Motherboard

Over the past couple of years ASRock have really upped their game and are now competing with world renowned motherboard manufacturers such as Asus and Gigabyte.  We have looked at a number of motherboards from ASRock recently and none of them have failed to impress.  So when they offered us …

One of the most successful MSI mainboard ranges of recent times was the Big Bang. While very appealing in terms of pure specification, the boards were priced high and not accessible to everyone. Now MSI's engineers have taken a step back, pulled out the best features from Big Bang and …

Last month we saw some of Gigabyte's upcoming Z77 motherboards at Computex which feature their latest Ultra Durable 5 technology.  We have been very impressed by all the existing Gigabyte Z77 motherboards we've tested so we are quite excited to see what the new range has to offer. Today we …

How do you best demonstrate what 32-phases of power regulation can do? Well, if you’re Gigabyte, you hook up a pair of 1200W power supplies and wire up the board to three DC load testers and pull an insane 2000W through the CPU socket. According to Gigabyte, this is enough …

One month after Asrock captured the hearts and minds with the world's first Windows 8 main board for Intel processors, it's now looking to double up with a fist entry into the AMD space. In the aftermath of AMD's less than stellar financials report for Q2, surely there must be …

Following AMD's early heads-up to the market that it could miss its stated target for 2012, it comes as little surprise that today's numbers are not strong. So what next for AMD and how should it react?  KitGuru leans against a Wall in the Street and ponders whether money ever …

We have tested a number of products from ASRock over the past couple of years and none of them have failed to impress.  It's clear that they are gunning for the longer established brands such as Asus and Gigabyte and they now produce a full range of motherboards targeted at …

Asus produce a comprehensive range of motherboards which spans the performance and budget friendly ends of the market.  We have already looked at some of their high performance Z77 motherboards including the Sabertooth Z77 and Republic of Gamers Maximus V Z77  Gene which are designed for users who want the ultimate …

If you are in the market for a new, competitively priced gaming system then today's review will be of particular interest. We are taking a look at the new MSI Z77A-GD80 motherboard due for release in July and the R7770 Power Edition graphics card with a rather unusual, proprietary single/dual …

Back in October we conducted an in-depth test of AMD's FX-8150 Black Edition, the range topping processor based on their latest Bulldozer architecture.  We were reasonably impressed with the chip as it overclocked well and outperformed the Intel Core i5-2500K in a number of tests. Over the last few weeks, AMD …

With the launch of Biostar's new Puro Hi-Fi technology, the mainboard specialist is aiming to hit a signal-to-noise ratio of 110dB which, it claims, will give users near loss-less audio reproduction. Established in 1986, Biostar is a mainboard manufacturer whose headquarters is located in the Xindian District of New Taipei …

We’ve written about a fair few of the new motherboards on display at Computex, but we haven’t even touched upon some of the smaller board makers, nor have we covered all of the products from the bigger guys. Take a deep breath and follow KitGuru down the rabbit hole for …

There has been a lot of talk about Thunderbolt and we’ve already seen motherboards from all of the major manufacturers that support the new standard, as well as many Ultrabooks and even a tablet and that doesn’t even take Apple into account. What we haven’t really seen a lot of …

At the beginning of May we reviewed the Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H which delivered great performance at a modest price point around £160. Today we are looking at the budget GA-Z77-D3H which retails in the UK for only £80. At half the price is this useless for the overclockers on a tight …

The TB_Header on Asus’ recently launched Z77 and H77 motherboard cause a lot of confusion at first, but once the company announced it was working on an add-in card that would allow users to upgrade these boards with Thunderbolt support, things became a lot clearer. At Computex the company was …

Ah yes, yet another Thunderbolt equipped motherboard. Well, not quite, as ASRock has actually come up with a clever way of making its Z77 Extreme6/TB4 work with discrete graphics cards, although, just as with Asus, it does require an external cable. In fact, ASRock pretty much did what Asus did …

No one in the enthusiast desktop sector may actually appear to want it, but ASRock are the first motherboard manufacturer to get Windows 8 hardware certification. They proudly announced “With the outstanding R&D capability, ASRock motherboard is hardware ready to support the newest operation system Windows® 8, delivering a safest …

If you’re not familiar with the professional overclocking scene, then you might not be familiar with who Nick Shih is, but suffice to say that he’s one of the world’s top five overclockers. He also happens to work with ASRock and he has now designed a motherboard together with ASRock …

The widescreen display has since long conquered the computer monitor and TV markets, but apparently we haven’t gone wide enough. After 16:9 comes 21:9 which is pretty much cinema aspect ratio and now the first computer products using this even wider aspect ratio are starting to trickle through. At Computex …

If there’s one trend for motherboards this year at Computex beyond adding Thunderbolt, then it has to be motherboards designed specifically for overclockers. MSI introduced its new MPower series of motherboards at Computex which akin to what ASRock was showing, are scaled back motherboards in terms of features, but with …

When it comes to high-end motherboard, Asus’ R.O.G. series has gained something of a reputation for offering some of the most extreme features in the market. Earlier today at Computex, Asus unveiled its Maximus V Extreme based on the Z77 chipset and to say that some of the enthusiast community …

We have to say that Thunderbolt doesn’t seem like the most useful addition to a desktop system, simply because there are enough expansion ports and internal interfaces for most people to be more than happy. However, on something like a mATX motherboard it makes a little bit more sense and …

AMD’s change of socket for its APU platform is disappointing so early into the eco systems life, but in time for Computex the first socket FM2 boards are starting to appear. Gigabyte’s first model is the GA-F2A85X-UP4 and is as the model name suggests based on AMD’s new A85X chipset. …

So far, we’ve only seen motherboards with a single Thunderbolt port, but Gigabyte’s new GA-Z77X-UP4 TH is the first motherboard to sport a pair of the high-speed ports. However, there’s much more to this new motherboard than Thunderbolt connectivity, so let’s take a closer look at what’s on offer. The …

We’ve seen quite a few “extreme” motherboards over the years, but Gigabyte’s new GA-Z77X-UP7 takes things to a new level, at least as far as the PWM is concerned. The company is using a new type of power regulation in the shape of International Rectifier’s PowIRstage (pronounced power stage) which …

While everyone has a favourite scene from serious war epics like Saving Private Ryan, KitGuru has always been drawn to the lone sniper. The character who will remain motionless for as long as it takes to draw his enemy out – and then blow his head off with a single …

Modern, internal drives are often described as delivering 6 gigabits of data transfer a second. That's the requirement for SATA III and the latest drives deliver. So how ironic is it that Asus would begin manufacturing mainboards where the EXTERNAL connection operates at 10 gigabits per second? KitGuru gets on …

We received an email today from an industry source who claimed that the Gigabyte Z77X-US5H had V-Core problems. The claims were made that this would hinder overclocking and perhaps even potentially reduce reliability long term. We had no problems getting the board to 4.8ghz with a £20 cooler when we …

Today we are taking a look at the Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H, the latest Z77 motherboard targeting the mainstream enthusiast audience. This board is built for overclocking and stability using the 3D power system with Auto Voltage Compensation. Is this an ideal board to shortlist for your next system build? Over the …

The Biostar brand doesn't have a massive presence in the UK, at least not in the enthusiast segment of the market.  We consider Asus, ASRock and Gigabyte to be the top three enthusiast brands on the market at the moment but this is something Biostar are looking to change with …