MSI Z77A-GD80 & R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC Review

1. Introduction2. The MSI Z77A-GD80 Motherboard3. The MSI Z77A-GD80 Motherboard (Super High Res Gallery)4. MSI R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC5. MSI R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC (Super High Res Gallery)6. The MSI Z77A-GD80 bios and overclocking7. Overclocking the R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC8. Testing Methodology9. Synthetic: PCMark 710. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage11. Synthetic: 3DMark 1112. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark13. Synthetic: HQV Benchmark 2.014. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra 201115. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit16. Synthetic: SSD Performance17. Real World: 3D Rendering18. Real World: Media Encoding19. Real World: HandBrake 9.520. Gaming: Dirt ShowDown21. Gaming: Alien V Predator22. Gaming: Max Payne 323. Gaming: Far Cry 224. MSI R7770 Power Edition Thermal Dynamics25. MSI R7770 Power Edition Acoustics Performance26. MSI R7770 Power Edition Power Consumption27. Closing Thoughts28. View All Pages

There are already a handful of fantastic Z77 motherboards on the market, however the MSI Z77A-GD80 is as good as we have tested and I warmed to the UEFI configuration after spending some time with it.

MSI have been hard at work tweaking their layout to make it more intuitive. I still feel ASUS have a slight edge here, but the gap seems to be closing.

In regards to connectivity and board layout we can find no fault. There is support for four internal SATA 6Gbps drives, with plenty of USB 3.0 connectors available for multiple drives and peripherals. The main talking point is obviously the new Thunderbolt connector on the GD80, but MSI sampled us the board so quickly a few weeks ago that Thunderbolt drives are still winging their way to our labs from a factory in the Far East.

Overclocking this board is quite honestly a painfree experience. By simply adjusting vdroop settings and increasing the core voltage to 1.28 we could push the 3770k to 4.7ghz on air, exactly to the same level as the highest performing ASUS and Gigabyte boards we have tested to this point.

4.8ghz+ is possible, but liquid or phase change cooling would be required with our sample as the voltage needs increased to 1.35v. 90c+ under extended load is far from ideal.

For the audience who have no interest in optimising bios settings, MSI have included an OC genie button which automatically tweaks the board to apply a modest, stable overclock. Our board configured the 3770k to 4.25ghz, which is a reasonably good overclock for simply pressing a button.

We tested the Z77A-GD80 with a variety of 2,400mhz DDR3 memory from G.Skill, Kingston and Corsair and we experienced no problems. Another good indication that the bios has received plenty of attention from the engineering and development team within MSI.

We have no hesitation in recommending this board. That said, I am a little disappointed we were unable to test Thunderbolt for this review, but we are confident that it works well.

The Z77A-GD80 is available from Overclockers in the UK for £188.99 inc vat. Not the cheapest board on the market, but it is well designed, stable and fully featured.

Pros:

• Attractive appearance.
• MSI are improving their bios configurations.
• overclocks with the best of them.
• high level of connectivity.
• Thunderbolt support.

Cons:

• Its not cheap.

Kitguru says: Well rounded motherboard without a weakness. Good for the overclocking audience.

The R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC is a design that should earn MSI plenty of praise from the user base. The creative, attractive cooling design and dual fan implementation is certainly inspired and a worthy addition to this cost effective graphics card.

I have to admit I am not a huge exponent of AMD's HD7770 graphics card, it is performance castrated due to the bizarre company decision of reducing the unified shader count from 800 (on the previous generation), to 640 on this model. Even though the new model is clocked much higher, at 1GHZ – it is crippled from the start.

MSI have attempted to push this reference design as far as possible, and in this regard the MSI Z77A-GD80 & R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC is a success.

The noise emissions are reduced, power consumption is low and the dual fan system is a clever implementation. Unless you are running in a space restricted chassis we would recommend to run in parallel dual fan mode. Noise levels are only increased by a very small amount and the cooling performance is noticeably better.

AMD's HD7770 is a budget video card for the enthusiast audience and MSI have managed to maintain a price point of £113.99 inc vat, which is noteworthy. The custom, ‘transformers style' cooler and extra fan certainly adds value to the purchase and this is the only R7770 we would contemplate today, specifically for a media center, or lower powered gaming rig connected to a large television in a living room, or bedroom.

Pros:

• A fantastic design to suit both gaming and media environments.
• overclocked out of the box.
• further overclocking potential with MSI Afterburner.
• quiet.
• low power drain.
• Crossfire capable for added horsepower.
• reasonable price point.

Cons:

• HD7770 isn't designed for a hard core, high resolution gamer.

Kitguru says: MSI have pushed the HD7770 as far as it can go. Can be adjusted physically to suit the environment.

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