (and be able to reproduce) on their own network.

As you can see, the  Killer Wireless AC-1535 stands out from the competition and is a must for any enthusiast system. The Killer Wireless AC-1535 is available now on the GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 motherboard.

For the next few hours Dinos22 will be livestreaming an OC tutorial and answering your questions. Check it out on YouTube Gaming! If you like what you see let us know and we'll be sure to do more livestreams in the future.

The GIGABYTE Z97 Last Hurrah Challenge wrapped up over the weekend, and you can view the leaderboard over on HWBOT. As with any GIGABYTE overclocking challenge, the results were more than impressive and we wish to congratulate both the winners and everyone who entered.

The official results are still being tabulated, and HWBOT will release the official results and overall winners soon. But for now we can share who got first place in the Extreme Challenge and Ambient Challenge.

For the Extreme Challenge, team PURE's Xtreme Addict took first place with 79 points. He was followed closely by Jagat Review's Lucky_noob who scored 63 points.

Over at the Ambient Challenge, arhaam from Indonesia's team OC-44 took first place with 73 points while Coldest from Jagat Review's team took second place with 63 points.

Congrats again to all the winners, and for more information on the contest head on over to HWBOT.

Overclocking TV (OCTV) conducted a series of one-on-one interviews with some of the world’s best known overclockers during the recent Computex 2015 overclocker gathering. This week they’re focusing on dinos22 who is one of GIGABYTE’s OC gurus. Check it out!

GIGABYTE is pleased to receive two more awards for its 100-series motherboards.

First up, our friends at HiTech Legion recently gave the GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 a GOLD award.

They give the motherboard the highest of praises:

Gigabyte designed the Z170X Gaming 7 motherboard well it is stable, it performs as expected for a high end gaming board it doesn’t skimp on connectivity and is remarkably one of the sexiest motherboards they have ever produced.

Now over at ThinkComputers our Z170X Gaming G1 motherboard was bestowed with a very high score.

During the review the author pointed out some of the industry leading features that allows GIGABYTE motherboards to stand apart from the competition:

As I said in the introduction of this review the Z170X-Gaming G1 has been on my radar since it was revealed at Computex. Now that I’ve got my hands on it and have been able to test it am I still excited about it? You bet I am! Gigabyte has really put together an amazing flagship board for their Z170 series, name a feature and this board has it! 

 As I mentioned in my other Z170 motherboard reviews with Z170 we are going to see a lot more I/O connections and Gigabyte also has great implementation of this. Gigabyte makes use of Intel’s dual Thunderbolt and USB 3.1 controller. This means you have four PCI-Express 3.0 lanes routed to the Intel controller so you can use 40 Gb/s Thunderbolt 3.0 from the rear USB 3.1 port. Gigabyte also includes the USB 3.1 bay so you can use USB 3.1 devices on the front of your tower. When it comes to M.2 slots you have dual 32 Gb/s M.2 slots which means you can run two M.2 solid state drives in a RAID setup. Gigabyte includes a M.2 to U.2 adapter for NVMe solid state drives too!

Check back soon as we post more reviews. GIGABYTE 100 series motherboards are available now from retailers and etailers around the world. 

Ever since Apple announced it was joining the world of x86, people have been building 'Hackintosh' computers. For those that don't know, a Hackintosh is a regular PC that's running Mac OS X.

Of course Apple doesn't officially support such efforts which is why communities have sprung up to help fill this gap. After all, without Apple's official support the process isn't quite a walk in the walk in the park that you'd expect.

Our favorite community to support such efforts in making what they call "CustoMacs" is TonyMacx86. Recently they published a guide on how to run MacOSX Yosemite on a GIGABYTE BRIX-s. You can check the guide out there but be warned: it's not exactly for beginners but anyone that's comfortable tweaking some settings in their BIOS should be able to pull it off.

So, are you reading to build a BRIXintosh?

It always feels good to be recognized for good work.

As you know, we recently released our 100-series motherboards based on the Intel® 6^th generation CPU and the Z170 chipset.

Our board for gamers that demand the best, the Gaming G1, was recently reviewed by TweakTown where it received an Editor's Choice award and a score of 95%.

Here's what Steven Bassiri from TweakTown said about the board:

 

Apart from having one of the highest capacity VRMs for the Intel Z170 chipset, the Z170X-Gaming G1 has to be one of the most feature packed motherboards. While this is kind of expected since the Z170 chipset is the most feature packed, GIGABYTE went above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to adding features. They not only added 4-way SLI/CrossFireX support, but also the latest Intel USB 3.1/Thunderbolt 3.0 controller and two extra SATA controllers. The board also comes with 13 possible USB 3.0 ports and two 32Gb/s M.2 slots. GIGABYTE even paid attention to the Wi-Fi/BT antennas providing a retention bracket for the MMCX connections which do not use the screw-in method. If all that wasn't enough, GIGABYTE also provides a USB 3.1 front panel bay so that you can use USB 3.1 devices through the front of your case.

This is one crazy packed motherboard. It has all the latest technologies from Intel, Killer, and Creative and they are all implemented well. The Intel USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt 3.0 controller is implemented with the proper hardware for the USB Power Delivery specification and integrated graphics switching, Killer's latest NICs are implemented so they can work together, and Creative's hardware is implemented like it is on a sound card with the addition of replaceable amplifiers and dedicated DAC.

 

 

Here is a GIGABYTE Z170X Gaming G1 custom build we've been working on for our Intel Roadshow. Share it with your friends if you like it!

SYSTEM SPEC:

• GIGABYTE Z170X Gaming G1
• Intel 6700K @4.5GHz
• GIGABYTE 290X GPU
• Corsair H110i watercooling
• Corsair 16GB Vengeance DDR4 3200MHz
• Corsair AX760 PSU
• Corsair 512GB Force SSD
• Inwin 805 case
• Bitfenix LEDs
• Bitfenix LED Fans
• Bitfenix Cable Sleeving
• Windows 10 Pro

 

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At GIGABYTE we hope you are as excited as we are about the launch of our 100 series motherboards, based on the Intel® Z170 chipset with support for Intel’s new 6th Gen. Core™ processor.

One of the new features that our 100 series motherboards bring to the table is USB 3.1 over the USB Standard A connector and the new USB Type-C™ connector. You've probably heard quite a bit on the USB Type-C connector and know already about how it's making it easier to connect devices to it by being reversible and heard that it can be much more than a simple data transfer port.

As GIGABYTE is always on the lookout to bring the latest innovations to its new boards, with the 100 series motherboards we are introducing the WORLD'S FIRST USB 3.1 solution powered by the new Intel USB3.1 controller, which provides much more bandwidth than others.

As mentioned one of the main advantage from the Intel USB 3.1 controller is its capacity to utilize 4 PCIe Gen3 lanes, therefore offering a total of up to 32 Gb/s of bandwidth. But of course specs are specs and actual performance may vary, so to demonstrate the increase of bandwidth we've put our working gloves on and put the two onboard fast ports to the test.

 

While having two USB3.1 devices connected and put under a full loading stress test, we were able a blazing 1725 Mb/read/write performance over the two USB3.1 ports! That is 2X the performance achieved than on other USB3.1 controller. 

For those doing storage intensive work such as media editing, this is a godsend. External storage drives are no longer bottlenecked by the motherboard’s connectivity. But increased bandwidth isn't the only benefit, USB 3.1 over both the Standard A and Type-C connector are also backward compatible with USB3.0 and 2.0 as well as support power delivery to charge up your mobile devices or external storage devices, making this Intel powered solution not only a blazing fast one but always one that is compatible with tens of thousands of devices out there!

Through the use of Intel’s USB 3.1 controller, GIGABYTE 100 series motherboards are able to rise above the competition and are the only choice for those that want to experience the full potential of USB 3.1.

For more info on GIGABYTE's 100 series motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com/mb/100-gaming/Performance

The Z97 Last Hurrah Challenge is in full swing right now over at HWBOT, with around three weeks to go before they declare a winner. Right now Lucky_N00b is leading the pack, but it's still anyone's contest to win.

GIGABYTE is pleased to announce that the mystery motherboards up for grabs are two of our Z170X-SOC Force which are designed with overclockers in mind. There's also up to $2,000 USD in cash prizes to be won.

For more on the contest, and to check out the current leaderboards, head on over to HWBOT.

On some motherboards the network controller is a part often looked over. Most network controllers are good enough, and don't get the attention that other parts do.

But here at GIGABYTE we took a different approach to the network interface controller with our 100 series boards, which is why we partnered with Rivet, makers of the Killer™ line of network controllers, to integrate its advanced traffic management solutions into our boards.

The first layer of intelligent traffic management comes from the Advanced Stream Detect 2.0 function found in the Killer™ E2400 Network Interface Controller. Advanced Stream Detect 2.0 separates traffic into six levels based so that the user has a seamless, lag-free experience while each level gets the bandwidth it needs. For example, a multiplayer game may not need a lot of bandwidth but it's latency sensitive so its traffic needs to be prioritized. On the other hand, a Bit torrent download requires a lot of bandwidth but its packets can wait so its packets are dropped in priority.

The next level of traffic management comes from the DoubleShot-X3™ app. This app works to improve your network connectivity by intelligently prioritizing traffic over the available connections. Wired connections tend to have less lag than wireless given the nature of the medium. As the graphic shows below, traffic levels that are sensitive to latency (such as games) will be routed via the two Killer E2400 Ethernet connections while traffic that's not latency sensitive will be routed via the Killer Wireless E1535 Adapter.

Why is this important?

Everyone is a multi tasker. While you play a multiplayer game such as World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto 5 you're probably running some other kind of download in the background. Without some kind of way to intelligently prioritize the traffic, the latency dependent multiplayer game has to compete with what's being downloaded. This means that your gameplay lag will spike, potentially making the game unplayable.

With the DoubleShot-X3 and Killer E2400, traffic is routed intelligently resulting in up to 10x improvements in latency when multitasking and 75% improvements in single application use. In addition, DoubleShot-X3 combines the speed of two wired Killer Gigabit Ethernet controllers with the flexibility of Killer Wireless to provide max throughput as high as 2.867Gbps.

This is just one of the exciting new features GIGABYTE's 100 series motherboards have. Be sure to check out some of the other posts on our blog to find out more on why GIGABYTE motherboards lead the industry.

The new E2400 NIC from Killer is featuring on the GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 and Z170X-Gaming 7 motherboards from the newly launched GIGABYTE 100 Series motherboards.

Overclocking is a hot (so to speak) topic in the hardware enthusiast community. But for those that are new to the community, or unfamiliar with overclocking, getting started might be a little intimidating.

But fear not, our friends at HWBOT have put together a series of guides on their SkatterBencher YouTube channel that goes through the basics of setting up a system for overclocking and doing your first overclock.

Check them out here:

The GIGABYTE BRIX is one of the most unique and exciting products we've released in a long time, and we are always pleased when it gets recognized by the press.

Legit Reviews recently reviewed our GIGABYTE BRIX S GB-BXi5H-5200 and had this to say:

Gigabyte has you covered regardless of your needs.  If you want a more powerful processor, they have BRIX models with Intel i7 processors.  If you want more gaming power, the BRIX Gaming with a discrete graphics card would be for you.  The BRIX s GB-BXi5H-5200 is the middle of the line model, that is powerful enough for the average home or business user.  It would make a great mini desktop for a home theater system or for people with tight living space.

The Gigabyte BRIX s has a lot to offer for those that wants a powerful and stable mini system.  The option to use either a mSATA or 2.5in hard drive allows for the user to choose their individual components to meet their storage needs.

You can check out the full review here.

The GIGABYTE BRIX S GB-BXi5H-5200 is available now from leading etailers and retailers worldwide.

EKWB always manages to impress with its watercooling setups. But the GIGABYTE SOC CHAMPION system, built in collaboration with Canada's NCIX, is truly something special.

Just check out this video below:

The new custom Gigabyte SOC Champion Edition NCIX PC. See more of the system: http://www.ncix.com/article/SOC-Champion.htmIt's on display at EXP Bar in Vancouver, check it out!
Posted by NCIX on Saturday, July 18, 2015

 

 

The X99-SOC CHAMPION is available exclusively from NCIX. NCIX has packed in the best features possible on three different price points. Check it out below:

For more information on this PC head on over to NCIX.