Introduction

Chapter 1 Understanding Component Specifications 1.1 The Central Processing Unit (CPU) ............... P.06 1.2 What is on Your Motherboard?....................... P.12 1.3 Graphics Card.................................................. P.24 1.4 Memory ............................................................ P.32 1.5 Storage Devices .............................................. P.35 1.6 What to Look for in Chassis, Power and Cooler. P.41 1.7 Displays............................................................ P.48 1.8 Keyboard and Mouse...................................... P.49

Chapter 2 Before You Start Installation Tools .............................................. P.50

Chapter 3 Hands-on Installation 3.1 Installing the Power Supply in the Chassis.... P.52 3.2 Installation of Components on the

Motherboard..................................................... P.54 3.3 Installing the Motherboard............................... P.58 3.4 Storage Device Installation ............................. P.61 3.5 Installing Peripherals ....................................... P.66 3.6 Connecting Peripherals................................... P.67

Chapter 4 Start up and BIOS Settings 4.1 Startup Screen................................................. P.70 4.2 BIOS Settings .................................................. P.72 4.3 Windows® 7...................................................... P.74

Chapter 5 Unique GIGABYTE Features 5.1 The Power of “333” Onboard Acceleration .... P.77 5.2 24 Phase Power VRM Design........................ P.79 5.3 Smart TPM....................................................... P.81 5.4 AutoGreen........................................................ P.81 5.5 Smart Dual LAN............................................... P.82 5.6 eSATA/USB Combo Ports .............................. P.82 5.7 GIGABYTE Smart 6™.................................... P.83 5.8 DES 2............................................................... P.86 5.9 Ultra Durable™ 3............................................. P.86 5.10 2 oz PCB.......................................................... P.87 5.11 Upgrading the BIOS........................................ P.88 5.12 EasyTune™ 6.................................................. P.90 5.13 Xpress Recovery2........................................... P.92

Chapter 6 Introduction to the Latest Technologies 6.1 Intel XMP.......................................................... P.94

6.2 Intel Matrix Storage.......................................... P.95

Published by GIGABYTE TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.

Address No.6, Bau Chiang Road, Hsin-Tien, Taipei 231, Taiwan

Telephone (02) 8912-4000 Website www.gigabyte.com.tw Publication date November 2009

Special Notice All registered trademarks mentioned in this book

are owned by their respective holders. GIGABYTE owns the copyright of the contents in

this book. No copy or reproduction of any form is allowed.

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3

Introduction

Congratulations, by picking up “Build your own PC in 30 minutes” you’ve just taken the first step towards building your own PC. At first, building your own PC might seem like something that is complicated and slightly daunting, but fret not, as GIGABYTE is here to help you on the way. If you find the technical terms to be confusing or if think you lack some of the knowledge needed to assemble your own system, then this guidebook is just what you’ve been waiting for. It will not only teach you how to put together your own computer, but it will also teach you about the latest technology and jargon, to make it easy for you to select the components you need.

First and foremost, it’s a lot easier to build your own PC than you might think and it doesn’t require a lot of technical knowhow. This guide book contains easy to follow steps on how to assemble a computer and if you follow them, you should be able to put together a complete system in no more than 30 minutes. Considering how affordable PC components are these days, a basic system won’t cost a lot and you can have fun while learning something new at the same. With components from GIGABYTE you also get the best products on the market, both in terms of quality, performance and reliability.

As a leading motherboard manufacturer, GIGABYTE is committed to delivering a complete IT solution by supplying a wide range of PC components, including graphics cards, optical drives, networking and communication devices, power supplies, cases, coolers and peripherals. To fulfill this goal, GIGABYTE’s annual publication of “Build Your Own PC in 30 Minutes” provides the latest information you need to know. With its clear and straightforward instructions, this guidebook can help you get your PC up and running in record time. Shall we get started?

GIGABYTE’s motherboard, graphics accelerator, and peripherals offer consumers not only a variety of products to choose from, but also have a reputation of outstanding quality and performance.

A collection of computer components from GIGABYTE

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Computers have been around for a long time, much longer than you’d think, although in the early days, computers were advanced mechanical calculators, unlike the advanced electronic machines we use today. Early electronic computers were huge and took up a whole room if not more. A modern pocket calculator has more computational power than many of the early computers.

What we today refer to as a PC or a Personal Computer had its breakthrough in the 1970’s, but it took another decade before the PC as we know it today took shape. IBM was the company behind what we today call a PC, although it has evolved way beyond being a personal office computer which was the goal for IBM at the time.

There are two key parts to a computer, hardware and software. Hardware is the “box” itself, or more precise, the components inside it. The software is what allows you to “talk” to the hardware, although software has also evolved over the years and has largely become a lot easier to use. The two work in tandem, so having slow or inadequate hardware means that your software will run slow.

The main piece of software every computer needs is an operating system, also known as the OS. Without an operating system you can’t use your computer, as it’s the base platform in which you run your applications. There are many operating systems to choose from, although the most popular one is Microsoft Windows, of which there are a wide variety of versions, although the most commonly used today are Windows XP, Windows Vista and the recently launched Windows 7. Linux is also an operating system that is slowly gaining more popularity and is in general free to download and install. There are too many different versions of Linux for us to summarize them here, but a few popular “distributions” are Ubuntu, RedHat and SuSE.

Once you’ve installed your operating system you also need to install drivers, as without drivers your operating system can’t detect any peripherals that you’ve installed. Some drivers are in general built into the operating system, although at times you need to install them while installing the operating system. This has also become easier over the years, but remains as one of the trickiest parts when you’re building a PC. However, in general, you shouldn’t end up having to do this.

Once the drivers are installed, you’re ready to add applications to your operating system. Again, most operating systems come with a selection of pre-installed applications, although these tend to offer fairly basic functionality. Common applications includes office suites, web browsers, image, audio and video editing and manipulation software, games and much more.

However, this book will focus on hardware, as if we were to cover all the software aspects, we’d have to double the page count. However, later chapters will explain how you install drivers and some GIGABYTE specific applications on your computer once you’ve finished building it.

Many people confuse the various bits of a computer, although the key parts are inside the computer case. If you already own a PC, it can be hard to determine what’s inside it without opening it up, although there are some advanced software utilities that can detect and report what components your PC is made up of.

What is a Computer?

A wide range of external peripherals can be attached to a computer, although some aren’t optional.

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The main parts inside the computer case consist of the CPU or Central Processing Unit, the motherboard which houses the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) and all the expansion slots, the RAM (Random Access Memory), the graphics card, the hard disk drive, the optical drive and a power supply. These are the key components, but you also need to add some coolers and fans to make it all work without overheating.

There are different ways of adding peripherals to your PC and the easiest way is by using the USB ports. However, the USB ports are mostly used for devices such as the mouse and keyboard, printers, web cameras and other fairly basic input devices. External storage drives such as USB flash drives and external hard disk drives can also be connected to the USB ports.

The various components that has to be installed and connected to the motherboard, but don’t let it put you off building your own PC, as it’s not as hard as it looks.

However, to add certain peripherals you need to open up the side of your PC to gain access to the expansion slots. Today there are two main types of expansion slots, PCI Express and PCI. There are also memory slots which allow you to upgrade your memory. However, we’ll cover all of this in more detail in later chapters and explain how to add and remove add-on cards to them. Examples of common internal add-on cards includes graphics cards, network cards (wired or wireless), TV-tuners and sound cards.

Why would you want to build your own PC? Building your own PC is not only fun, but it’s also a great learning experience to understand how a computer

works and why it doesn’t always work the way you want it to. It also gives you control over what goes in to your PC, as when you buy a ready built system, you have little control over which components are being used.

It doesn’t just give you a chance to customize the internal components, but also the chassis and with a wide range of chassis on the market, you can create your own look and feel of your PC. The PC has become something akin with people customizing their cars, albeit without all the grease and mess that a car brings with it. There are many people that customize their cases and builds to create one of a kind systems that really stand out, although this requires a lot of time and effort, least not a fully kitted out workshop.

But don’t fret, we’re going to keep things fairly basic and to the point in this book, as first you need to learn how to master the basics before you can move on to more advanced projects. However, we suggest that you have a look online for some inspiration, as there are some truly amazing projects being built. Your imagination really is your only limit when it comes to building a PC and that is part of what makes it so much fun doing it by yourself.

The motherboard is the interface between the various internal components inside a computer. We’ll tell you what goes where later in this book and help you make educated purchasing decisions.

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Chapter 1 Understanding Component Specifications

The Central Processing Unit, or what is more commonly known as the CPU, is a key component in personal

computers and it handles the logical analysis and computation of data, in a similar way to the human brain does. The CPU is usually the first item to consider when planning what parts to get for your new PC, as it dictates the rest of the components you need to get, since certain types of processors only work with certain motherboards, graphics cards, memory, etc.

Once you’ve selected your processor, you can start looking at the remaining components, such as the motherboard, graphics card(s) and memory in order to ensure the best possible performance for your system. It’s important to pick the right combination of parts to get a well balanced system and, no single part is less important than another. However, a system with a fast CPU can, in general, be easily upgraded at a later stage, as long as you also invest in a good motherboard, as all the other components are much more easily upgradeable than the CPU and motherboard since the two are the most closely connected components in a PC.

Featuring both high performance and stability, Intel® processors are the most widely adopted in the world and are the first choice for many users. Today Intel has three major brands for mainstream consumer PC’s, Core™ 2, Core™ i7 and Core™ i5. The Core 2 family was introduced in 2006 and is available in dual core (Core 2™ Duo) as well as quad core (Core 2™ Quad) configurations. Intel’s Core 2 processors are offered with varying clock speeds, cache sizes and bus speeds. We’ll talk more about this a little bit later in this chapter.

The Core i7 and Core i5 are based on what is known as the Nehalem architecture and are very different from the Core 2 based processors. There are two types of processor sockets used for the Core i7 platform - LGA-1366 and LGA-1156 - but again, we’ll explain the details of this shortly and tell you how to differentiate between the two. The Core i5 only uses the LGA1156 socket for now, although CPU socket changes are likely to occur in the future.

The following chapter will help to explain the difference between the various Intel processor platforms in a fairly straightforward manner. By finding out which features you need, you can make a better choice when selecting your processor, and by doing so, build the right computer for your needs.

1.1 The Central Processing Unit (CPU)

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A Closer Look at the Different Processors The Core 2 family of Intel processors uses what is known as a front side bus or FSB. This is the interface

between the processor and the Memory Controller Hub or MCH (commonly known as the Northbridge) of the motherboard. The FSB can be considered a highway for data transfers. A faster FSB will allow for a larger amount of data to be transferred faster than a slower FSB.

However, the Core i7 and Core i5 family of processors changed by moving away from the FSB to something known as Quick Path Interconnect (QPI). QPI is a point to point interface that offers vastly improved speeds compared to the FSB, as the QPI operates on a much higher frequency and has more “lanes” for data transfer. The QPI is also what is known as bi-directional, which means it can transfer and receive data at the same time, which further enhances its performance. Rather than a MHz rating, Intel refers to the QPI bus in terms of Giga Transfers per second, or GT/s and the X58 can perform up to 6.4GT/s.

Only the Intel® X58 chipset actually use a QPI interface between the chipset and the CPU, the LGA-1156 Core i7/i5 processors have an internal QPI bus between the CPU core and the integrated memory controller. While the LGA-1366 Core i7 processors also feature an internal memory controller, the QPI bus links between the CPU and the X58 chipset. The reason behind this is because the LGA-1366 Core i7 processors don’t have an integrated PCI Express controller and as such they need a fast, high-bandwidth interface to communicate with the X58 chipset. As the X58 chipset supports 40 PCI Express lanes, there was no other choice than to use QPI as the chipset interface, as anything else would’ve been too slow.

In general, the higher the FSB or QPI, the faster the CPU will perform, although in terms of the latest LGA-1156 Core i7/i5 processors there is no such number to go by. On the other hand, if you have an older Core 2 system and want to upgrade your processor, it’s important to make sure that your motherboard chipset supports the bus speed of the CPU you’re thinking about upgrading to, otherwise the CPU won’t operate at its optimal speed.

Cache Memory Cache memory is a key part of the CPU, as this is a small amount of very fast memory that stores

information from the system memory (RAM) before the CPU processes the data. The data is then stored in the cache memory again, and depending on what needs to be done next, parts of that data may be processed by the CPU again, or returned to the RAM again if it takes up too much space and won’t be used again within a set time limit.

There are different types of cache memory with Level 1 (L1) being the type that is the smallest, but also the fastest and the type closest to the CPU. Most processors also have L2 cache and some even have L3 cache. L2 an L3 cache tends to be larger, but also slower than L1 cache. Depending on the CPU you have, you’ll have different amounts of cache memory. Typically a processor has 64-256kb of L1 cache per core and 1-12MB of L2 cache, with the L3 cache maxing out at about 8MB. Some processors also have exclusive L2 cache allocated per core in a multi-core CPU, with the L3 cache being a common cache that all cores can access.

More cache memory generally means better performance, but it also means a more expensive processor. Cache memory also takes up a lot of space on what is known as the CPU die. On a processor with a large cache memory, the cache can take up more space on the die than all the other parts combined. Modern processors are tailor made and optimized to work well with the amount of cache memory they come with, but some applications can be very cache memory intensive, so make sure you buy a CPU with the right amount of cache memory to suit the applications you run.

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xxx

xxx

Technologies of Core™ i7 Processor At the time for this writing, the Intel® Core i7 processor has been

Intel’s performance platform for the last year and it was a fairly radical shift in processor design from Intel. Not only did it change the way Intel had been doing things, but with the next generation of Core i7/i5 processors, things have changed even more radically. But let’s start with breaking down a few key facts about the Core i7 processors. ● The Core i7 features four CPU cores, but as it uses HyperThreading,

it can process up to eight threads as once. ● It’s the first consumer platform from Intel to use triple-channel DDR3

Memory combined with an integrated memory controller. ● Intel Turbo Boost technology allows the processors to overclock itself

if as needed, all within safe parameters. However, CPU cores might be switched off if the application doesn’t support multi-threading and as such the clock speed of the CPU can be increased even further.

● It’s the first consumer CPU from Intel to use QPI in favor of FSB and the QPI bus can hit 6.4GT/s if you use an Extreme Edition Core i7 CPU on the X58 chipset.

● It’s the first CPU to offer SSE 4.2 which you can read more about later in this chapter.

● The Core i7 has 256KB L2 cache per CPU core (a total of 2MB), but there’s also 8MB of shared L3 cache. With the introduction of the LGA-1156 Core i7/i5 processors, some changes have been made. Although

these processors are based on the same base architecture as the LGA-1366 Core i7, the key difference is the use of an integrated PCI Express controller. This will vastly simplify things when it comes to motherboard design, as the accompanying P55 chipset is more or less an advanced version of an ICH (I/O Controller Hub, also known as Southbridge).

The LGA-1156 Core i7/i5 processors have also been designed to be more affordable than the LGA-1366 processors, and as such, they only feature dual-channel DDR3 memory support. This makes for more affordable motherboards, as the design is a lot less complex. It also results in a cost saving for the consumer, as two DDR3 memory modules are cheaper than three. To compensate for the lower memory bandwidth, the LGA-1156 offers native support for DDR3 1,333MHz memory, whereas the LGA-1366 parts only offer native support of 1,066MHz memory.

As the space is limited inside the CPU, LGA-1156 processors only offer 16 PCI Express lanes, although of the PCI Express 2.0 type. This means that if you use two graphics cards in SLI™ or CrossFire™, you might not get quite the same performance as you would using an X58 motherboard. However, in most cases this is not likely to have an adverse effect on the performance and as this is a more mainstream platform, some limitations are expected.

As a LGA-1156 Core i7 processors still offer four cores with HyperThreading that allows for eight threads to be proessed simultaneously, there’s still plenty of processing oomph to go around. The Core i5 processors lacks HyperThreading, but you still get four native processing cores and of course a much lower price point. Both models also retain the Turbo Boost technology, SSE 4.2 and 8MB of cache memory.

A diagram of the X58 chipset and a Core i7 processor with QPI interface

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Introduction of SSE4 Intel has added an upgraded version of its Streaming SIMD Extentions (SSE), to its Core i7/i5 processors

called SSE4.2. SSE adds building blocks for delivering expanded capabilities, enhanced performance, and greater energy efficiency for most applications.

Intel has also added application targeted accelerators which will boost the performance and help improve power efficiency. SSE4 is specifically targeting graphics, video encoding and processing, 3D graphics and gaming. SSE4 had 54 new instructions, with SSE4.1 adding a further 47 and SSE4.2 finally adding seven new instructions. There are already applications on the market that can take advantage of the new instructions with some offering up to twice the performance thanks to SSE4. The biggest boost is seen in various video encoding applications and most of the big names in the industry are working on supporting all of the SSE4 subsets, if they aren’t already.

Intel has also added some new features which should boost certain aspects of game graphics and general multimedia applications, although these aren’t as widely supported as video, but more applications are expected to take advantage of these features in the future. It’s important to remember that SSE4 is still new technology and that there’s always a delay before we see applications that can integrate of all the latest SSE features.

Another addition in SSE4 which will hopefully be picked up quickly by software developers is a feature that allows for quicker virus scans and database searches. This could improve the overall performance of many operations. Other features should also see an improvement in things such as handwriting recognition and improved CRC checks for various types of data which would be useful for tasks such as backups to network attached storage device.

SSE4.1 and SSE4.2 might not have brought with them any huge changes compared to SSE4, but all the little improvements do add up. SSE4 is a technology that will continue to expand and offer advantages to computationally intensive tasks thanks to its specific and streamlined 128-bit processing capabilities. SSE4 is able to process data much quicker than the non-specific nature of the normal instructions carried out by the CPU.

With the introduction of QPI or QuickPath Interconnect, Intel stopped using the traditional CPU front side bus (FSB). QPI is a point-to-point interconnect and as such it operates very differently to the FSB. On a traditional system, the front side bus is limited to operating at a relatively slow speed and the CPU is using a multiplier to reach its clock speed which is many times faster than that of the FSB.

With QPI there’s no such limitation as QPI operates at a default specific clock speed locked to the CPU. The LGA-1156 Core i7 and Core i5 processors use QPI internally between the CPU core and the memory controller, as this fast interface is ideal for moving large amounts of data around quickly.

QPI isn’t really required when it comes to interfacing with external drives or even the PCH (Platform Controller Hub) and as such Intel decided to rely on its Direct Media Interface (DMI) to connect between the CPU and PCH. QPI is a key component of all the new Core based processors and it should scale nicely for future bandwidth demands.

The End of the Front Side Bus as We Know It

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The CPU and Socket Over the years, we’ve seen many different processors and socket designs from Intel, but currently there are

three key platforms and we’ve mentioned all three of them earlier in this chapter. We’ll try to break it all down in a bit more detail here. The most popular platform by far at the moment is the Core 2, which uses what is known as an LGA-775 socket. LGA stands for Land Grid Array which refers to the “packaging” of the CPU. There’s also LGA-1366 which has so far been used for the Core i7 and Intel’s Xeon workstation and Server processors, and then there’s the LGA-1156 platform which is used by the new Core i7 and Core i5 processors.

In the past, Intel CPU’s used to have pins as per the picture below, but if you dropped the CPU, the pins bent and could even break off. This was a problem Intel got around when it moved to the Core 2 platform by moving the pins from the CPU to the CPU socket. These days all Intel CPU’s have little gold connectors on the bottom instead which interface with spring clips inside the CPU socket making it nearly impossible to damage the connectors on the CPU. However, there are still components on the bottom of the CPU that could potentially be damaged if you don’t treat the CPU with care.

The new LGA-1156 platform from Intel is interesting in that it is the first asymmetrical CPU from Intel using an LGA design. It’s still important to be careful when you insert the CPU in the socket, as instead of bending the pins on the CPU, you can now damage the pins in the CPU socket. Always make sure you insert the CPU the correct way in the socket and make sure the CPU fits properly before securing the locking clasp.

An LGA-1156 processor and socket. Note the orientation of the CPU when it’s inserted in the socket, the two little grooves need to fit the slots in the sides of the socket.

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It can sometimes be difficult to figure out what all the components and

connectors on your motherboard are for and these two pages will help explain most of the features you can expect to find on a motherboard. In this example we’re using the GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD6 which is a top of the range motherboard based on the Intel® P55 chipset. Due to Intel’s change in chipset architecture on the P55, the GA-P55A-UD6 only has a single chipset, as the PCI Express controller for the x16 graphics card slot, as well as the DDR3 memory controller has been moved into the CPU itself. We’ll cover the difference between various chipset later on in this chapter and also give you a breakdown on what’s new with the P55 chipset on top of what we’ve already mentioned.

The GA-P55A-UD6 features two PCI Express x16 2.0 slots and one PCI Express X16 slot, although due to the design of the chipset and the new CPU’s only the top most x16 slot will only operate at full speed and that only applies when a single graphics card is used. If you enabled NVIDIA’s SLI or ATI’s CrossFireX technology, then the first slot shares its bandwidth with the second slot and both operates at x8 bandwidth (also known as x8 electrically). The third x16 slot only has four PCI Express lanes worth of bandwidth and is as such a x4 slot. Other features you’ll find on the GA-P55A-UD6 includes 6 Serial ATA 3Gb/s ports and 2 Serial ATA 6Gb/s ports. You’ll also find a pair of Gigabit Ethernet ports, two powered eSATA/USB combo ports and uniquely to this board, six memory slots, although again, there’s a slight limitation here, as the blue slots can only be populated by single sided memory if all six slots are being used.

The GA-P55A-UD6 is of course also crammed full of GIGABYTE specific features such as Ultra Durable™ 3 which is the third generation of GIGABYTE’s Ultra Durable™ motherboard technology. The key features of Ultra Durable™ 3 is GIGABYTE’s 2oz copper PCB, Ferrite Core Choke’s, Solid Japanese Capacitors and Low RDS(on) MOSFET’s. Ultra Durable™ 3 is covered in more detail later in this book, so for specific details, we suggest you head over and read that section. Other features you’ll find on the GA-P55A-UD6 includes GIGABYTE’s new SMART 6 applications which consist of SMART DualBIOS™, SMART QuickBoot, SMART QuickBoost, SMART Recorder, SMART TimeLock and SMART Recovery. Finally some other useful features you’ll find on this board is the SMART Dual LAN which failover protection, SMART TPM which will protect your data from prying eyes and onboard Debug LED which will allow you to easily find out what might’ve gone wrong with your system.

However, it doesn’t stop there, as GIGABYTE also offer some handy tools for those that want to tweak their system, or save some power. EasyTune 6 is GIGABYTE’s easy to use overclocking utility, while DES 2 Advanced will help you save power and money by automatically switching the power phases to reduce the system power draw when your PC is under low load. All in all, when you buy a GIGABYTE motherboard you don’t just end up with a motherboard, as you get so much more, and this what makes a GIGABYTE motherboard stand out from the crowd.

1.2 What is on Your Motherboard?

1394 Ports (8 and 4-pin Connectors)

PS/2 Port for Mouse or Keyboard

Optical and Coaxial S/PDIF out Powered eSATA / USB Combo Ports

PCI Express x1

PCI Express x16

PCI Express x8PCI Slot

PCI Express x4

Floppy Drive Connector

IEEE-1394

USB 2.0 Ports

USB 2.0 Ports

COM Connector

DualBIOS

IDE Connector

Debug LED

Reset Button

Clear CMOS Button

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Ethernet Ports (Dual LAN)

8-Channel Audio Jacks, Line-in, Microphone

USB 3.0 Ports

LGA 1156 CPU Socket

CPU Fan Header

DDR3 Memory Slots

Power Phase Indication LEDs

24-pin ATX Power Connector

Power Button

SATA 3Gb/s Ports

USB 2.0 Ports

24 Power Phase Design

Intel P55 Chipset

SATA 6Gb/s Ports

14

The Chipset

Intel’s X58 chipset consist of two parts, the X58

northbridge and the ICH10 southbridge.

Intel X58 chipset diagram

The chipset is an integral part of the motherboard and without it, a motherboard just wouldn’t work. Chipsets have so far in generally been comprised of two parts, although they might go under slight different names, but they are commonly known as the northbridge and southbridge. The northbridge handles the processor’s communication with the system memory and the graphics card. It also has a direct effect on the FSB speed of the processor, as some chipsets don’t support certain bus speeds. It also dictates what kind of memory the motherboard supports as well as the type of graphics card that will work with the motherboard. The southbridge is linked to the northbridge via a high-speed interface and its main task is to handle devices such as Serial ATA (SATA) controllers (built in or external), Ethernet, audio, USB 2.0 and in general also the PCI Express x1 and PCI slots.

However, this all changed recently with the introduction of Intel’s latest chipset, the P55, as this is a single chipset solution. Intel, as the largest PC CPU and chipset manufacturer in the world, this is a big step in a new direction for the way that chipsets are done. We’ll go into more details about this new chipset later on in this chapter and explain what sets it apart from past Intel chipsets.

Also in this chapter we’ll touch on some more traditional chipsets from Intel and take a look at what features are on offer from the various chipsets and what processors they work with. What’s important to remember is that you have to pick the right chipset for your CPU, as specific chipsets only work with the processors they were designed for.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, as most motherboards still feature two chipsets. Let’s start by taking a closer look at the northbridge, which in traditional chipset designs houses the memory controller, the PCI Express controller and in cases of chipset with built in graphics you’ll also find the IGP or Integrated Graphics Processor here. The northbridge is called MCH or Memory Controller Hub although the IGP versions are known as GMCH (where the G stands for Graphics). Semantics aside, the northbridge has been a key component for a very long time, although with the Core i7 platform and the X58 chipset, Intel changed the way its chipsets work by moving the memory controller into the CPU. You can read more about the specifics of this in the CPU chapter later in this book and what it means to modern Intel CPUs. However, Intel came up with a new fast CPU to chipset interconnect known as QPI or Quick Path Interconnect for this platform, as it also targeted high-end multi CPU workstations and servers which reap a huge benefit from this faster bus.

15

Intel X58 - High-End Performance Chipset

The Intel X58 chipset was developed with one single goal, to offer the best possible performance. Although as we mentioned earlier, the platform that the X58 is based on is targeting high-end multi CPU workstations and servers, Intel decided to make a high-end consumer solution on the same platform. This made the Core i7 and X58 platform offering a lot of never before seen features in the high-end consumer space.

The design of the X58 chipset is quite different from what Intel had done in the past, as the memory controller was no longer an integral part of the chipset. As such the X58 chipset is known as an IOH or I/O Hub in Intel language. The X58 chipset features a high-end PCI Express controller with no less than 36 PCI Express lanes. This makes the X58 chipset an ideal platform for high-end gaming PC’s that use multiple graphics cards, as it offers much higher bandwidth than any competing solution. It can be configured to run a pair of PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots, or four PCI Express 2.0 x8 slots.

The X58 chipset works with the 9xx-series of Core i7 processors, although it will be targeting the high-end Extreme Edition CPU’s as Intel will be transitioning over to the more consumer friendly priced P55 chipset and 8xx-series Core i7 platform in the future. The X58 chipset will remain as Intel’s top of the line solution for some time to come.

Intel P55 - the Next Generation in Chipset Evolution

With the introduction of the P55 chipset earlier this year, Intel changed the way it designs CPUs and chipsets by moving from a three chip to a two chip solution. There are several advantages to this new design, least not that it should at least in the long term lead to more affordable motherboards, as fewer costly components are needed. Another benefit is that the chipset produce less heat, which means that it doesn’t require exotic cooling solutions as we’ve seen with some chipsets. As it’s easier to cool the CPU, it makes sense to move the memory and PCI Express controller into the CPU and as such get an overall cooler running system. However, with the memory controller and PCI Express controller built into the CPU, the choice of CPU has become more important than in the past, and depending on which CPU you purchase, your motherboard might work slightly different and there might be some feature differences.

However, we’re not going to go in to too much detail here, as we will cover the X58 chipset on the next section.

The southbrige on the other hand or ICH (I/O Controller Hub) connects to the northbridge via a custom high-speed interface, although in the case of most Intel chipsets this bus is called DMI (Direct Media Interface). The southbridge incorporates several features, but the most important ones include a PCI and PCI Express controller, SATA and IDE controllers (with RAID in some cases) and USB, audio and networking interfaces. The P55 chipset is pretty much an advanced version of a southbridge with a DMI interface that connects directly to the CPU, but we’ll cover this later in this chapter.

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Below is a breakdown of the features of the P55 chipset that’ll give you an easy overview on what’s on offer.

The P55 chipset itself is an advanced southbridge which has a DMI interface that connects it directly to the CPU. In terms of features the P55 chipset offers eight PCI Express 2.0 lanes which can be used for both add-on card slots and third party additions such as RAID or Gigabit Ethernet controllers. There’s also support for six SATA ports with RAID, up to 14 USB 2.0 ports and high definition audio. As such it offers a good mixture of features suitable for demanding users that don’t require the power of the X58 platform. The P55 chipset supports the 8xx-series of Core i7 processors as well as the 7xx-series of Core i5 processors, using the LGA-1156 socket.

In the future we’ll see more two chip solutions from Intel that will offer integrated graphics built into the CPU.

The benefit from doing this is that the CPU is easier to cool than the chipset which will result in faster and more advanced integrated graphics solutions.

On the left hand side is a traditional three-chip solution and on the right hand side is Intel’s new two-chip solution.

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Integrated Graphics Solutions Currently Intel is only offering integrated graphics

for its 4-series chipset for the Celeron, Pentium and Core 2 processors and there are a few different models to choose from, but the latest models are the G45, G43 and G41 chipsets. The main benefit of going with a chipset with integrated graphics is lower overall system cost. However, for anyone that is not interested in playing games, it’s also a sensible solution, as integrated graphics use less power than a dedicated graphics card. This means an overall lower system power draw which in the end will save money on your power bill. Future processors from Intel will feature integrated graphics rather than the chipset and this will allow for faster integrated graphics solutions as the downside of integrated graphics in the chipset, is that it’s difficult to cool the chipset enough to allow for high-end graphics solutions to be integrated into it.

The Intel G4x-series of chipsets does offer some additional benefits, such as Intel Clear Video Technology which offloads video decoding from the CPU. All three G4x chipsets also offers HDMI output which makes them an ideal Home Theatre PC solution.

The Intel G41 Chipset

The X58 and P55 chipsets aren’t the only solutions from Intel and if you’re considering going for a Celeron, Pentium or Core 2 based processor, then there’s a lot of chipsets to choose from depending on your needs and your budget.

The high-end option is the Intel X48 chipset which offers a pair of PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots, the next model down is the P45 chipset which is a more affordable solution which offers a pair of PCI Express 2.0 x8 slots depending on the motherboard. If you’re looking for integrated graphics, then the G4x-series of chipset offers a wide range of display output options such as HDMI and DVI which makes this a suitable platform for both Home Theatre PC systems and SOHO business solutions alike.

Depending on the motherboard, these chipset support either DDR3 or DDR2 memory and if you invest in a motherboard based on one of these chipsets, it might be wise to go for DDR3 memory, as DDR2 is set to be phased out slowly over the next year or so. With DDR3 pricing nearly matching DDR2, it’s not a huge extra outlay either, but if you’re not planning on upgrading the system, then it pretty much comes down to price, as DDR3 doesn’t offer any huge benefits paired with these chipsets compared to DDR2.

Other Platform Options

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There’s also support for DisplayPort DVI and D-sub output which allows for very flexible display connectivity covering a wide range of usage scenarios. All three models support DirectX 10 graphics and OpenGL 2.0 and will allow you to play games at lower resolutions, but more importantly it means that Intel’s integrated graphics will work with a wide range of graphics intensive business applications. The G45 chipset offers a slightly faster and more advanced graphics core that will accelerate high definition 1080p video. The G43 and G41 chipsets offer similar features, but don’t offer 1080p video acceleration.

Intel G41 chipset diagram

* The G31 chipset doesn’t support Core 2 Quad processor with 1333MHz FSB. ** 945GC only supports 65nm Core 2 Duo processors

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Expansion Slots Every motherboard comes with one or more expansion slots and full size ATX motherboards have as many

as seven. Over the years there have been many different types of expansion slots, but today only two main types remain, PCI and PCI Express. The PCI slot has been around since 1992 and is still going pretty strong. It quickly became a standard expansion slot thanks to its easy to use “Plug and Play” design. Most motherboards today use 32-bit PCI 2.3 slots, although the specific revision shouldn’t be an issue unless you’re trying to use an older PCI device with a newer PC. Typical PCI cards include audio cards, TV-tuners, RAID controllers, network cards and just about anything else that can go inside your PC.

PCI Express is still a fairly new standard, although it has already been around for some five years. PCI Express works differently from previous generation of expansion slots, as there are different slots depending on how many PCI Express lanes are assigned to the slot. As such a PCI Express slot is known by the amount of PCI Express it has, for example x1, x4, x8 or x16, the x is pronounced by (as in by one). In a standard desktop PC you’re likely to encounter all four types. There are two revisions to PCI Express, 1.0/1.1 and 2.0. PCI Express 2.0 doubled the bandwidth per lane over the older 1.0/1.1 standard. A single PCI Express 1.0/1.1 lane can transfer 250MB/s while a single PCI Express 2.0 lane doubles that at 500MB/s. PCI Express 1.0/1.1 devices will work in a PCI Express 2.0 slot and vice versa, although in the latter case, they might not perform to their full potential.

PCI Express slots carry more power than PCI slots and a x16 PCI Express slot can deliver 75W. However, some motherboards can deliver as much as 300W, although we suggest you check the motherboard documentation to see if this feature is implemented or not. Many PCI Express graphics cards require an auxiliary power connector to be attached for them to work, so it’s important to make sure you have a power supply that offers the right kind of connector. Lower-end graphics cards will work fine without the need of this additional power connector.

A PCI Express x16 slot, note that not all full length slots have all the pins connected, as they might offer 4 or 8 lanes, rather than the full 16.

A pair of x4 PCI Express slots and a x1 PCI Express slot, of which the latter is far more common.

A pair of PCI slots

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Remote Management Utility - Intel® AMT & vPro Technology With corporate networks becoming more and more complex, IT resources need to increase in order to keep

the network running efficiently. To help increase network resource efficiency, improve asset management and to reduce downtime, Intel has developed Intel® Active Management Technology (AMT). AMT combines both hardware and firmware to allow remote access of network resources by utilizing Out Of Band (OOB) networking capabilities, regardless of the operating system and platform power source. As long as the network connection functions properly and a backup power source is provided, the PC can be remotely accessed and managed thanks to AMT. This can be done even if the PC is turned off or the operating system has failed.

The latest Intel® vPro technology has reinforced the functionality of AMT and now provides support for the latest platform specifications, including the Intel® Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Core i7 and Core i5 processors. With improved efficiency and optimized performance for applications including remote boot-up and advanced diagnosis and repair, Intel® vPro technology provides the tools necessary to make sure your corporate network runs as smoothly as possible . For more detailed information, you can visit the official Intel® vPro website http://www.intel.com/technology/vpro/ Features of Intel® vPro Technology • Remote mode - You can do a remote inventory of computers on your network, as well as troubleshoot and

restore system resources in order to reduce on-site visits by MIS professionals. • Active security - An advanced security mechanism assisted by hardware that can effectively block vicious

attacks and protect important data. • Low power consumption and high performance - Intel Core processors are equipped with several

advantages, including excellent computing performance and enhanced power-saving features, for a more efficient and quiet computing environment.

• Extensive industry support - Well-known corporations around the world are constantly developing applications that utilize and expand the functionality of Intel® vPro technology. With vPro targeting mainly large enterprises, Intel has also developed a technology for the SOHO business

IT manager that is in charge of 25 PC’s or less. The Intel IT Director takes advantage of Intel’s vPro technology, but the tool itself has been designed to be easy to use thanks to its custom dashboard. It targets key areas for smaller businesses such as IT security, data protection and network health concerns. You can find out more about Intel IT Director by visiting http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/it-director/

With vPro technology the IT manager can easily access all the computers in the corporate network from a single terminal, even if the systems on the network are powered down or not functioning.

Management personnel can use vPro technology to perform remote asset checkups by looking up information on all computer systems throughout the corporation. Remote operation can still be performed even when the computers are turned off.

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Intel’s Performance Enhancing Technologies

Intel Matrix Storage TechnologyIntel® Matrix Storage Technology (MST) offers an easy-to-use utility that enables RAID functionality.

Previously this required a complicated BIOS configuration, but with Intel MST you can set up your RAID array from within Windows.

A RAID 0/5/10 array combines two or more hard drive to create a performance storage solution for users that requires high performance storage. However, if data security is more important, then a RAID 1/5/10 array should be set up to prevent data loss, as the second drive keeps an identical copy of the data on the first drive. MST also supports the external SATA (eSATA) devices and an external drive could be used as the backup device.

Intel Clear Video Technology

Intel® Clear Video Technology (CVT) uses a wide range of video enhancing technologies to create a sharper picture while also eliminating aliasing and image sticking problems. In addition, CVT uses hardware acceleration to produce the smoothest playback of high-definition video with support for PIP mode. CVT also supports High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connectivity, simplifying the connection between the computer and the display by using a single cable that carries both a high definition video signal and audio.

Intel Clear Video Technology is used in a wide range of solutions ranging from notebooks, to desktops to all-in-one systems. It offers excellent video playback performance without the need of user intervention and with industry wide software support; all common video playback applications offers hardware accelerated video playback.

Intel® CVT technology

Smoother playback of video clips

Clearer and more delicate images

More precise color control

Intel® AMT technology can decrease time-to-repair and increase management efficiency for MIS personnel.

Under normal conditions, the agents of the computer system will continue to send messages to the administrator to indicate that the system is in a secure and normal state. When message delivery is stopped or any message of abnormality is delivered, it means that the system is in an insecure state and related repair work should be performed immediately.

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1.3 Graphics Card

The Basics of the Graphics Card One of the key components in a computer, beyond the CPU and the

motherboard, is the graphics card. Without it you wouldn’t be able to see what’s going on, as there wouldn’t be a picture on the screen. There are many different graphics cards on the market and it can be tricky to choose the right one to suit your needs. Unless you play games or watch HD movies on your computer, a basic graphics card or even onboard graphics will most likely meet your requirements. However, for those that intend to use their computer for more advanced things, it’s important to have the right graphics card. There are two main brand in the graphics card market, NVIDIA and ATI. The two companies manufacture GPU’s or graphics processing units and these are then combined with other components on a PCB to create a graphics card.

Over the past couple of years, GPU’s have evolved from being used for graphics and nothing else, to become part of the computing platform for a wide range of tasks. NVIDIA has been the most prominent in pushing for new features of the two and a term called GPGPU (General Purpose GPU) was coined to make people understand that the GPU can do so much more than just graphics. These days the GPU can reduce the time it takes to convert or render video, which means that if you have the right graphics card and want to load video on to your portable video device, the time it takes to convert the video to the right size and format could be reduced by a factor of 10 or more. We’ll be looking at this a little bit more in detail later in this chapter, as well as NVIDIA’s PhysX technology will allows for lifelike physical effects in games.

The graphics card you can see on this page is the GIGABYTE’s GV-N250OC-1GI which is based on the NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 GPU. This is an upper mid-range card that is part of NVIDIA’s GeForce 200-series of cards. It comes with 1GB of GDDR3 memory. It also features NVIDIA’s PureVideo® HD technology which enables the GPU to handle HD video decoding. It does of course support PhysX and CUDA

which is NVIDIA’s GPGPU technology. The card has a wide range of display connectivity options and as such it can be connected to most common display types. Just as with most modern graphics cards, the GV-N250OC-1GI uses a x16 PCI Express 2.0 interface to connect to the motherboard. Read on for more details about what all the various technologies mean and why they are important to pay attention to when you’re buying a new graphics card.

HDMI port

D-Sub connector

DVI connector

PCI Express x16 interface

Heatsink

Fan

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SLI connector Graphics memory GPU Power connector

About DirectX® DirectX® controls the hardware abstraction layer of Windows®, including DirectDraw

(high-speed 2D image), DirectSound (sound output), Direct3D (high-speed 3D graphics), and so on. DirectX® gives game developers better control over the various system components and it makes game development easier. With each new version of DirectX®, more powerful features are added and the latest version includes support for Shader Model 4, which helps to enhance image realism. The major addition to DirectX® 10 is Geometry Shader support which allows the GPU to offload graphic-intense calculations. In the past this task relied on the CPU’s processing power. Currently there are two versions of DirectX®, 10 and 10.1. Some graphics cards support DirectX® 10 and not 10.1, but only a handful of games support DirectX® 10.1 so it’s not something you have to be concerned about when buying a graphics card.

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Ultra Durable VGA For the latest generation of graphics cards, the GIGABYTE

graphics card team has joined forces with the motherboard team to create Ultra Durable™ VGA. GIGABYTE is famous for its Ultra Durable™ products which stand for high component quality and longevity, and GIGABYTE’s graphics cards have now joined this legacy. This means users can expect the most reliable graphics cards with the best available heat dissipation and overclocking potential.

The key features of Ultra Durable™ VGA consist of the world’s first 2oz copper PCB for graphics cards, Japanese all solid capacitors, Low RDS (on) MOSFETs, and Ferrite Core / Metal Chokes. GIGABYTE also only uses high quality memory from top tier manufacturers such as Samsung and Hynix, to further enhance the overall product quality.

In practical terms, this means that all GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ VGA graphics cards run at least 5-10% cooler than other graphics cards, reach 10-30% better overclocking speeds and use 10-30% less power depending on the card. Add it all up, and you’ve got the best graphics cards in the world.

One of the best examples of the new Ultra Durable™ VGA series of graphics cards from GIGABYTE is the GV-N250OC-1GI, pictured below. It offers all the Ultra Durable™ VGA features with the addition of a low-noise, high-performance Zalman VF1050 cooler.

The cooling setup relies on four heatpipes for improved heat transfer from the GPU to the cooler. This means quicker heat disspiation, which results in a cooler running card. It also has a dual ball bearing fan that aids in cooling.

The GV-N250OC-1GI does of course support NVIDIA SLI™ technology, which allows the user to combine multiple graphics cards to create a powerful graphics computing platform. The Unified Shader architecture provides full support for DirectX 10 and Shader Model 4.0 to offer the best graphics experience in the latest games.

The GV-N250OC-1GI also supports NVIDIA’s PureVideo® HD technology, utilizing the GPU processing core for high-bandwidth HD playback. This frees up the CPU for other computing tasks while also reducing power consumption.

Under Windows® 7 the GV-N250OC-1GI will also gain many new features, such as the ability to take advantage of GPU accelerated video transcoding on the fly to your portable media player, by simply dragging and dropping the files from your hard drive onto the portable media player.

In addition, this card supports Dual-Link DVI for super high resolution displays, HDMI for easy connectivity to a HD TV or projector and HDCP for trouble-free playback of protected video content, such as Blu-ray movies.

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Ultra Durable™ VGA Utility (UDV Utility) To help you get the most out of your graphics card, GIGABYTE created the UDV Utility. This is based on the

Gamer HUD from the previous generation of GIGABYTE graphics cards. It gives the user control over a wide range of features on the card and also allows for quick and easy overclocking.

The UDV Utility has a wide range of presets to help inexperienced users take advantage of the graphics card features. There are three default settings, Gaming, Standard and Saving. The Gaming setting overclocks the card on demand within safe limits. The Standard setting leaves the card at its default settings and the Savings setting is a power saving option for when you’re doing basic tasks with your graphics card.

For the more advanced user there are also two custom profiles which allows the user to save custom settings. The UDV Utility delivers independent overclocking of the GPU, Shaders and memory, as well as manual control of the GPU and memory Voltages. This allows the user to manually overlock the card within safe limits. There are also two different power settings here, Green mode and OC mode. As the name suggests, the Green mode saves power while the OC mode is used for when the card is being overclocked. The UDV Utility also monitors the temperature, Voltage and power phases of the card. It also gives the user control over the speed of the cooling fan on the graphics card. The fan speed can either be set to an auto mode that will increase the fan speed when the card gets hot, or a manual setting that is within safe limits and keeps the fan spinning at a constant speed.

A feature called UDV Ghost offers a selection of overlay menus in games or applications that gives the user additional control of the graphics card. The OSD can be set to appear on different locations on the screen from within the UDV GHOST menu inside the UDV Utility. UDV Ghost allows the user to grab screen shots from within games and also has a hot key option to quickly bring up the UDV Utility for easy access to brightness, contrast and gamma settings.

Advanced Features of the UDV Utility

UDV GHOST OSD

The UDV Utility allows for very simple tweaking of your graphics card thanks to its graphical user interface.

For those looking for some more advanced features, the UDV Utility offers a wide range of manual overclocking settings.

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Silent-Cell™ Cooling Technology

Ultra-thin layered fins with extremely large surface area

High performance heat pipes

Aluminum nodes

Copper Base Surface Area

Silent- Cell

Silent-Cell Thermal

GIGABYTE’s passive cooling technology has been developed over several years and has gone through many iterations to finally culminate in what is known today as Silent-Cell™. This unique passive cooling technology is unlike anything else used in the market today. If you’re looking for a high-performance, passively cooled graphics card, GIGABYTE’s Silent-Cell™ graphics card should be your first port of call.

Traditional passive cooling technologies simply rely on basic heatsinks and heatpipes. The GIGABYTE Research and Development Team, however, has developed an innovative system that combines the best features of heatsinks and heatpipes, while also adding an in-house proprietary method of cooling. Silent Cell™

cooling technology incorporates GIGABYTE’s Multi-Core cooling technology which offers an improved interface between the heatpipes and heatsinks for better thermal dissipation.

On top of this, GIGABYTE has developed new cooling fins which are thinner than what you’ll find on most heatsinks. Near the base of the copper cooling plate that is attached to the GPU, these fins are connected to thicker “nodes” (rather thick pieces of aluminum) that quickly draw the heat away from the GPU. The nodes then release the heat into the larger heatink structure made up of the thinner fins. A passive cooler needs to be able to dissipate the heat into the surrounding air as quickly as possible.

The new, thin layered fins do this better than any other similar cooling solution. The external air intake on the Silent-Cell™ graphics cards is another feature you’ll only find from GIGABYTE. Whereas most manufacturers try to force the hot air out through a small hole at the back of the system, GIGABYTE’s Silent-Cell™ graphics cards draw cool air into the case with the help of natural convection. This is another reason why the Silent-Cell™ graphics cards run up to 18°C cooler than reference cards using a standard cooler.

Previous Generation Thermal Silent-Cell Thermal

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Modern graphics cards use a PCI Express 2.0 x16 interface, which is forward and backwards compatible, so even a brand new graphics card will work in an older PCI Express 1.0/1.1 x16 slot. This makes easy to upgrade your system without having to worry if your graphics card will work with your motherboard or not.

Older PCs used an AGP interface (show in the picture below) and it’s important to note that this type of graphic card interface isn’t compatible with current motherboards.

Display Interfaces D-Sub

The D-sub connector is still the most commonly used display interface. It is an analog signal interface whose image quality can’t compete with newer digital interfaces, but it still serves a purpose for many applications.

DisplayPort

HDMI is a consumer video interface, but you might find this on your graphics card. It’s used to connect your PC to an HDTV or projector, but even some computer displays feature this interface. This digital interface can also transmit audio signals in addition to video signals.

DVI

DVI was meant to replace D-sub as the new digital display interface when LCD became popular. DVI is the standard interface today and you’ll find it on just about every modern graphics card. Most LCD displays also have a DVI connector. DVI offers better image quality than D-sub.

HDMI

DisplayPort is a new type of digital display interface that has a connector that is similar to HDMI. It offers support for very high resolution displays. As such, this is a future proof standard, but it has yet to become common on displays and graphics cards. DisplayPort is set to replace DVI in the future.

The bottom graphics card shown features a PCI Express x16 interface; while the top graphics card uses the older AGP interface. In terms of appearance, the AGP “gold fingers” are considerably different from that of the PCI Express card.

Expansion Interface

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NVIDIA CUDA CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) is

NVIDIA’s version of GPGPU (General Purpose GPU) and it’s available on all of NVIDIA’s GPU’s since the GeForce 8-series. CUDA offers a wide range of features depending on the software you use and also supports OpenCL (Open Computing Language) and DirectX Compute, which is a feature of Windows® 7. But let’s not get too distracted, as CUDA has a lot to offer on its own.

The most useful part of CUDA for most consumers is the great many new video editing and video transcoding/encoding applications on the market that take advantage of NVIDIA’s CUDA technology. Depending on how many Shaders, or processors as NVIDIA calls them now, your GPU can become quite a powerful tool if you work a lot with video content. Say for example that you need to transcode a video that you want to watch on your mobile phone. If it’s a long video, the time it takes to do this using the CPU alone, can take an hour or longer. However, with a transcoding application like Badaboom, the time it takes to do this can be reduced to minutes.

The reason behind this is because the shaders in the GPU of your graphics cards are very good at doing certain fixed computational tasks. It’s important to note that how fast a GPU accelerated application runs depends on how many shaders your GPU has, so just like with a CPU, a high-end GPU will perform better than a low-end GPU.

With the right video editing application, CUDA can also speed up the time it takes to render video when you edit your home videos, something that is even more obvious if you’re editing HD video. However, CUDA isn’t limited to just video applications, and NVIDIA is offering a wide range of high-end compute servers for advanced computational tasks.

A bit closer to home is NVIDIA’s PhysX technology, which is also part of CUDA. This provides for realistic physical effects in games such as water, gas/steam, fire, explosions, crashes, etc. This is done without causing a noticeable drop in 3D performance, although you could use a second graphics card to do the PhysX processing, while your main graphics card would handle the 3D graphics.

There’s a wide range of industry support for CUDA with companies such as Microsoft (Windows 7), Adobe (Premiere Pro 4, Photoshop 4 Pro), CyberLink (PowerDirector 7 Ultra, PowerDVD 9, MediaShow Espresso), Pegasys Inc (TMPEGEnc), LoiLo Inc (Super LoiLoScope), Elemental Technologies (Badaboom) and Nero (Move it) that produce applications that take advantage of CUDA and we expect to see many more as soon as Windows® 7 launches with native support for DirectX Compute, which will further take advantage of GPGPU technology.

DirectX Compute and OpenCL are most likely the future of CUDA, at least the way things are looking right now, as these new standards are like to gain a much wider acceptance by software companies. Currently we’re only looking at the tip of the iceberg and GPU accelerated computing is set to grow exponentially over the next few years as software companies understand the benefits of adding support for it in their applications.

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1.4 Memory

System memory, or what is more commonly known as RAM (Random Access Memory), is used for temporarily storing data that has been retrieved from the hard disk drive so that the processor can access it faster. Faster memory improves the overall system performance, but the memory size is also important, as if you don’t have enough RAM, the system will use the hard drive as a “swap file” to temporarily store data from the memory. This leads to vastly reduced overall system performance.

Two key things have an impact on memory performance, bandwidth and clock speed. The two have a direct proportional relationship; faster clock speed and higher bandwidth equates to a greater data transfer rate, which in turn leads to better performance. However, it’s also important to look at the memory timings, as high memory timings means higher latency. Latency is measured in nanoseconds and it’s the time it takes from when a command is issued by the memory controller until the data is available to be accessed from the memory. The lower the latency, the less time it takes for the data to become available. It’s worth nothing that as the clock speed of memory modules increase, so does the latency. However, certain premium memory modules will offer higher clockspeeds while maintaining a lower latency.

Memory has evolved over the years and commonly used types these days are DDR2 and DDR3 SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory).

DDR2 has recently started to be superseded by DDR3 with the latter set to become the main memory technology over the next 12 months. With the Intel® X58 and P55 chipset series, DDR3 is the only memory option, and because of this, it is set to become the standard in all new systems. DDR3 offers much higher clock speeds than DDR2 memory and this results in higher memory bandwidth. Apart from offering better performance, it’s also worth noting that DDR3 has a lower operating Voltage of 1.5V, which means that the memory modules will run cooler and use less power compared to DDR2 memory modules.

Currently the highest offically supportet DDR3 memory speed is 1,333MHz in the case of Intel P55 based motherboards, although it’s possible to use much faster modules if you overclock your system. GIGABYTE’s P55 motherboards supports memory speed of up to 2,600MHz depending on motherboard model and CPU.

The memory type, clock speed and size supported by the motherboard is determined either by the chipset or the integrated memory controller in the CPU. To further increase the memory bandwidth, Intel® developed dual channel memory architecture a few years ago. As the name suggests, dual-channel means that you run the memory in two channels or pairs and this means that you need to install a pair of memory modules to take advantage of this feature. In dual-channel mode the memory bandwidth is double from 64-bit to 128-bit and as such offers twice the bandwidth compared to single channel mode. The X58 chipset also supports triple-channel memory, but this is the only platform from Intel to offer this. Two high-performance DDR3 DIMM’s with heat spreaders

Random Access Memory Basics

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Memory Bandwidth The memory modules or DIMM’s (dual in-line memory module) have to be of the same capacity and have

the same clock speed and memory timing to work well in dual-channel mode and you can generally buy packs of two pre-matched modules. The memory controller can then address the memory at 128-bit instead of 64-bit which results in a doubling of the amount of data that can be transferred in each clock cycle.

For example, using two dual-channel DDR3 1,333MHz DIMM’s gives you a total bandwidth of 21.2GB/s (10.6GB/s times two). The X58 chipsets from Intel supports triple channel DDR3 memory and using the same example as above, the memory bandwidth with three DDR3 1,333MHz DIMM’s you end up with a bandwidth of 31.8GB/s. It’s important to understand that not all applications can take advantage of a high memory bandwidth and many consumer applications see little benefit from extremely high memory bandwidths.

So how is DDR bandwidth calculated? In short, DDR bandwidth is the result of the clock speed multiplied by the pre-fetch width and bus width. All DDR memory modules use a 64-bit (8bytes) wide bus. For example, the bandwidth of DDR2 400 memory is 3.2 GB/s (100x4x8 bytes) which is why it’s also known as PC2-3200. DDR3 1066 is known as PC3-8500 and has a bandwidth of 8.5GB/s (133x8x8bytes) and you can calculate other memory types in the same way.

Memory Compatibility When only one memory module is installed in the motherboard, there usually won’t be any compatibility

issues. However, when two or more memory modules are installed, it is advised to use modules of the same speed; otherwise, all memory modules will automatically work at the same speed as the slowest module, which reduces overall performance.

However, both pairs don’t have to be identical in terms of size, as long as all of the memory modules are rated at the same speed. For example, if the motherboard has four memory slots with two DDR3 1,333MHz 1GB modules and two DDR3 1,066MHz 512MB modules installed in dual-channel, then system will run the memory at 1,066MHz (the slowest common factor). All 3GB of memory (1GB x2 and 512MB x2) will be accessible and it will operate in 128-bit dual channel mode, but the two 1GB modules will operate at reduced speed.

How to Recognize Your Memory Modules DDR3 and DDR2 memory modules are not compatible as they are based on different architectures,

specification, operating Voltage and they use different slots. However, they do have the same amount of connectors, so it can be difficult to see the differences just by look at the modules. If you look closely you’ll notice a notch in the memory modules, and this prevents you from installing the wrong type of memory in your system. If you place a DDR3 module on top of a DDR2 module, you’ll notice that the notch is much further to the left on the DDR3 module compared to the DDR2 module as per the picture below. However, the best way of checking that you have the right type of module is to read the sticker fitted by the manufacturer.

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A storage device saves all digital data once it has been processed by the processor. This is used for long term

storage of your files and programs. There are many different types of storage devices, but the most commonly used is the hard disk drive. Hard disk drives use magnetic platters on which data is stored and they are affordable, spacious and reasonably fast storage devices.

Optical drives are generally used for backups and easy transportation of larger amounts of data. Common optical media formats include Compact Discs (CD), Digital Versatility Discs (DVD) and Blu-ray, with CD and DVD writers commonly found in desktop computers, although Blu-ray has gained some popularity as of late, but due to the high price of both the drives and media, it has yet to become a standard feature.

The floppy drive has by large been replaced by USB flash drives as they are affordable storage devices that are easy to carry around with you. The USB flash drive has become a ubiquitous storage device and it looks like it will be with us for the foreseeable future, although faster and larger devices are likely to appear with the introduction of USB 3.0 interface.

Flash memory cards such as SD or Memory Stick cards are also very popular flash memory storage devices, although you’ll find these in your digital camera, camcorder or mobile phone. A memory card reader is a great addition to a PC these days in order to accommodate these cards.

The hard disk drive is still the most reliable long-term storage device and it has grown rapidly in size over the years. Today you can find 2TB (terabyte) drives in high-end computers. Due to the low cost of hard disk drives, the best way to backup your data is to buy a second drive and either put it in an external drive caddy (or buy an external drive). Alternatively you could set your system up in what is known as a RAID 1 configuration, as this makes an identical copy of your main hard drive on to the secondary drive. However, until now it has been quite difficult to set up a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks), but as you’ll find out later in this guide book, GIGABYTE has found ways to take the hassle out of setting up a RAID.

SSD or Solid State Drives have also started to gain popularity and they rely on flash memory rather than spinning disks to store data. They’re still very expensive compared to a hard disk drive, but the latest generation of SSD drives offers huge performance advantage over hard disk drives. They also draw less power and as such are an excellent solution for notebooks due to their generally smaller size compared to hard disk drives.

A typical 3.5-inch hard disk drive The DVD writer quickly became the standard optical storage drive

USB flash drives are one of the most popular types of external storage devices

1.5 Storage Devices

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Optical Drives The DVD writer became the standard optical drive in just about every home computer and has all but

replaced CD writers and Combo drives. You’d have a hard time finding a PC without a DVD writer in it these days. With blank media capacity of 4.7 and 8.5GB (for dual layer discs), a blank DVD doesn’t offer a huge amount of storage space these days when you consider that a very small hard disk drive in a desktop PC is 160GB.

This makes DVDs not an ideal choice of media for backing up large amounts of data, but they’re still useful for storing home videos or pictures on, especially if you want to share them with your friends and family. DVDs are still far more affordable than handing out USB flash drives to your relatives and they also have the advantage of working in most consumer DVD video players.

The latest generation of DVD writers features SATA interface and with Intel having dropped chipset level support for IDE, some motherboards require an optical SATA drive. DVD writers will continue to be the standard optical PC drive for some time, even though the price of Blu-ray drives have reached far more affordable levels. However, the more affordable Blu-ray drives won’t generally write to Blu-ray media and a such, these are combo drives that are able to write to DVD media.

Blu-ray writers are still expensive and although the storage capacity of Blu-ray media is as much as 25 or 50GB, the blank disks are also vastly more expensive, making this a costly format for consumers to use as a viable storage medium.

The optical drive isn’t set to dissapear anytime soon, as a disc is still the most affordable and practical way of distributing digital data. However, there might be a revival of the optical drives in the near future, albeit in a slightly different format than used today, as there are several companies working on holographic storage solutions which claim Terrabyte level capacity in the future. If and when this happens, optical storage devices are like to gain popularity once more as backup devices.

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Hard Disk Drives

The size of a hard disk drive and other storage devices is measured in Bytes, although as one Byte is so tiny, commonly used terms are KB (kilo Byte), MB (Mega Byte), GB (Giga Byte), TB (Terra Byte). One kB is 1024 Bytes, although most storage device manufacturers round this down to 1000 Bytes. This is part of the reason why most storage drives are never the exact size as printed on the box. A part of the storage capacity is also lost to the file system when you format your storage device.

Hard disk drives are available in different storage sizes, with various spin speeds of the disks and they also have different cache sizes depending on model and manufacturer.

Other factors include the amount of platters combined with the data density per platter (the higher the density, the more data can be stored on a platter). A hard disk drive with a high data density can use fewer platters to offer a large storage capacity. A technology called Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR) allows for a jump in data density per platter.

The cache size on most desktop hard drives today is either 8, 16 or 32MB and depending on the usage scenario, you might see more or less of a benefit going from a smaller to a larger cache.

The spin speed of the platters also has a major impact on performance, with 5,400rpm being the traditional speed for consumer level desktop hard drives, but this has largely been superseded by 7,200rpm hard drives.

For those looking for a hard drive for a high-performance system the Seagate Barracuda 7200.12-series offers the best combination of size and performance. The Barracuda 7200.12-series is based on fourth generation PMR technology and the

Adaptive Fly Height offers consistent read and write performance so you won’t get random slowdowns during read and write operations. Other features include up to 32MB cache and up to 500GB per platter on the larger models. For a 7,200rpm drive the Barracuda 7200.12-series of drives are also very power efficient. Compared to the previous generation of drives, the Barracuda 7200.12-series is 39 percent more power efficient. On top of that, 70 percent or more of the materials used to make the Barracuda 7200.12 drives comes from recycled materials which make these some of the most environmentally-friendly hard drives on the market.

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Drive Interfaces

There are two types of commonly used drive interfaces, IDE (also known as Parallel ATA) and SATA (also known as Serial ATA). IDE is on its way out, but it’s still commonly found on DVD drives. SATA is available in three different types, SATA, SATA 3GB/s and SATA 6GB/s, although the latest version has barely made it on to the market. For each generation the speed has doubled and as such, the original SATA specification offers speeds of up to 1.5GB/s. An important feature that was added with SATA 3GB/s is known as NCQ or Native Command Queuing. This improves the way that the data on the hard drive is accessed and can enhance the performance of data transfer from the hard drive.

The hard disk drive at the top feature the newer SATA interface while the one at the bottom feature the older IDE interface.

Also notice the difference on the power connectors. The SATA cables also take up far less space than IDE cables.

Another advantage that SATA offers over IDE is the cable and connector used. As IDE uses a parallel data interface, a wide cable with a multitude of connectors is needed. SATA on the other hand uses a serial interface which means a much thinner cable can be use and the connector is much smaller and easier to attach and remove from the drive. GIGABYTE supplies a newer type of cable with all of its motherboards that features a small locking clasp which secures the cable to both the drive and the motherboard.

A typical SSD drive from Intel in 2.5-inch form factor with SATA interface

SSD or Solid State Drives are still a fairly new technology yet they have gained popularity for their performance advantages over mechanical hard disk drives. The lack of moving parts makes a SSD an ideal solution for notebook computers, but SSD technology is becoming popular in desktop systems as well.

For most consumers, SSD drives are priced out of reach, but they are becoming more affordable. Using an SSD drive to install your operating system shows great improvement of overall system performance. The reason for this is because the low latency of SSD drives compare to hard disk drives.

SSD’s also offer vastly improved read and write speeds compared to hard disk drives, especially if you’re working with a lot of smaller files. Either way you look at it, SSD’s are the future in data storage, but for now, they’re a costly and low capacity option, albeit very fast.

SSD

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Flash drives

Blu-ray As explained in the DVD section, the storage capacity of DVD

media is limited to 4.7 and 8.5GB respectivly for single-layer and double-layer discs. The problem is that with all kinds of new digital media, DVD can no longer meet the storage requirements for things like high defenition video and audio. This is where Blu-ray comes into the picture, and as mentioned earlier, a single Blu-ray disc can hold 25 or 50GB of data. As a consumer, HD video storage format Blu-ray has had massive success, but it doesn’t look like it will become an affordable PC storage solution for some time. A cheap Blu-ray combo drive is still vastly more expensive than a DVD drive and the only advantage it offers over a DVD writer is the ability to read Blu-ray media. That said, if you are going to build a home theater PC, Blu-ray play back is essential, especially considering the higher quality resolution and the fact that in the not so distant future, Blu-ray will replace DVD as the standard.

Flash Drives

Microsoft® Windows Vista added support for Ready Boost and Windows 7 also features support for it. Ready Boost allows a USB drive to act as a small high-speed data cache between the system memory and the hard drive to boost the performance of the computer. However, this works best on systems with 1GB or less sytem memory. With cheap memory prices, it never became hugely popular, although with some very fast and cheap USB flash drives on the market, it might still offer some incentive on systems with a large amount of RAM.

Unlike hard drives which require moving parts, flash drives save data on flash memory which has no moving parts at all. This means that there’s no risk of damaging the drive or the data if the drive is dropped. USB flash drives are also much smaller, making them a convenient and portable alternative to hard drives. Current models of flash drives support USB 2.0 which offers fast transfer rates, hot-plug capabilities and in general, doesn’t require any driver installation. In addition, most modern motherboards support booting from a USB flash drive, which can be convenient for tasks like upgrading the BIOS.

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1.6 What to Look for in Chassis, Power and Cooler

The Chassis Selecting the right chassis is never easy, and most of

the selection process comes down to personal needs, wants and prefrences. The aesthetics of the chassis are of course important, but sometimes you’ll have to make a trade-off to get the features you want. What you should consider first of all is that the chassis should have enough space for all of the components you are planning to install, while also providing adequate cooling. The material the chassis is made from might also be an important factor, as aluminum is more expensive than steel, but it’s lighter and generally better looking. You can also get chassis with a steel frame with aluminum finishing which could offer a good trade-off between durability, looks and cost. Next, you should consider how it fits with your current work space, as some chassis are too large to fit under a desk and this might be reason enough to find a different product.

What has become something of a problem for those buying a high-end graphics card is the lack of space inside the chassis once the power connectors have been attached to the card, as it may be difficult for some of these cards to fit properly. This means you might need an extra deep chassis; so once again, make sure you check that there’s enough space inside the chassis before purchasing it. Cooling is another important factor, and with the number of different cooling solutions on the market these days, it can be hard to pick the right one. More fans aren’t always the answer, as it comes down to how they are positioned inside the chassis.

The GIGABYTE SUMO 4112 chassis

Top mounted ports are easy to access, but make sure they’re located conveniently for your needs.

The SUMO 4112 offers a built on 2.5-inch drive docking bay. There’s also a handy disc storage compartment on the inside of the door.

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The SUMO 4112 pictured here is GIGABYTE’s latest high-end chassis, and it has a range of useful features. Starting at the rear, we have a pair of 120mm fans for low noise cooling. Below the fans, you’ll find two pass-through holes for an optional watercooling kit. The SUMO 4112 also features top mounted audio jacks, USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port and an eSATA port. Front or top mounted ports always come in handy; just make sure they’re in an easy-to-access location.

Another useful feature is the disc storage compartment in the door which has a soft foam padding so discs won’t be damaged. It could be handy for storing that important system restore disc so you always know where you have it.

Another feature that many chassis manufacturer charge extra for, is the interchangeable side panels and the SUMO 4112 comes with both a ventilated steel mesh as well as a transparent acrylic window for those that want to show off the internal components of their chassis.

Other features include tool less drive installation where the front accessible drives have a special locking mechanism and the internal 3.5-inch drive bays use easy to fit drive rails.

The SUMO 4112 also comes with a pre-fitted cable management system that makes it easy to do a tidy installation.

At the rear of the SUMO 4112 you’ll find dual 120mm fans and pass-through holes for water cooling pipes.

Fans are the most common way to extract heat from the case. However, watercooling is another option, but is more costly.

The SUMO 4112 is supplied with two interchangeable side panels, a transparent one that acts as a window and a mesh one that increases the airflow.

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The SUMO 4112 offers tool less 5.25-inch drive

installation which makes it quick and easy to install devices in the 5.25-inch drive bays.

The front accessible 3.5-inch drive bays also feature the same tool less drive installation as the 5.25-inch drive bays.

A unique feature of the SUMO 4112 is the dockable 2.5-inch hard drive. This is handy for those that want a quick and easy way to bring large amounts of data with them. When slotted in to the dock, the 2.5-inch drive connects via SATA interface for the fastest possible transfer speeds when you’re copying data to and from the hard disk drive inside your desktop system. When you take the enclosure with you on the road, you can connect it to any other computer or notebook via the USB 2.0 interface.

The handy 2.5-inch drive enclosure offers a quick and easy way of transporting large amounts of data around with you.

Other useful features include quick release latches for all of the 5.25-inch drive bays and drive rails which make installing hard drives quick and easy. The SUMO 4112 also comes with two color options for the LED lights on the front and you can change between red and blue. Finally, one last useful addition is pre-fitted cable management clips, something that always comes in handy if you want to build a tidy system. It’s always better to spend a little bit more on a chassis, as it can be re-used for several upgrades, and as such, it’s one of the longest lasting components you can buy.

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The Power Supply The power supply is probably the most overlooked component in a system, despite the fact that it’s one of

the most important. If you consider that a poor quality power supply can cause irreparable damage to your system and all its components, then you might understand why a quality power supply is important. Modern switching computer power supplies are a far cry from the grey little boxes used a few years ago.

Partly due to changes to the ATX specification from Intel, and partly due to increased power efficiency demands, power supplies have been under heavy development over the past few years. All respectable power supply manufacturers have been busy adding new features and tweaking their designs to adhere to the latest standards. The development of power hungry graphics cards has also led to some problems, as the power draw on the 12V rail has increased exponentially.

To put things simply, traditional power supply design has three power rails, 3.3, 5 and 12V. However, this all changed a few years ago, as Intel added a new specification that meant that no power supply was allowed to deliver more than 18A (20A peak) on the 12V rail. This lead to the introduction of multi-rail power supplies with two rail power supplies being developed first, but with increasing demand of power from both processors and graphics cards, three, four, six and even eight rail power supplies have appeared.

Intel® has since gone back on the 18A per rail requirements and now several companies have gone back to designing single rail power supplies. There is no advantage of a single rail power supply over a modern multiple rail design, quite the opposite in fact. A good multi-rail power supply is generally more power efficient and can deliver more total power.

One thing worth looking for when buying a power supply is the label. Make sure that the 12V rail offers the

most power of the three rails, as having a strong 3.3 and 5V rail isn’t really needed in a modern system. A lot of power supply makers “boost” their capacity by increasing the 3.3 and 5V rails, but don’t pay enough attention on the 12V rail which might ultimately mean that your system may not have enough power for your components.

It’s also important to remember that the power supply guidelines by NVIDIA and ATI for graphics cards are often inflated due to the wide range of poor quality power supplies in the market. As long as you have a quality power supply, you’ll most likely not need the kind of numbers that are being thrown around for high-end systems these days. 500-600W is more than enough even for SLI™ or CrossFire™, as long as you’re not using more than two single GPU cards.

The GIGABYTE ODIN power supplies offer a wide range of advanced features

Check the safety markings on the power supply label

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The large, low noise 140mm cooling fan used on the ODIN GT power supplies

Well marked and color coded modular connects makes for an easy installation

The ODIN GT comes with all the cables in a practical storage bag

However, if you’re using three or more graphics cards and something like a high-end quad core CPU, several hard drives etc. then you should consider getting larger capacity power supply.

Apart from the power rails, other things worth looking for on the box or the sticker of the power supply is CE and FCC labels, as this means that the product has passed the necessary safety checks. The 80 Plus certification is also a good thing, as it shows that you’ve purchased a power efficient power supply and you can actually save energy costs over a year by using a more efficient power supply compared to one with poor power efficiency. There are several 80 Plus certifications although even the most basic one vouches for a power efficient power supply.

GIGABYTE’s range of ODIN GT power supplies are some of the most advanced in the market today and they have one key feature that sets them apart, the P-Tuner utility. This gives the user a never before seen way to interact with the power supply. The P-Tuner not only measures things like power consumption, peak power usage, amperage, voltage, fan speeds, temperatures, but it also gives the user control of several features of the power supply.

There are options to set up fan speed profiles and there are three presets as well as one user programmable mode. It’s also possible to boost the voltages of the 12, 5 and 3.3V rails, although this is something only experienced users should attempt. You can also set a wide range of alarms in case something goes wrong with the power supply or the temperature gets too high.

As the ODIN GT is a modular power supply, cable management is very good, as you only need to attach the cables you need. All the cables are braided and feature easy to release connectors. As an added bonus, all cables come bundled in a Velcro storage bag so you always know where those spare cables are located.

The P-Tuner software allows you to monitor the power supply in Windows. You can also set the fan speed and temperature alarms in this easy to use application.

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The shroud around the G-Power II directs the air to improve the overall cooling performance

The three heat pipes and the unusual curved design allows for quick heat dissipation

The CPU Cooler The CPU cooler is another sometimes overlooked component, but generally less so than the chassis and

power supply. Although the stock cooler supplied with any retail boxed processor does the job of cooling the processor, it will not offer performance required for a top-tier system.

Heat is an important factor when it comes to component life. The CPU can operate at very high temperatures, but they are actually more efficient when they run cooler. Heatpipe coolers such as the GIGABYTE G-Power II are one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to reduce CPU temperatures.

The G-Power II features three 6mm heatpipes that draw the heat away from the nickel-coated copper-base. Heatpipes are great at moving heat quickly from the CPU to the cooling fins. The fins, in turn, dissipate the heat into the surrounding environment with the help of a 9cm PWM fan. The advantage of using a PWM fan is that the motherboard can automatically adjust the fan speed based on how hot the CPU runs.

The curved design of the G-Power II also allows it to cool the power regulation circuitry on the motherboard, which is an added bonus, as the PWM area can get quite hot on some motherboards. The G-Power II is supplied with a wide range of fittings that makes it work with LGA-775, LGA-1156 and LGA-1366 based Intel motherboards, as well as AM2/AM3 AMD based motherboards.

GIGABYTE hasn’t cut any corners on the ODIN GT range of power supplies, as they feature Japanese capacitors, a 140mm cooling fan, four 12V rails and the 800W/1200W models offer support for quad SLI™ or CrossFire™. Remember, it’s worth getting a good power supply, just as it is with getting a quality chassis, as it’s likely to last over several rounds of upgrades. It’s also important to get a good power supply if you care about the life span of the rest of the components in your system, since poor power supplies can cause serious damage to your system.

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LCD displays are now the most common type of displays on the market and they are getting bigger and cheaper

by the year. Picking a monitor these days can be confusing, as there are several aspects to take into consideration, such as panel type, rated brightness, contrast ratio, response time, connectivity options and more.

Finding out the panel type can be difficult, as generally the manufacturers don’t tell you what type of panel they use in their monitors. The most common Twisted Nematic (TN) panels and they’re generally found in of the more affordable displays on the market. Other types of panels are IPS or MVA, both have improved color reproduction, but the response time is in general not as fast as on a TN panel.

A high brightness ratio (cd/m2) is generally a good thing, but a high contrast ratio isn’t always an accurate measurement as many display manufacturers use what is known as “dynamic contrast ratio”.

Monitor size and resolution is also important, but the key thing here is to evaluate several different display sizes with different resolutions to find the one you’re most comfortable using. A higher resolution display might also require a more powerful graphics card, especially if you intend to play games at full screen resolution.

Aspect ratio is also an important thing to consider at and in the past most displays had an aspect ratio of 4:3. This is a fairly square aspect ratio, although over the past few years 16:10 computer displays have largely taken over the market. More recently 16:9 displays have started to appear in the market, but it’s important to note that some 16:9 models offer a lower resolution compared to some 16:10 models.

When it comes to the interface between the monitor and PC, DVI (Digital Visual Interface) and D-Sub connectors are found on most monitors and graphics cards. However some monitors also feature an HDMI port or a DisplayPort instead of, or in addition to a DVI port.

1.7 Displays

Display panel

Menu buttons

OSD controls Power light Power button

USB port (for built in USB hub)Audio line-in jack for built in speakers D-Sub connector

HDMI connector

Power connector

Air vents

VESA mount/Stand

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1.8 Keyboard and Mouse

Keyboards Choosing the right keyboard can be tricky, especially since there are so many different products on the

market. There are wired keyboards and wireless keyboards, PS/2 and USB interfaces and let’s not forget all the various wireless standards that are available from the different manufacturers. As if this wasn’t bad enough, there are also a multitude of different types of key mechanics such as membrane, mechanical or scissor type.

Depending on how often you use the computer, you have to try to pick a suitable keyboard. Casual users are unlikely to need an overly extravagant keyboard, while a serious gamer or someone who types a lot on their computer will prefer something a bit more advanced. Wireless keyboards have the advantage of being easy to move around, but the downside is that they tend to need fresh batteries every few months. Wired keyboards tend be be prefered by gamers as they claim there’s less lag using a wired keyboard.

GIGABYTE has a wide range of keyboards suitable for most users needs, ranging from very simple and affordable models, to gaming and multimedia keyboards like the GK-K6800, pictured on the right.

The GK-K6800 offers a wide range of additional features that allow you to work more efficiently, such as browser control buttons, and offer easy access to multimedia player controls and volume. The GK-K6800 features a membrane type keyboard. All the keys are laser engraved which means that the text won’t rub off the key which can happen on cheaper keyboards.

Mice Optical mice have changed a lot since they replaced ball mice some years ago. Typically you get two types

of optical mice these days, the ones that rely on an LED and the ones that use a laser. However, GIGABYTE has developed a third kind, which uses Dual Lens technology to boost the dpi. The dpi or Dots Per Inch is a measurement of how sensitive the mouse is when it comes to responding to movement.

Dual Lens mice from GIGABYTE, such as the GM-M6800 allows you to switch between 800 and 1600 dpi on the fly, which makes it ideal for both work and play. A lower dpi generally means a slower, but more accurate mouse movement, while a higher dpi means a faster but not quite as accurate movement.

Laser mice offer even higher accuracy and the GM-M8000 gaming mouse from GIGABYTE can be adjusted up to 4000 dpi and has been designed specifically for gamers. It uses an Avago 6090 sensor which can be adjusted in steps of 100 dpi, starting at 400 dpi. It also features GIGABYTE’s GHOST™ engine, five programmable buttons, an ergonomic design and an onboard switch for three different gaming profiles. As this is a gaming mouse, it also comes with a weight pack that can add up to 38g of extra weight to it.

The GM-M6800 is a great all-round mouse suitable both for work and casual gaming as it offers two different dpi modes.

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Chapter 2 Before You Start

Before you start assembling the components for your new PC, there are a few things you should make sure that you have handy. Even though the documentation supplied with the motherboard or chassis can be very helpful, there are still several details to take into consideration before you begin, in order to avoid problems during the build. Let’s start by taking a look at some tools that you’ll need to ensure a smooth and efficient installation.

1. Screwdriver and screw kitA regular Philips head screwdriver is needed. It’s easier to use a screwdriver with a long shaft as it makes it easier to access hard to reach areas. A magnetic screwdriver is also useful to pick up tiny screws that might fall into tight spaces around the case.

2. Needle-nose pliers Needle-nose pliers can be useful if you don’t have a magnetic screw driver, especially if you drop a screw into a place where you can’t reach it. They’re also useful for attaching the motherboard stand-offs as these are generally brass nuts which needs to be attached to the motherboard mounting plate inside the case. 3. Anti-static wrist strap Some computer components are vulnerable to static electricity and can get damaged if exposed to it. An anti-static wrist strap is an easy and safe way to make sure that you don’t damage any of your components, just make sure you attach it to something that’s grounded before you start. 4. Flashlight A flashlight can come in handy once your system is setup and you need to do some last minute changes or tweaks, as sometimes it can be difficult to see things inside the case once all the components have been fitted.

Installation Tools

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1. CablesCables are supplied with your motherboard and they’re used to connect the hard disk drive and optical drive(s) to the motherboard. There are two different types of cables for the various drives depending on the interface they use. Most motherboards come with at least a Parallel ATA (PATA or IDE) and Serial ATA (SATA) cable. See Section 3.4 for more information on cables.

2. Power Cables Most motherboards are still supplied with SATA power adapters, even though modern power supplies should have sufficient connectors for most users. If your power supply doesn’t have enough connectors, then you can use a Y-splitter to connect more devices. (Please pay attention to the Wattage of the power supply, as attaching too many devices to a power supply will cause system instability).

1. JumpersSome devices, such as IDE hard disk drives and optical drives, make use of jumpers to configure the master and slave settings in order to install two drives on a single cable. Most drives come with the right amount of jumpers needed, although if you need additional jumpers, we’d suggest you contact a local computer shop which should hopefully stock the right kind.

2. Driver CD and Documentation In addition to installing the hardware, you need to install an operating system and drivers to have a fully functional computer. Drivers are supplied with the motherboard; add-on cards etc. on a CD or DVD, although we suggest that you visit the manufacturer’s website for the latest driver versions, especially when it comes to graphics card drivers.

Cables and Wires

Auxiliary and Maintenance Tools

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Chapter 3 Hands-on Installation

Building a computer might seem complicated at first, but in reality it’s much easier than you think. It’s important to

prepare everything before you start and a well lit work space will also help. Make sure that you’re careful when you assemble the parts and don’t forget to check that you have the right tools handy, as otherwise you’ll run into problems. Several parts of the system can be assembled before you fit them in to the chassis, such as the processor, CPU cooler and memory modules, but let’s start from the beginning by installing the power supply.

3.1 Installing the Power Supply in the Chassis

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Remove the Side Panel

After you have taken the chassis out of its packaging, remove the panel on the left hand side. Some chassis feature thumb screws or quick release mechanisms which makes them easier to open, others use standard Philips screws that require a screwdriver.

Open the Side Panel

This chassis from GIGABYTE also has a latch which needs to be released before the side can be removed. As the arrow indicates, push the latch and then pull outwards to detach the panel. The way the side panels are removed will vary from chassis to chassis, but generally it’s quite easy to remove them.

Locate Where the Power Supply Goes Install the Power Supply

Depending on the type of chassis you have, the power supply might fit in to the top or the bottom of the. As such you need to locate the space in the chassis where the power supply goes. It’s important to note which way the power supply should be installed and you should check the case manual for this. Check the position of the screw holes to make sure it’s fitted right.

Slot the power supply in to place, make sure no wires are caught and that it appears to fit correctly. Depending on your chassis, you might have a bracket that you need to attach to the power supply before slotting it in.

Secure the Power Supply

Hold the power supply with one hand if needed, and then secure it with the four screws supplied. Once secured, make sure it is aligned properly (it’s possible to move it slightly to make it fit perfectly) and then fasten the screws securely. Make sure you use the correct screws.

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Something that might not be obvious at first glance is that some processor coolers require the use of a back plate.

The back plate needs to be attached to the back of the motherboard before the motherboard is fitted to the case, as otherwise you won’t be able to install the cooler. We suggest fitting the CPU, CPU cooler and memory onto the motherboard before you install the motherboard in the case to make for an easier overall build.

3.2 Installation of Components on the Motherboard

Remove the Protective Cover from the CPU Socket

Depending on the type of CPU you’re installing, start by removing the plastic cover which is protecting the processor, although in the case of some motherboards, such as this P55 based model used in the example, you have to open the socket first. Release and lift up the small leaver next to the processor socket. Lift up the metal plate to gain access to the processor socket. On certain types of processor sockets, the metal plate will lift up as you move the metal leaver upwards. During this step should also visually inspect the CPU socket and make sure there’s no physical damage, as this would cause problems later on.

Install the Processor

Remove the plastic protection cover at the back of the processor. Avoid touching the contact points at the rear of the processor. Hold on to the edges of the processor firmly and line up the indents of the processor with the keys in the processor socket. This is to prevent inserting the CPU back to front and there’s also an arrow to indicate which way the CPU should fit. Carefully insert the processor in to the socket in a straight and downward motion. Double check that the processor is lined up properly in the socket.

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Secure the Processor in the Socket

If the processor isn’t positioned correctly in the socket, then the locking mechanism won’t close properly. If this happens, open the locking mechanism and double check that the processor has been installed correctly. Also check that there’s no damage to the pins inside the socket. Close the locking mechanism according to the instructions in the motherboard manual and secure the latch.

Apply Thermal Paste

Some coolers come with pre-applied thermal paste or a thermal pad and if you have one of those, then you can skip this step. However, if your cooler doesn’t come with pre-applied thermal paste, you need to apply it yourself. Only apply a small amount of thermal paste onto the top of the processor. Once the heatsink is attached, the thermal paste will spread out evenly due to the pressure between it and the CPU. Don’t overdo it, as it will just make a mess and it will not improve the cooling.

There are a wide variety of thermal pastes available on the market and we recommend staying away from the cheapest kinds (like the white silicone paste) as the thermal conductive properties aren’t good enough for modern processors. The function of the thermal paste is to create a seal between the CPU and the heatsink and allow for better thermal transfer between the two. A good thermal paste will lower the temperature of the processor by several degrees compared to a poor quality product. Please note that thermal paste can be toxic if indigested, so make sure you wash your hands if you get thermal paste on your fingers.

Note

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Install the Cooler Platform

Install the Cooler

Some coolers need to be assembled before they can be placed onto the processor, as they can be used with multiple platforms.

Follow the instructions that come with your CPU cooler to find out how to do this.

Normally you have a pair of locking clips or some kind of screw mechanism that attaches the cooler to the motherboard. The G-Power II comes with a selection of mounting clips. These need to be screwed on to the base of the cooler before it can be fitted.

Secure the Cooler

Make sure you align the CPU cooler properly; some coolers can only be installed in one direction. On some motherboards the cooler will also only fit one way due to the shape of the CPU socket. To secure the cooler you need to fasten the plastic pins through holes in the motherboard. Other coolers need to be screwed in place, or secured with a latch onto a mounting bracket.

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Installing the Memory

Open the latches on both side of the memory slots, line up the notch in the memory module with the peg in the memory slot on the motherboard. The memory slots on the motherboard are numbered, but do note that that you don’t insert the modules in slot 1 and 2 for example; instead you would insert them in slot 1 and 4 in this case, to operate the memory in dual channel mode.

Install the Memory Modules

Different types of memory have different “keys” so you can’t insert the wrong type of memory by mistake. This also prevents you from installing the modules back to front. Gently insert the memory modules in to the slot, making sure it fits, then press down firmly and the latches should secure the module. If they don’t, then the module is either the wrong type of memory, or fitted back to front. Repeat with additional modules until you’ve installed the desired amount of memory.

If you’ve installed your memory modules correctly, then it should look like the picture to the left, if not, then you’ve installed them wrong or you’re using the wrong type of memory. To remove a memory module, use both thumbs to press down and outwards on the latches to release the module from the slot.

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3.3 Installing the Motherboard

Preparations Before the Motherboard is Fitted

Start by putting the chassis on its side on a flat surface. Look in your case manual with regards to what is needed to attach the motherboard to the case. Normally, brass stand-offs are used, and they are screwed in to the motherboard mounting plate inside the case. The screw holes are generally labeled, although the easiest way of doing this is to look at your motherboard and then attach the brass stand-offs accordingly, as it will differ slightly from motherboard to motherboard.

Secure the Brass Stand-offs

Secure the brass stand-offs using either your fingers or something like a pair of needle-nose pliers or a small wrench.

Install the I/O Shield

Remove the pre-fitted I/O shield and install the one that was supplied with your motherboard. Be careful when you fit the I/O shield in to the chassis as well, as it can sometimes be a tight fit and it can have very sharp corners.

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Install and Secure the Motherboard

Now, it’s time to install the motherboard. It’s generally easier if you lean the motherboard in to the chassis at a slant, as this makes it easier to fit the ports on the rear in to the I/O shield. Make sure that none of the grounding parts of the I/O shield end up inside any of the ports by mistake. Secure the motherboard with the correct type of screws or mounts. It’s generally easier to start with one screw in the middle as this allows for some jiggling room for when attaching the remaining screws. Don’t secure the screws too tightly until you’ve fitted all the screws.

Connect the Power Supply to the Motherboard

Connect the 24-pin ATX power cable and the 4 or 8-pin 12V power cable (motherboard dependant) from the power supply to the motherboard. The power connectors can only be inserted one way and feature a locking clasp on one side which secures the power cables onto the motherboard.

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Attach the Chassis Connectors

There are a range of chassis connectors that have to be attached depending on the type of chassis you have and above you can see a collection of the most common types of connectors.

The USB and FireWire connectors are keyed so that they can’t be inserted the wrong way around or in to the wrong type of connector on the motherboard.

Connect the Front Panel Connectors

On modern motherboards it’s quite easy to connect the cables from the front panel of the chassis to the correct headers on the motherboard, as most motherboards use color coded connectors for the power and reset buttons, as well as the power and hard drive LED’s. Observe the polarity of the connectors; the arrow symbol indicates positive. Refer to the motherboard manual for more information.

Connect the USB and FireWire Ports

Connect the USB and FireWire cables from the front panel of the chassis or from additional brackets. GIGABYTE motherboards use color coded connectors to help you find what you’re looking for. The supplied brackets have matching color coding to make it even easier to pair up the right headers and connectors, however the chassis connectors won’t be color coded.

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Hard disk drives and optical drives follow the same procedure and use similar cables for installation. You’ll need to attach two types of cables, a data cable and a power cable. You’ll also need a set or screws or some kind of drive rails for the hard disk drives, while in modern chassis you don’t need any screws for the optical drive. Screws are generally supplied with the chassis, but sometimes they may differ from those supplied with the drive. Refer to the instructions supplied with your drive and case before starting the installation.

There are two types of common cables for hard disk drives and optical drives, IDE (also known as PATA) and

Serial ATA (also known as SATA). SATA hard disk drives are more or less standard these days, but you can still install an IDE hard disk drive. The latest generation of motherboard chipsets from Intel® no longer supports IDE, although many motherboard manufacturers such as GIGABYTE add an additional IDE controller to support older hard disk drives or optical drives, as SATA optical drives are still not as common as IDE drives.

Two devices can share the same PATA cable, but you need to set a jumper on the drives to one of two settings:

“Master” or “Slave”. One drive has to be master and the other slave. Alternatively there’s a third setting called CS or Cable Select. This is generally the easier option to go with, but then both drives have to be set to CS. The details of the jumper settings are usually provided on the label on the top or side of the hard disk drive and optical drive. Refer to the information on the device before configuring the jumper setting.

Always make sure you insert the cables the correct way around, as otherwise you can damage the connectors on

the drives. Be extra careful with IDE drives, as the pins can easily be bent or even pushed in to the drive if you insert the cable the wrong way around.

3.4 Storage Device Installation

The interface of a typical SATA hard disk drive and an IDE optical drive. Note the difference in size of the connectors.

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Accessing the Drive Bays

Some chassis need to have the front panel removed before you can install 5.25-inch drives, although this is generally not the case with most modern chassis. Refer to the manual that came with your chassis on how to install the drives.

Remove the Bay Covers

Most chassis have metal covers in front of the 5.25-inch drive bays (and some on the front accessible 3.5-inch drive bays as well) and they have to be removed before a drive can be installed in the slot. Use a pair of pliers or a screw driver to wobble the metal covers until they come off. Use caution when doing this, as the metal parts can be very sharp. You also have to remove the plastic or metal bay cover from the front of the chassis fascia before you can insert the drive.

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Install the Optical Drive

Slot the 5.25-inch drive into the hole in the chassis so that it fits neatly and level with the fascia of the chassis. A floppy disk drive or a memory card reader is installed the same way in a spare 3.5-inch front accessible drive bay. With some chassis you have to attach drive rails to the drives before they’re slotted in to the chassis.

Secure the Optical Drive

Depending on the type of chassis, you now either have to lock the drive latching mechanism in place to secure the drive, or attach the right amount of screws. If your chassis use drive rails to attach the front mounted drives, then you can skip this step.

Connect the IDE Cable

There are usually three connectors on an IDE cable. Two of them are located closer to each other than the third one and these are the ones that you should attach to the drive. The one located farther away should be connected to the motherboard.

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Attach Power

Optical drives generally use what is known as a Molex connector which has a 4-pin layout. These connectors only fit one way in to the drives. If your optical drive uses a SATA connector, then you need to use the SATA type power connector instead.

eSATA

Many modern chassis also come with an eSATA connector. Some motherboards also have eSATA brackets supplied with them. This generally requires that you attach a cable to one of the SATA ports on your motherboard. Please note that you need to enable a setting called AHCI in the BIOS of your motherboard to be able to hot-swap drives (to hot-swap means that you can plug in and remove drives while the PC is turned on). This also requires that you install the correct drives.

To install an eSATA bracket, attach the cables from the bracket to a pair of SATA ports on your motherboard.

GIGABYTE’s eSATA brackets also require power, as this type of bracket allows you to power external drives by using a special power adaptor supplied with the motherboard.

Install the bracket in one of the empty expansion slots and secure it.

You know have a pair of eSATA ports and a power connector which allows you to easily attach a hard drive to your system.

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Install the Hard Drive

Attach the drive rails to both sides of the hard disk drive. Insert the hard disk drive in to the drive bay, push it in and make sure that the rails on both sides click in to place. If your chassis relies on screws, then you should attach two screws at each side of the hard drive once it has been inserted. Some chassis require you to use special screws that are attached before you insert the hard drive. Refer to your chassis manual for more information.

Connect Power and Data Cables

Attach the SATA cable to the hard disk drive. The new latching type supplied with GIGABYTE motherboards locks in place, preventing it from accidentally falling out. Locate the primary SATA connector on the motherboard (usually labeled SATA 0) and attach the other end of the SATA cable to it. Attach the SATA power cable to the hard disk drives. The procedure is similar with IDE cables, but you have to a Molex type power connector instead of the SATA power cable.

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Install Add-on Cards

3.5 Installing Peripherals

With the chassis on its side, either un-screw the screw or release the latch (as in the chassis with the GIGABYTE chassis used here) that holds the blocking plate in place and remove it. This will give you an empty slot in which your new add-on card can be fitted. Make sure the opening lines up with the slot that you intend to insert the add-on card into. Some cases don’t come with blocking plates; instead you have to remove a piece of metal that covers the slot, use a pair of pliers and some caution in this case.

Remove the add-on card from its packaging and slot it in to the correct type of slot. Make sure that it is slotted in properly, and if your motherboard has a locking latch on the PCI Express slot, make sure it is locked in place. Re-attach the screw or the latch to secure the card. Some cards will also require external power to function properly, so make sure you attach the right power cable.

SLI™ and Crossfire

If you’re building a high-end system you might be using two graphics cards connected in an SLI or Crossfire configuration. It’s important to connect the two cards together with a bridge connector. This can either be a rigid PCB or the new type as use by GIGABYTE which is a flexible PCB which is much easier to install.

Remove the Blocking Plates

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3.6 Connecting Peripherals

Connect up Your Speakers

The speakers are plugged in to the audio jacks at the rear of the motherboard, or in to your sound card. The 3.5mm jacks on the back of the motherboard I/O panel are all color coded to make it easier to find the right jacks. The green one is line out or for your headphones if you’re not using speakers. The pink one is for the microphone and the blue one is line-out. The other three jacks are for additional speakers in a multi-channel speaker setup.

Connect the Display

Start by attaching the power connector to your display and make sure it’s powered on.

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Display Interfaces

Depending on the type of display you’re using, you’ll have to choose which way to attach it to your graphics card. The most common connectors are D-sub and DVI, although HDMI and DisplayPort can also be used. Attach the cable that is suitable for your setup to the graphics card and to the display.

If your graphics card doesn’t have a suitable connector, you might have to use and adaptor. Most graphics cards are supplied with at least one DVI to D-sub adapter for use with displays that only have an analogue input.

Likewise, some graphics cards have adaptors from DVI to HDMI or HDMI to DVI.

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Keyboard and Mouse

Your keyboard and mouse either use a PS/2 or a USB connector. USB has taken over PS/2 as the connector of choice for most people, but there’s no real disadvantage to using PS/2 over USB. Most gaming mice and cordless keyboards use USB. Attach the connectors to the suitable ports on the rear of the motherboard.

Additional Cables and Power

Attach any additional cables such as the network cable, antenna cables (for TV-tuners or Wi-Fi cards), USB devices etc. Finally plug in the power cable and if your power supply has a breaker switch, switch it on.

Power the system on and if it boots, then you’re ready to proceed to the next step, which includes setting up the BIOS, installing the operating system, drivers and software.

Startup Test after Assembly

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Chapter 4 Start up and BIOS Settings

If you’ve installed all the components correctly, you’ll hear a beep sound when you power on the system and this

indicates that everything is working correctly. If you hear several beeps, then something is either not installed correctly, or a component is not functioning properly. If you don’t hear the beep, then either the motherboard doesn’t have an onboard speaker, or the chassis speaker isn’t connected properly.

This is the BIOS POST screen and it contains detailed information about the various components in your system, such as the CPU, memory and drives.

As you can see from the screenshot below, the information isn’t very detailed, and it’s not supposed to be either, as it’s just letting you know that everything is working correctly. More detailed information can be found by entering the BIOS settings. Below is an explanation of what the various things you can see on the screen.

4.1 Startup Screen

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The BIOS screen contains a lot of information and to new users might look like a lot of gibberish at first. However, it contains a lot of valuable information that corresponds to the hardware you installed. 1. CPU and BIOS Version

The first detail to pay attention to is the processor. If your motherboard has a slightly older BIOS, the processor might not be automatically set up right and you’ll have to go and set it up manually in the BIOS settings. The second is the BIOS version and in the example above, the motherboard has BIOS version D15 installed. The BIOS name will differ from motherboard to motherboard, even from the same manufacturer and it might even vary slightly from version to version. 2. Memory Information

There are also details about the memory here and you’ll quickly notice if the memory isn’t installed correctly by having a look at the details. The BIOS will display the amount of installed memory and normally also which mode it’s operating in, such as “Dual Channel”. 3. Storage Device Information

All your drives will also be listed here and the BIOS will auto detect modern drives, although if you have some older exotic hardware, this might not work and you’ll have to manually set this up in the BIOS. It will also display which interface the drives use, although unless you’ve set the SATA controller to AHCI or RAID mode, the drives will be listed as IDE. This is normal and won’t cause any problems with your system. Please note that if you’re using AHCI or RAID, the hard drive information won’t be displayed on the BIOS post screen and the same applies for devices connected to onboard or add-on controllers. 4. Function Prompt

GIGABYTE also provides a couple of handy features in its BIOSes, such as Q-Flash which is an easy to use BIOS flash utility and Xpress Recovery 2 which is a system restore utility. Although the latter requires installation of additional software on the hard drive once the operating system has been installed to function properly.

BIOS Definition The word BIOS is an abbreviation of Basic Input Output

System and you can think of the BIOS as the most basic operating system of a computer. Without it you would have to program the parameters of all the hardware into the EEPROM which the BIOS is stored on for every single system, which would not only be very time consuming, but also very impractical. The clever thing with the BIOS is that it’s so flexible and allows for the various components in a computer to be mostly auto detected which saves time and hassle for the user. In the future we’re likely going to see a replacement of the BIOS by something that is known as EFI or Extensible Firmware Interface, but we’re not going to go in to the details about that here.

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4.2 BIOS Settings

The BIOS The BIOS is an integral part of the motherboard and although it’s one of those things that you only have to set up once (unless you change key system components), it’s important to set it up properly. To enter the BIOS on GIGABYTE motherboards you press the Delete key as soon as you get a picture on the screen.

Standard Features The Standard CMOS Features covers basic settings such as date, time and drive configuration. There’s generally no need to re-configure your drive settings as long as the drives have been auto detected properly.

Advanced BIOS Settings The Advanced BIOS Features menu enables you to set the boot disk priority among many devices. This is important if you have multiple hard drives in your system and want to use a specific drive to boot from. You can also set up other types of boot devices such as an optical drive, USB key etc. for when you’re going to install the operating system. We’d also suggest enabling the HDD S.M.A.R.T. capability here, as it’s a system that will detect problems with your hard drive before they can cause any serious problems.

The Integrated Peripherals Settings The Integrated Peripherals menu allows you to enable and disable onboard devices such as USB ports, FireWire ports, onboard RAID controllers, onboard audio controllers etc. Under certain circumstances, for example if you install a sound card, then you’d want to disable the onboard sound here.

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PC Health Status The PC Health Status CPU menu allows you to monitor the Voltages and temperatures of the motherboard and CPU. You can set up overheating and fan fail alarms here. The Smart FAN Control option allows the motherboard to automatically adjust the fan speed depending on how hot the CPU runs and will allow for a generally quieter running system.

Save and Exit Once you’ve set up the BIOS you need to select the Save and Edit Setup option to save your settings. A popup with the wording SAVE to CMOS and EXIT (Y/N) will appear and you have to press Y to save the settings. You can also press the F10 key at any time to save the changes you’ve done to the BIOS. If you don’t want to save the settings you’ve changed, then either press the Esc key or select Exit without saving.

BIOS Profile

Another feature that is great for overclockers that you’ll find as a part of the BIOS on GIGABYTE’s motherboards is the option to save BIOS profiles. You can store up to eight different profiles, all with their unique settings. This makes it easy to quickly swap between BIOS settings for when you want to overclock your system. To save a profile, you first have to select an empty profile and then press F11. To load a profile, you select a saved profile and then press F12 to load it. The profiles will also remain saved if you upgrade the BIOS version and this is a quick way to restore your BIOS settings.

M.I.T. The Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker or M.I.T. is a GIGABYTE exclusive BIOS feature and as the name suggests, it allows you to “tweak” various parameters of the system such as the CPU Clock Ratio and CPU Host Frequency (in MHz). It’s important to know what you’re doing before you start having a play here, as it is possible to cause damage to various components on the motherboard if you change the Voltages. However, for some components like the system memory, you might have to change the memory Voltage to a higher value to comply with the manufacturers ratings which aren’t always in line with the suggested settings.

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Once you’ve set up all the BIOS settings, you’re ready to install the operating system. There are a few choices out there depending on your needs, but Microsoft’s latest iteration of Windows, which simply goes under the name of Windows® 7, is the ideal choice for taking advantage of some of the latest technologies we’ve talked about earlier in this book. Not only does it support the latest processors and chipsets from Intel, but it also supports the latest version of Direct®X as well as DirectCompute, video transcoding on the fly, PhysX and of course SLI™ and CrossFire™ for multi GPU systems. We’re going to high-light some of the other new features of Windows 7, just in case you’re not familiar with what’s new.

4.3 Windows® 7

1. Themes One of the most noticeable features of Windows 7 is the new themes include a desktop slideshow. It’s very un-intrusive and it’s a great way to always have a new desktop background. A selection of themes is supplied with Windows 7 and all of the new desktop backgrounds support resolutions of up to 1,920 x 1,200 pixels. 2. Gadgets The gadgets have been kept from Windows® Vista, but in Windows 7, they can be placed where you see fit on the desktop and are no longer locked to the little side bar of Windows Vista. 3. Taskbar The Windows 7 taskbar has also been upgraded and applications that are “pinned” to the taskbar now also loads there. You can access multiple instances of the same application here as well and you’re given a thumbnail preview of what each of the windows contain before deciding which one to open. 4. Thumbnail preview Speaking of thumbnail previews, all applications can also be closed from the thumbnail preview by clicking the small red X in the corner of a thumbnail preview. This allows for a quicker and easier workflow. 5. Jump list By right clicking an application that is pinned to the taskbar, you get a quick access menu that is known as the jump list. The jump list allows you to access recently used files or websites, amongst other things. 6. Aero Peek Another new handy feature is Aero Peek, which allows you to take a quick glance at the desktop by moving the mouse cursor to the lower right hand side corner. All running applications turn transparent, and if you click the same corner, they minimize. 7. Aero Shake Another interesting little trick of Windows 7 is Aero Shake. Grab a window and shake it and all other windows will minimize, while the shook window stays on screen. 8. Aero Snap Aero Snap makes windows that are dragged to the top of the screen expand to full screen automatically, which is a quick and handy way of enlarging windows.

Features of Windows 7

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Once you insert the supplied drivers disc that came with your motherboard and auto run it, you’ll see the screen above. The Xpress Install feature will automatically detect your motherboard and install the required drivers.

Next you’ll see a list of the drivers. You can select to install single drivers, or use Xpress Install to install all of the drivers listed. Clicking the Xpress Install button will start the automatic installation. You might be asked to reboot the system at various stages, but the driver installation should continue once the system has re-booted, if additional drivers need to be installed.

One Click Driver Installation

Using the Download Center If you’re using Windows Vista, right-click on the Internet Explorer icon and select “Run as administrator” to

start Internet Explorer in the administrator mode. The update procedure can then be performed normally.

4.4 Installing Drivers with Ease Modern motherboards come with a host of onboard features such as Ethernet, RAID, FireWire, eSATA, HD

audio, and in some cases, even integrated audio. Each and every one of these features need to have additional drivers installed to function properly. Installing drivers can be time consuming, but with GIGABYTE’s Xpress Install, you can automatically install all the drivers for your motherboard with a single click.

The drivers supplied on the driver disc with the motherboard often get outdated, despite regular updates being made. Sometimes you have to update drivers due to compatibility issues with other hardware, or in the case of your graphics, to increase performance or gain new features. To make it as easy as possible to upgrade your drivers, GIGABYTE provides an easy to use Download Center that allows you to download the latest drivers for your hardware via the Internet.

9. Handy keyboard shortcuts There are a couple of handy keyboard shortcuts that makes Windows 7 easier to use: Win+Left/Win+Right snaps the currently selected window to the left or the right side of the screen. Tap the cursor key again, and the window moves to the center of the screen. 10. Win+Space is a shortcut for Aero Peek Win+P is great for those running multiple monitors, as this is a quick menu to enable various multi-monitor modes, such as when you want to use a projector with your notebook.

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You can access the download center via the drivers CD by clicking on the download center button, or by visiting the GIGABYTE website (www.gigabyte.com.tw). Select the support and downloads menu, motherboards and download center. Instructions are provided on the website.

Click the “Check out Download Center” button and you’ll get a new page which displays the above screen. Click the “Go” button, click “ok” on the pop-up message, select install this application if you’re running Internet Explorer and finally press “install”.

Press the “Go” button one more time and you’ll get a pop-up message explaining that the download center now also works with older motherboards, press “ok”. Another pop-up will be displayed telling you that a component needs to be installed, press “ok” again.

Your system will now be scanned and you might have to approve an Active X controller. Once this has been done, you’ll be greeted by a list of drivers. If you want to install all of them, click on “Click To Install All Drivers”. You can also install them one by one.

Drivers Installation Drivers Installation

Drivers Installation Drivers Installation

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Chapter 5 Unique GIGABYTE Features

GIGABYTE has always been an innovative motherboard manufacturer, and with the latest generation of Intel P55 based motherboards, GIGABYTE has gone one step further by adding three new advanced features that are collectively known as “333” Onboard Acceleration.

So what is “333” Onboard Acceleration? It’s a collection of three

new technologies, USB 3.0, 3x USB Power Boost and SATA 3.0 (SATA 6Gbps). Below is a breakdown of what these new technologies have to offer.

5.1 The Power of “333” Onboard Acceleration

USB 3.0 (also known as SuperSpeed USB) is the third iteration of the USB interface, which is the standard interconnect for most types of external devices these days. However, USB 3.0 is vastly different to its predecessors, as USB 3.0 is using an optical interface instead of an electrical interface, and this has meant some changes to the connector. The good news here is that USB 3.0 is still backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.0/1.1 as the connector retains the electrical interface.

The major advantage of USB 3.0 is that it offers ten times the performance of USB 2.0 with a data rate of 5Gbps compared to 480Mbps. USB 3.0 is also more power efficient, and the time it takes for a device to be detected by the OS have been vastly reduced. As a speed comparison, to copy a 1GB file over USB 2.0 takes 33 seconds, but with USB 3.0 this is reduced to a mere 3.3 seconds. USB 3.0, host controller from NEC electrohnics, will be available on GIGABYTE’s P55A series products to start with, but more products will get USB 3.0 support over time.

USB 3.0

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3x USB Power Boost A unique GIGABYTE feature is the addition of

three times the power for USB devices. This might sound strange at first, but a standard USB 2.0 port can only deliver 500mA (milliampere), which isn’t much power and many USB devices require a y-cable so that they can draw power from a second USB port.

GIGABYTE has solved this problem by increasing the power on each USB port by three times, so all the USB ports will be able to deliver 1500mA, which means that the y-cables won’t be needed anymore. Powered eSATA ports on GIGABYTE motherboards will also be able to deliver 1500mA and USB 3.0 ports will be able to deliver as much as 2700mA, rather than the standard 900mA for USB 3.0 ports. All USB ports on motherboards that support the increased power are equipped with an automatic fuse that will trip if there’s a power overload.

The extra power means that you can, for example, plug in external slim-line USB writers to your system and be able to burn discs without any problems, something that you can’t do on other motherboards. It’s important to notice that although high powered devices can draw more power, devices that are charged over USB won’t charge faster, despite more power being available.

SATA 3.0 6Gbps Although the official name is SATA 6Gbps,

this is the third iteration of the SATA interface. GIGABYTE motherboards with SATA 6Gbps support features the Marvell® 88SE9128 controller which offers four SATA 6Gbps ports with RAID 0 support. SATA 6Gbps is going to be a key part of any system with fast SSD drives, as the current SATA 3Gbps standard is close to be too slow for SSD drivers. In RAID 0 mode, SATA 6Gbps offers even higher speeds and it’s the ideal solution for fast RAID setups as you can reach speeds of up to 12Gbps depending on the drives used.

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With the introduction of the GA-P55A-UD6, GIGABYTE has reached another milestone in motherboard design as the first manufacturer to offer a motherboard with 24 phase power VRM design. Compared to more traditional power regulation, the new 24 phase solution offers better power delivery stability, lower VRM (Voltage Regulation Module) temperature, higher efficiency and better durability.

You might wonder how much of a difference it makes, as your average motherboard will work just as well, or at least it should. For the average consumer, most of today’s motherboards offer a decent enough power regulation design, but for those that overclock their system or run watercooling, there are some significant benefits to be had from this new 24 phase power VRM design, but more on this shortly.

5.2 24 Phase Power VRM Design

The extra power phases allow for a smoother VRM transient response, and although this technical term might not mean much to you, let us explain what it means in real world terms. A motherboard with a slow transient response time can cause two problems. The first one is that the powered delivered to the CPU is unstable (known as ripple) which can in turn cause system instabilities. However, this is a minor issue compared to what can happen if the Voltage gets to high, which is another possible side effect of a power VRM design.

With GIGABYTE’s 24 phase power VRM design, you will never have these problems as the response time is very fast, and as such, delivers ripple free power to the CPU. The Voltage is near enough perfect on this type of design and GIGABYTE exceeds Intel’s power regulation specifications.

It’s worth bearing in mind that having a high number of power phases alone doesn’t equate to a good VRM design, as it’s the sum of the components that makes for a great solution. This is why GIGABYTE implemented Ultra Durable™ 3, as it uses the best combination of components for the entire power regulation circuitry on the motherboard.

Enabling Optimum Power and Lowest Thermal

The transient response of a 24 phase power design is much quicker compared to a traditional design as highlighted by the graph above.

The 24 Ferrite Core Chokes, Lower RDS(on)

MOSFET’s and Japanese Solid Capacitors on P55 motherboards

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Stability and ripple free power delivery is only one of the advantages you get from the 24 phase power VRM design and another key benefit is a much cooler running motherboard. This might sound odd at first, but let us explain how it works.

With fewer components regulating the power delivered to the CPU (and to all the other components on the motherboard), those components have a heavier load. To put it in a simple way, they have to work harder to accomplish the same job as a motherboard with more VRM components such as those found in GIGABYTE’s 24 phase power design. As such, they get hotter, and as you can see from the picture above, using water cooling reduces the cooling efficiency around the PWM area, which further increases the temperature of the power regulation components.

However, moving on to GIGABYTE’s new 24 phase design, you can clearly see that the temperature is a lot lower, even with water cooling, by looking at the pictures below. As the load is spread over more components, none of the components have to work as hard as in a traditional design, which leads to an overall cooler running motherboard. Using a CPU cooler with a fan helps reduce the heat even further to levels that competing products are unable to come close to.

On the left is the GA-P55-UD6 with a water cooling setup on the CPU, and on the right, a standard air cooler

is used. The fan on the air cooler helps to cool the VRM area and lowers the temperature of the components further.

So to sum things up, GIGABYTE’s 24 phase power regulation circuitry not only offers the most stable power delivery system for the CPU, but it also means that you get a much cooler running motherboard compared to traditional motherboard designs, even during extreme circumstances. This makes the GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD6 an ideal motherboard for overclockers and performance users.

A simple graph showing the temperature of GIGABYTE’s 24 phase power regulation compared to a traditional design. With a high load, GIGABYTE’s 24 phase solution has a lower increase in temperature compared to the traditional less power phase.

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TPM (or Trusted Platform Module) is a technology that is starting to gain more and more appeal on motherboard platforms, as GIGABYTE has included TPM functionality on certain boards for more than a year now. TPM is a small chip on the motherboard that offers 2048-bit hardware encryption, which is an extremely high level of security. GIGABYTE’s Smart TPM is different from traditional TPM implementations, as it allows pairing of a cellular phone over Bluetooth.

You might wonder what an encryption chip, Bluetooth and a cellular phone has in common. Well, it’s pretty simple to be honest. GIGABYTE has developed a way that allows the encryption key to be stored on your cellular phone and for the phone to connect to your PC over Bluetooth to gain access to the TPM chip. The end result of this is an automatic security feature for your PC that kicks in as soon as you take your phone with you when you leave your computer.

The main advantage here is that no-one can access to your personal data while you’re away from it. It is quite easy to set up a PSD (Personal Secure Drive) folder on your system which becomes invisible as soon as the connection between your cellular phone and the TPM module is broken. This is a secure way of storing sensitive files on your computer, as only you will know that they’re there and you’re the only one that will have access to them.

The encryption key can also be stored on a USB drive, although to make this solution work, you have to attach the USB drive to your PC. It’s easier to forget the USB drive in the system than it is to forget to bring your phone, but it’s a good backup solution in case you’d lose your phone. Please note that a third party Bluetooth dongle is required for the Smart TPM to work with your cellular phone.

AutoGreen has one feature in common with the Smart TPM, both works over Bluetooth. What AutoGreen allows you to do is to connect your mobile phone to your computer via a Bluetooth connection and when you step away from your PC and take your phone with you, the PC will enter one of two user selectable power states. In the AutoGreen application you have the option to either have your system enter suspend to RAM or power on suspend mode. Suspend to RAM saves everything to the system RAM and hibernates the system, while power on suspend powers down all non critical systems, but it doesn’t put the computer into hibernation mode.

Most Bluetooth dongles on the market will work with AutoGreen. Please note that Auto Green does not protect your data in any way, it’s just a quick an easy way to allow you to save power by having your system enter a lower power state when you’re away from it.

5.3 Smart TPM

5.4 AutoGreen

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GIGABYTE’s Smart Dual LAN brings with it two benefits, teaming and failover. The two features are independent of each other and bring different benefits to the user. The automatic failover is a useful feature in case one of the two onboard network controllers fails for any reason. Normally the user would have to unplug the network cable and plug it in to the secondary network port.

In a traditional setup the user has to manually switch Ethernet port if a network controller would fail

With Smart Dual LAN the motherboard will auto detect a failure of the Ethernet controller and automatically switch over to the secondary controller

However, with Smart Dual LAN’s automatic failover, the system will detect that one of the two network interfaces have failed and switches it over to the second one automatically.

Smart Dual LAN also adds the benefit of teaming the two connections, which means that if you have a fast enough switch, you can attach both of the network controllers to it and gain a performance increase of up to 68% compared to using a single Gigabit Ethernet connection.

Another new feature on GIGABYTE’ s P55 range of motherboards is the eSATA/USB combo ports. They allow for both eSATA and USB devices to be plugged in to the same port at the rear of the motherboard. The GA-P55A-UD6 comes with two combo ports, in addition to a set of normal USB 2.0 ports.

A benefit of these ports that might not be obvious at first look, is the fact that if you have the correct type of external drive, such as some eSATA SSD drives or even external 2.5-inch eSATA hard drives, then you can power the drives directly from the combo port. This means you no longer have to carry around that extra power cable with your portable eSATA drive. However, it’s important to note that the power provided by the combo connectors only supply the same power as a standard USB 2.0 port, so more power hungry devices won’t work without external power.

5.5 Smart Dual LAN

5.6 eSATA/USB Combo Ports

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Smart 6™ is the name for a collection of six smart utilities combined in a single simple to use user interface. The utilities consists of “Smart QuickBoot”, ”Smart QuickBoost”, ”Smart Recovery”, “Smart DualBIOS™”, ”Smart Recorder” and ”Smart TimeLock”.

5.7 GIGABYTE Smart 6™

Smart QuickBoot Let’s start with taking a closer look at Smart QuickBoot. Smart QuickBoot only

offers two settings, BIOS QuickBoot and OS QuickBoot, but the two can be used in combination. The BIOS QuickBoot will detect if your system has booted successfully for three times in a row and then it will bypass the tedious BIOS boot up screen and it’ll save you time booting up your system.

OS QuickBoot takes advantage of two existing system power saving features called S3 and S4, which are also known as suspend and hibernate. By combining the advantages of both of these technologies, the system not only starts up quicker, as it is in suspend mode, which enables the system to wake up quickly, but the data is still protected thanks to the hibernation mode which stores all your data on the hard drive, unlike suspend which keeps in the system memory.

The overall advantage here is quicker startup times without wasting a lot of power by leaving your system on all the time. It will also save power and money in the long run, at least during those moments when you step away longer from your PC than you anticipated.

Smart QuickBoost Smart QuickBoost is another handy feature, at least for those that are interesting in

getting that little bit of extra performance out of their system, but are too scared to overclock their system. The Smart QuickBoost utility has three easy settings, Fast,

Turbo and Twin Turbo. With three levels of overclocking, you can set it to a level you’re comfortable with and the utility will take care of the rest.

The best part is that all the settings will be tested, so that system stability is guaranteed. All the components of the system will be overclocked evenly, so that there is no concern about one or another part being pushed too far. A reboot is required after the utility has run through its test phase, but it’s a small price to pay for up to 30% more CPU performance alone.

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Smart Recovery Most people are terrible when it comes to backing up their data, as this is the

one thing most computer users forget to do. We’re all guilty of it at one stage or another, and we never discover it until it’s too late. GIGABYTE comes to the rescue with the Smart Recover utility which automatically monitors your files for changes and takes a snapshot of files that are changed in your preset directories.

This isn’t a full on backup solution, think of it more as an advanced version of Windows system restore, in that it recovers lost files. You can select how much data (up to 50 percent) of your hard drive that you want to set apart for the snapshot and up to 60 snapshots can be stored at once. This is an easy way of making sure that you have a buffer for those all important documents, just in case something goes wrong.

The Smart Recovery application has a simple to use UI.

Smart DualBIOS™ Although GIGABYTE is famous for their DualBIOS™ solutions which have

saved many users from disaster when a BIOS flash has gone wrong, Smart DualBIOS™ is something quite different.

Smart DualBIOS™ allows you to store certain bits of data in your BIOS, so even if your hard drive fails and you have to re-install your operating system, the data will still be there. There are two things that you can store, although each is limited to 12 entries.

The first one is passwords. We all know how hard it is to remember those auto generated passwords for the company VPN, the online bank and all other important things where we don’t get to choose our own passwords. The Smart DualBIOS™ utility is of course password protected (so you still have to remember one password) but with space for up to 12 passwords with a short description, most people are unlikely to run out of space.

The other part of Smart DualBIOS™ allows you to store dates with descriptions with the added bonus of reminders. The reminders can be set at three intervals, one week, three day and one day. Again this is a great feature for those of us out there that have a bad memory when it comes to family birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates.

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Smart Recorder Smart Recorder is another useful feature, especially for those that concerned

about who is using their computer. Smart Recorder will store the system power on and off times in the BIOS of the motherboard so you can keep a record of when the computer has been switched on or off. This makes it easy to detect if someone has used your computer while you’ve been away from it.

However, Smart Record does one better, as it will also tell you if anyone has copied files on to an external drive. It will detect all removable drives, regardless of the interface they use to connect to the system. The only limitation here is that Smart Record will only tell you which folders files have been copied from, rather than the exact file. Again, this information will be stored in the BIOS and there is no way to circumvent the Smart Recorder.

Smart TimeLock Smart TimeLock is a parental control feature that allows you to set not only how

many hours a day that your child(ren) can use the computer, but you also get a weekday and a weekend option, so you can allow them to use the computer for an extended period of time during the weekends for example. There’s also a time related lockout option that allows you to prevent usage of the computer during certain hours of the day.

There will be three warnings before the computer switches off in both cases and as with the other Smart features, the settings for the Smart TimeLock are stored in the BIOS, so as long as you protect your BIOS with a password, there’s no work around to get more time, as the Smart TimeLock doesn’t respond to changes to the system time.

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The DES 2 application uses a graphical representation

of pistons to indicate how many power phases are active. The user interface is also very easy to use and offers varying levels of power saving with the press of a button.

The advanced settings allows the user to customize

various power saving settings.

When GIGABYTE launched the original DES or Dynamic Energy Saver feature, it was a unique feature that allowed power phases to be switched on and off dynamically on the fly. Many other motherboard companies have since implemented similar features, although GIGABYTE’s second generation of DES, aptly named DES2 takes things to the next level.

This time around the UI has been improved to make DES2 even easier to use than its predecessor, and for most users, there’s only one button that has to be pressed, which is the “on” button. However, to give some extra control to the user, there are three automatic mode settings as well as an advanced settings menu. The three power saving levels are simply numbered 1, 2 and 3 and level one offers the least power saving, as it only reduces the power for the CPU and the cooling fan. Level 2 adds the graphics card and hard drive will level 3 finally adds the chipset and memory.

The Advanced options allow you to manually adjust the BCLK and give you the option to throttle the CPU and reduce some of the CPU Voltages for further power savings. Note that lowering the BCLK will lower the memory speed as well, as the two are related. There are also options to reduce the power to the chipset, switch off unused hard drives after a certain period of time, reduce the power and clock speed of the memory, and even to reduce the clock speed of the GPU on your graphics card.

All-in-all, this is the smartest and most advanced power saving solution for motherboard on the market today, and it’s been designed to be easy to use, yet to provide the most comprehensive power saving features available.

Ultra Durable™ is a GIGABYTE motherboard design

philosophy and the latest generation, Ultra Durable™ 3, takes things to the next level by incorporating 2oz copper layers in the motherboard PCB. But let’s start with taking a closer look at some of the other components that make up Ultra Durable™ 3.

5.8 DES 2

5.9 Ultra Durable™ 3

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Doubling the amount of copper, lower the PCB impedance by 2X

All GIGABYTE UD3 series motherboards use Japanese solid capacitors that are rated at 50,000 hours, which is almost six years. Bear in mind that this is for continuous usage and most people only use their desktop PC for a few hours a day.

Next up we have Lower RDS(on) MOSFET’s which are a very small, yet cool running type of MOSFET. The advantage of using this type of MOSFET over traditional types is that it wastes less power when switching states and it generates less heat.

Ferrite Core chokes are another key part of UD3, and just as many of the other Ultra Durable™ 3 components, are much more power efficient than their traditional counterparts. Not only that, but Ferrite Core chokes also have much lower EMI which can cause interference with other components on the motherboard and Ferrite Core chokes aren’t rust prone, unlike Iron Core chokes.

The latest addition to GIGABYTE’s Ultra Durable™ design philosophy is the 2oz copper PCB, something we mentioned on the previous page. If you’ve studied electronics at any level, then you’ll know that power takes the easiest route. In this case, we’re talking about the 2oz copper layers, as they are the power and ground layers. By doubling the thickness of these layers, the power has less impedance. This results in improved power signal stability, something that is very important for overclockers.

A side effect of the thicker copper layers is improved thermal dissipation around key components on the motherboard. This might not seem like a bit deal at first, but when you consider that the temperature in the CPU area can be as much as 50 degrees C lower than competitors products when the CPU is watercooled, then we’re talking about a fairly significant advantage.

Other advantages include improved power efficiency, reduced EMI and better ESD protection, all of which are features that no one is going to say no to when it comes for free as part of the advanced engineering that GIGABYTE puts in to its motherboards.

5.10 2 oz PCB

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Upgrading the BIOS is something many people don’t do out of fear of breaking their motherboard, but there are sometimes benefits to doing it outside of when you’re having a problem with your system. It’s also important to upgrade the BIOS on the motherboard when you upgrade your components, as the BIOS might not contain the correct details to work optimally with the new components. In the past, it has been somewhat complicated to update the BIOS as it had to be done in DOS. However, these days, it’s much easier and GIGABYTE provides several ways up to upgrade the BIOS, including the Q-Flash utility that is built in to the BIOS itself and the Windows based @BIOS utility. We’re going to take a closer look at both of those utilities here.

5.11 Upgrading the BIOS

Upgrading the BIOS with Q-Flash

Start by locating and downloading the latest BIOS version for your motherboard from the GIGABYTE website. Make sure it’s the right version as there are many similar model names. Extract the files on to a floppy disk or a USB flash drive, for use in the next step. Re-boot the system.

Once you’ve re-booted the system and see the BIOS screen, press the F8 key to enter the Q-Flash utility. Select Update Main BIOS from Floppy once the Q-Flash application has loaded, select the .bin file and hit the Enter key to start the BIOS update process. This also works with a USB flash.

While the BIOS updates, don’t turn off the power or restart the computer as this will cause the update to fail and might damage the BIOS. GIGABYTES Dual BIOS will protect you in case of an unexpected power loss and will allow you to still boot up the system after a power loss.

After the BIOS have been updated, the message Copy BIOS Completed - Pass will appear on the screen. It is now safe to reboot the computer. After the system has rebooted you should enter the BIOS and make sure all the settings are correct as they might have been reset when the BIOS was updated. Refer to chapter 4.2 on how to set up the BIOS.

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GIGABYTE’s @BIOS utility differs from Q-Flash by being a Windows utility and it will do most of the hard work for you. @BIOS is supplied on the driver disc that comes with the motherboard. As @BIOS accesses the Internet to check for and download new BIOS versions, you have to be connected to the Internet for @BIOS to work.

Upgrading the BIOS with @BIOS

The Windows firewall might kick in and if this is the case, then you have to give @BIOS access to the Internet.

Once the BIOS update is done, another message will pop up asking you to restart your system. The new BIOS update won’t take effect until you’ve restarted your system. Again, you might have to enter the BIOS and make sure all the settings are correct once the system has restarted.

@BIOS will give you a list of servers to choose from and you should select the one nearest to the country you live in to get the best download speeds. However, as BIOS files are fairly small, picking a server in a country further away shouldn’t cause any problems.

Start by clicking on Update BIOS from GIGABYTE Server.

Next you have to choose the appropriate BIOS version, the latest one in general and then click ok. A warning message will pop up and you have to click ok again to start the BIOS update.

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GIGABYTE offers a range of utilities for beginners and experts alike one of the most popular ones is EasyTune™ 6 which is the latest version of GIGABYTE’s overclocking utility. It features six tabs at the top that correspond to the various features of the application. The tabs are CPU, Memory, Tuner, Graphics, Smart and HW Monitor.

The CPU Tab The CPU tab provides information about the processor In your system and provides details about the CPU type, model number, Voltage, CPU clock speed, front side bus speed, multiplier and a whole host of other information. The motherboard model and BIOS version is also displayed under the CPU tab.

The memory tab The Memory tab provides information about the memory modules installed in your system and it also displays information such as SPD data. The Tuner tab will be explained a bit more in detail on the next page, but as the name suggests, it allows you to tune or overclock various features of the system.

The Graphics tab The Graphics tab allows you to overclock the GPU and memory of your GIGABYTE graphics card and it works with both ATI and NVIDIA based cards

The Smart tab The Smart tab gives you access to the C.I.A.2 dynamic overclocking features and here it’s just a matter of selecting which mode you want to run at. You can also adjust and set up the Smart Fan here which can either be set to off, auto or advanced.

5.12 EasyTune™ 6

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The Tuner tab As the Tuner tab offers a lot of advanced features, as well as two modes, easy and advanced, we’ll cover its features in a bit more detail here. The easy mode is somewhat limited compared to the advanced mode, but it prevents you from accidentally damaging components in your system as it doesn’t allow for voltage adjustments. Under easy mode you can adjust things like the bus speed, the CPU multiplier (depending on CPU model), the memory speed and multiplier, as well as the PCI Express and PCI bus speeds. The advanced mode enables the Voltage tab which gives you the option to tweak the power for the CPU, memory and PCI Express slots. It’s important to be cautious when adjusting the Voltages, as too much power can damage your hardware. However, some high-performance memory modules require a higher Voltage to be able to work at the rated speed, but this information should be supplied by the memory module manufacturer. To enable the settings you changed, you have to press the blue “Go” button. You can also use the “Save” option to save your settings to a file which you can then later load by using the “Load” button. This can be useful if you want to save different profiles for when you’re playing games and for when you’re doing other tasks that are less system intensive. There’s also a button labeled “Default” which will reset all the settings back to their default values. The same buttons are used for the Graphics and HW Monitor tabs and perform the same tasks when you change settings related to the functions available.

The HW Monitor tab The advanced option gives you manual control of the fan and you can set temperature zones at which the fan will speed up or slow down. Finally the HW Monitor tab provides a wide range of information about various system Voltages and fan speeds in real time. You can also set up things like temperature alarms here. Overclocking doesn’t have to be difficult and EasyTune™ 6 proves this.

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5.13 Xpress Recovery2

Xpress Recovery2 allows you to make a full system backup once you’ve installed the operating system and all the drivers and software you need. If for some reason your system would fail, you can then restore the backup instead of having to go through the tedious and time consuming task of re-installing the operating system and all your drivers and applications. You have to make a partition on your hard drive big enough to fit the data you plan to backup before you install Xpress Recovery2. Please refer to the motherboard manual on how to do this. Alternatively you can back up the data onto a second hard drive, although this drive needs to either be connected to the IDE controller or one of the four first SATA connectors on your motherboard.

Xpress Recovery 2 works will all Windows operating systems and it makes an image of all the files that are on the hard disk drive at the time of the backup. Please note that the time it takes to perform the backup operation will depend on the amount of data on the hard drive at the time, the more data, the longer the backup will take. Restoring the data in case of a hard drive or operating system failure will be quicker than the time it took to create the backup.

Also make sure you backup individual files that have been created after you made the Xpress Recovery2 backup image, as new files won’t be added to the backup image automatically.

Enter the BIOS setup and go to “Advanced BIOS Features”. Enable Boot from CD-ROM. Save the settings and exit the BIOS. Insert the supplied driver disc into the optical drive. When the screen displays the “Boot from CD/DVD:” message, press any key to start Xpress Recovery2. After you have installed Xpress Recovery 2 it can be accessed by pressing F9 at the BIOS post screen.

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Xpress Recovery2 will try to automatically find the operating system on the primary hard drive in the system and then back it up.

To delete an unwanted backup file, select “Remove”, press “Enter” and then select “Yes” (This button will not appear if there is no backup file).

To restore your system, select “Restore” in the main menu. A warning message will appear stating that the current data on the hard drive will be overwritten by the backup. Press “Yes” to continue (This button will not appear if there is no backup file).

Refer to the motherboard manual before using Xpress Recovery2 for the first time as it contains important information on how to set up things like partitions etc. It also explains what requirements need to be meet before you can use Xpress Recovery2.

Important

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Chapter 6 Introduction to the Latest Technologies

Intel® XMP or Extreme Memory Profile is a technology that was developed for the Intel X38/X48 chipsets, the latest generation of X58 and P55 based motherboards also supports XMP. XMP is an extension of what is known as SPD or Serial Presence Detect which is a standard that automatically detects the specific settings of a memory module. SPD has some limitations; most specifically it adheres to the JEDEC standard which means that only memory speeds certified by JEDEC can be programmed into the SPD chip on the memory module.

The SPD contains information about the clock speed and memory timings. XMP expands on this by adding more

SPD profiles which allows for multiple settings depending on the memory type used. All XMP modules have a “safe” profile which means that the modules will work on all DDR3 motherboards, even if there is no support for XMP. The real advantage of XMP is that you don’t have to manually set the memory settings to get the most out of your modules, it’s a plug and forget feature. In the past, high-performance memory has required quite a lot of user intervention for tweaking the optimum settings, but with XMP all the guesswork has been removed.

The memory timing consists of several variables with the most well known being the CAS latency or CL. Other

settings that need to be taken into account are tRCD (RAS to CAS delay), tRP (RAS pre-charge) and tRAS (cycle time). Usually the CL, tRCD and tRP settings all have the same timing, although this might depend on the memory modules used; the lower the number, the lower the latency, with lower latencies being preferred over higher ones. However, due to the nature of DDR3 modules, the latency has increased compared to DDR2; although as DDR3 features much higher clock speeds than DDR2, higher latency doesn’t mean worse performance. A typical timing for a 1,600MHz DDR3 memory module is 9-9-9-27, but for example Kingston’s HyperX XMP certified modules are clocked at 1,625MHz with a timing of 7-7-7-20.

With XMP memory, Voltage is also automatically detected, and it removes some confusion as to what Voltage the

memory modules should run at. All the big overclocking memory manufacturers such as Kingston, Corsair, Crucial, OCZ and so forth have XMP ready modules available, so for a hassle free overclocking experience, invest in some XMP ready memory modules.

6.1 Intel XMP

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Intel® Matrix Storage technology isn’t a new feature from Intel, as it has been around since the ICH6R, but the technology has evolved over the years and the current iteration features a wide range of new, useful features. It’s limited to the R-suffix ICH controllers from Intel, as well as the P55 chipset. On the X58-series, you need to have a motherboard with the ICH10R to take advantage of the Matrix Storage features.

The ICH10R offers a wide range of RAID options including RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10. But it doesn’t stop there, as Intel

has included features such as Matrix RAID, which allows you to run a RAID 5 on two hard drives instead of three, which is normally the minimum amount of drives needed. It’s also easy to add a hard drive at a later stage with Intel’s Matrix Storage technology and create a RAID with the data from the previously installed hard drive.

Normally you would have to start with two clean hard drives when you create a RAID, but this is no longer the

case for a RAID 0 or 1 setup. Another useful feature is the ability to set up multiple RAID configurations across the same drives. For example, you can set up a RAID 0 and a RAID 5 across the same four drives with the RAID 0 for performance and the RAID 5 for security. This saves costs, while giving you the best of both worlds.

Then there is Intel Rapid Recover technology, which allows you to quickly and easily restore your data from a

RAID 1 disk if the primary hard drive fails. Even if you don’t have the option of getting hold of a new drive straight away, you have the option of using the backup drive in lieu of your main hard drive if you need to access the data while you get the primary drive replaced.

All current Intel chipsets supports AHCI which means better support for eSATA drives, as they can now be

attached and removed without having to power off the system, making eSATA a true plug and play, high-speed external drive interface. Intel Matrix Storage technology enables a wide range of storage features, no matter if you’re looking for performance, data security or external storage options.

In order to take advantage of Intel Matrix Storage Technology, you need to use the SATA ports that are

connected to the Intel chipset, not the parts connected to 3rd party SATA controllers. These parts are clearly differentiated by color on GIGABYTE motherboards.

6.2 Intel Matrix Storage

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All GIGABYTE products feature a serial number and it might not always be clear where this is located. We need this serial number to be able to help you, especially if there is a need for a product replacement for whatever reason. Take a look at the pictures below and you’ll see what it should look like. Once you’ve located your product serial number, you can find the contact details of your closest GIGABYTE representative at www.gigabyte.com.tw if you don’t know how to get in touch with us.

You can also submit questions via the GIGABYTE Technical Service Zone which can be found in the Support

and Downloads section on the GIGABYTE website. This puts you in touch with our engineers and they’ll do their best to help you resolve your problem. GIGABYTE Global Technical Service: http://ggts.gigabyte.com.tw GIGABYTE Technical Service Zone: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/support/serviceCenter.aspx

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