MSI Z77A-G45 & Lightning GTX680 Review

1. Introduction2. MSI Lightning GTX6803. MSI Lightning GTX680 (Super High Res Gallery)4. MSI Z77A-G45 Motherboard5. MSI Z77A-G45 Motherboard (Super High Res Gallery)6. 77A-G45 BIOS & Overclocking7. Testing Methodology and System8. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra9. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.510. Synthetic: PCmark 711. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage12. Synthetic: 3DMark 1113. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark14. Synthetic: SSD Performance15. Real World: 3D Rendering16. Real World: Media Encoding17. Gaming: Sleeping Dogs18. Gaming: Hitman Absolution19. Gaming: Far Cry 320. Gaming: F1 201221. Gaming: Total War Shogun 222. Technical: GPU Acoustics23. Technical: GPU Thermal Dynamics24. Technical: GPU Power Consumption25. Technical: GPU Overclocking26. Closing Thoughts27. View All Pages

We like the MSI motherboard box artwork, its big and bold and colourful. The box focuses on their high grade ‘military class III' components.

The bundle includes a back plate I/O panel, a user quick installation guide, full manual, software/driver disc, motherboard headers and two SATA cables.

The motherboard is built around a dark brown PCB with blue and black sockets and several heatsinks around the CPU socket. The board complies with the ATX form factor measuring 30.5 cm x 24.5 cm.

The Z77 platform is a dual channel memory architecture and there are four slots on this board which support up to 32GB.  The company list support as 2667*(OC)/ 2400*(OC)/ 2133*(OC)/ 1866*(OC)/1600/ 1333/ 1066 DRAM.

Internal I/O Connectors

– ATX 24-Pin power connector
– 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
– CPU x 1 / System x 4 FAN connectors
– 1 x Clear CMOS jumper
– 2 x Serial ATAII connectors
– 4 x Serial ATAIII connectors
– 3 x USB 2.0 connectors
– 1 x USB 3.0 connector
– 1 x Serial port connector
– 1 x TPM Module connector
– 1 x Front Panel Audio connector
– 1 x Front Panel connector
– 1 x Chassis Intrusion connector
– 1 x Voice Genie connector (optional)
– 1 x MultiConnect Panel connector (optional)
– 1 x V-Check Points Set (optional)

The CPU socket has a two tone blue/black heatsink surrounding it, which helps to cool the VRM's when overclocking. MSI use SFC and Solid Caps which have passed MIL-STD-810G certification.

There is a single 8 pin power socket for the CPU to ensure stability.

The PCB has a row of V-Check points which will appeal to the overclockers out there who like to push things to the limits.

• SATAII controller integrated in Intel Z77 chipset
– Up to 3Gb/s transfer speed.
– Supports four SATAII ports (SATA3~6) by Z77

• SATAIII controller integrated in Intel Z77 chipset
– Up to 6Gb/s transfer speed.
– Supports two SATAIII ports (SATA1~2) by  Z77

• RAID
– SATA1~6 support Intel Rapid Storage Technology enterprise (AHCI/ RAID 0/ 1/ 5/ 10) by Intel Z77

The expansion slots are split into the following:

• 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots
• 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 slot
–  PCI_E7 supports up to PCIe 2.0 x4 speed
• 4 x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots

Back Panel I/O Ports

– 1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse port
– 1 x Clear CMOS button
– 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF-out port
– 1 x Optical S/PDIF-out port
– 4 x USB 2.0 ports
– 2 x USB 3.0 ports
– 1 x RJ45 LAN Jack
– 1 x 6 in 1 audio jack
– 1 x HDMI® port with max. resolution up to 1920×1200 @60Hz
– 1 x DVI-D port with max. resolution up to 1920×1200 @60Hz
– 1 x VGA port with max. resolution up to 2048×1536 @75Hz

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