Hardware

BIOS and Overclocking Of the two things that worried me about the Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3, the main one was the BIOS. As manufacturers such as MSI, ASUS, and ASROCK have started promoting their UEFI-only BIOS, I wondered if Gigabyte had done the same, and if they had done it right. As we can see, Gigabyte has done a terrific job with their UEFI …

Temperature, Power, and Efficiency The Z68X-UD3H-B3 yielded some excellent results when it came to overall efficiency: The Dynamic Energy Saver 2 feature also contributed its fair share to keep the entire system as adept as possible: NEXT: BIOS and Overclocking Page 1: Introduction Page 2: Specifications, Overview, and Features Page 3: Closer Look, Specifications, and Benchmark Testing Platform Page 4: CPU Benchmarks Page 5: Computation and …

Z68 Chipset-Specific Benchmarks LucidLogix Virtu In a nutshell, Virtu is software developed by LucidLogix that allows the use of a dedicated GPU and the CPU’s integrated GPU (as present on Sandy Bridge processors) simultaneously. There are three modes of operation: ‘Off’ (use of dedicated GPU only; integrated GPU is not being used), ‘i-Mode’ (integrated), and ‘d-mode’ (dedicated). ‘i-Mode’ is limited to …

Overall System Benchmarks Futuremark 3DMark 11 Professional Edition 3DMark 11 is the latest version of the worlds most popular benchmark for measuring the graphics performance of gaming PCs. Designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX …

Gaming Benchmarks Crysis: Warhead In Crysis Warhead, players will don the Nanosuit of Sergeant Sykes, also known as ‘Psycho’, one of the most memorable characters from Crysis. More brash and aggressive than his Delta Force squadmate Nomad, players will experience Psycho’s parallel story during the events of the original game, finding that life on the other side of the island is …

Memory Benchmarks SiSoftware Sandra Professional Business Edition SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information and diagnostic utility. It provides most of the information (including undocumented) needed by testing hardware, software and other devices. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level, Sandra presents information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, …

Storage and Peripheral Benchmarks CrystalDiskMark CrystalDiskMark is a small benchmark utility for hard drives (as well as flash drives) that enables rapid measurements of sequential and random read/write speeds. The USB 2.0 test was performed using the 64GB Patriot SuperSpeed USB 3.0 flash drive: The USB 3.0 test was performed using the 64GB Patriot SuperSpeed USB 3.0 flash drive: The …

Computation and Productivity Benchmarks 7-Zip 64-Bit Edition 7-Zip is an open source file archiver designed originally for Microsoft Windows. 7-Zip operates with the 7z archive format, and can read and write several other archive formats. The program can be used from a command line interface, graphical user interface, or Windows shell integration. Sorenson Squeeze 7.0 Sorenson Squeeze is a compression suite for video. It encodes to multiple …

CPU Benchmarks Finalwire AIDA64 Extreme Engineer Edition AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software suite. AIDA64 Extreme provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. NEXT: Computation and Productivity Benchmarks Page …

Closer Look, Specifications, and Benchmark Testing Platform Finally we get to the actual board itself. As usual, Gigabytes box art is extremely colourful, and the features are well presented: The back: The accessories include no less than four SATA cables, one flexible SLI bridge, an I/O shield, as well as the installation manual and software disk: Once the anti-static bag …