Asus ROG Maximus V Gene Z77 w/ Intel i7 3770K Review

1. Introduction2. Intel i7 3770k3. Asus ROG Maximus V Gene Z774. Asus ROG Maximus V Gene Z77 (Super High Res Gallery)5. Bios and Overclocking6. Testing Methodology7. Synthetic: PCMark 78. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage9. Synthetic: 3DMark 1110. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark11. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra 201112. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit13. Synthetic: SSD Performance14. Real World: 3D Rendering15. Real World: Media Encoding16. Real World: HandBrake 9.517. Gaming: Resident Evil 5 (HD4000)18. Gaming: Far Cry 2 (HD4000)19. Gaming: Total War Shogun 2 (HD4000)20. Gaming: F1 2011 (HD4000)21. Power Consumption22. Closing Thoughts23. View All Pages

Kitguru has been busy for the last week preparing multiple reviews for the latest Intel launch today. In this particular review we will look at the Asus Maximus V Gene when paired up with the Intel i7 3770k processor. In this review we will focus on this system as a performance oriented media center, with testing via the latest Intel Graphics ‘HD4000'.

The Asus ROG Maximus V Gene is a Micro ATX motherboard which doesn't compromise on features. It has full support for the latest Intel processors and both AMD Crossfire and Nvidia SLI configurations. It features onboard SupremeFX III audio and GameFirst/Intel Gb Lan to help deal with lag issues when gaming.

This board retails at under £160 inc vat, which is a lower price than both Asus Sabertooth and P8Z77-V Deluxe products. If you are in the market for a new Z77 media center, is this the only solution you need?

Asus Exclusive Innovations:

• 100% Japan-made Solid Capacitors.
• ASUS Anti-Surge Protection.
• DIGI+ Power Control.
• AI Suite II.
• UEFI BIOS.

Innovations:

• Dual Intelligent Processors 3 – with New DIGI+ Power Control include three digital voltage controllers, allowing ultra-precise DRAM tuning in addition to ultra-precise CPU voltage control.
• Quad GPU AMD CrossfireX – a flawless architecture accommodating the power of up to four graphics cards.
• LudicLogix Virtu MVP – boots responsiveness, improves gaming frame rates by 30-70% and sharpens visual quality.

While this review is focusing on the Intel Core i7 3770k processor, Intel have a wide range of processors being launched – The Core i7 3920XM Extreme Edition, i7 3770k and i7 3770 target the mainstream enthusiast desktop audience.

Intel supplement these with the i7-3770T and i7 3770S in the desktop ‘low power’ sector. Mobile i7 3870QM, i7-3720QM, i7-3612QM and 3610QM processors have also been released. Finally Intel also launch five new Core i5 processors today – the i5-3570K, i5-3550 and i5-3450 and the low power i5-3550s and i5-3450s.

Ivy Bridge is a ‘tick‘ in the ‘tick/tock' development phase for Intel. In basic terms, a ‘tick' is an advance in manufacturing technology whereas a ‘tock' is a new micro architecture.

The diagram above explains how the tick/tock process has progressed over the years. Nehalem was built around the 45 nm manufacturing process technology. In the ‘tick' that followed after this (32nm), Intel moved towards faster computing speeds, reduced power consumption and more sophisticated applications. The Sandybridge 32nm ‘tock' after this allowed Intel to improve mainstream gaming, Web and mainstream gaming.

The new Ivy Bridge platform is the latest ‘tick' cycle which is said to deliver higher processing capabilities while demanding less power at the socket. Intel are also focusing on processor graphic performance and media acceleration.

Above, our engineering sample of the Core i7 3770k processor, built around the 22nm manufacturing process. This is the worlds first ‘3D Transistor' manufactured at 22nm. The retail price for the 3770k is said to be $313. It isn't confirmed yet, but we hear UK pricing will be around the £250 inc vat mark.

Above is an overview of the new Ivybridge processor with four cores, and the shared Level 3 cache. The graphics core is now called the Intel Graphics 4000 and ships with Direct X 11 support. Die size is 160mm2 and the transistor count is 1.4 billion.

The new processor can support three independent displays, as shown above. The display engine integrated into the processor has embedded DisplayPort. The FDI channels send pixel data from the CPU to PCH. The transmitter and receiver enhancements configure 8 lanes as 1×4 and 2×2 lane configurations.

The processor supports:

– HDMI with max. resolution 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz
– DisplayPort with max. resolution 2560 x 1600 @ 60 Hz

Intel claim a 2x performance increase from HD4000 when compared against the last generation HD3000.

Above, an overview of the 3770k in CPUz. There are four cores and four more threads, for a total of eight logical cores. Each core runs at 3.5ghz, but can turbo to 3.9ghz depending on the thermal conditions. There is 8MB of Level 3 cache. The onboard Intel HD4000 graphics core runs at 650mhz with a maximum dynamic frequency of 1,150mhz.

The Asus ROG Maximus V Gene Z77 follows the traditional Republic Of Gamers colour scheme, with the logo clearly visible on the front of the box.

The box is a gatefold design, opening up to highlight some of the selling points to a potential customer browsing in the store.

The bundle includes:

• User's manual
• I/O Shield
• 2 x SATA 3Gb/s cable(s)
• 4 x SATA 6Gb/s cable(s)
• 1 x SLI bridge(s)
• 1 x Q-connector(s) (2 in 1)
• 1 x ROG Connect cable(s)
• 1 x 12 in 1 ROG Cable Label(s)
• 1 x ROG Door Hanger(s)

The ROG Maximus V Gene Z77 scores points for appearance, we love the black overall scheme and heatsinks, with red slots. Dramatic, yet menacing.

The Micro ATX board measures 24.4 cm x 24.4 cm, ideal for small form factor chassis designs.

Two passively cooled, black heatsinks cool the VRM's, and they are connected together via a thick heatpipe. There are several 4 pin fan headers conveniently located in this area for connection of multiple CPU heatsink fans.

The ROG Maximus V Gene Z77 has four memory slots, dual channel and colour coded black and red.  The board can support a maximum of 32GB of DDR3 memory at DDR3 2800(O.C.)/2666(O.C.)/2600(O.C.)/2400(O.C.)/2200(O.C.)/2133(O.C.)/2000(O.C.)/1866(O.C.)/1600/1333 MHz speeds. It supports non ECC, unbuffered memory with full support for the Intel Extreme Memory Profile system.

Underneath the slots is a ‘GO' button.  This can double up as a MEM OK button to troubleshooting memory posting issues, or to enable temporary overclocking when in the operating system. A front panel USB 3.0 header is also positioned close by.

There are six SATA ports on the board. The top two black SATA slots are controlled by the Intel Z77 chipset and are SATA 3 Gb/s rated. The middle two, red ports are also controlled by the Intel Z77 chipset but they are SATA 6 Gb/s rated. The bottom two red ports (far left in image above) are controlled by the ASMedia Z77 controller and are also SATA 6 Gb/s rated.

The Intel Z77 chipset supports Raid 0, 1, 5 and 10 configurations. Next to these is the Debug LED panel which is useful for troubleshooting any problems. Underneath is the main system panel connector.

Along the bottom of the board are easy to access power and reset buttons and two USB 2.0 connectors.

The board has two PCI Express 3.0/2.0 slots (both red) which work at x16 in single mode, or dual x8/x8. There is also a single PCI Express 2.0 slot which works at x4, this is black. Lastly there is also a single mini PCI Express 2.0 x1 slot on the mPCIe Combo expansion card.

The rear I/O panel supports:

• 1 x DisplayPort
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x eSATA 3Gb/s
• 1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s)
• 4 x USB 3.0
• 4 x USB 2.0 (one port can be switched to ROG Connect)
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF out
• 6 x Audio jack(s)
• 1 x Clear CMOS button(s)
• 1 x ROG Connect On/ Off switch(es)

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.

We had no problems getting a stable post immediately after the system build.

We used Corsair 2,400 GTX8 memory, and it defaulted initially to 1,333mhz as shown in the image above. Always worth checking the memory configuration immediately after a system build.

We immediately selected the XMP profile and rebooted. The system configured the Corsair 2,400mhz memory at 10-12-10-30 2T timings.

The extreme tweaker panel has plenty of options for fine tuning the hardware. We will look at this in more detail, shortly.

The advanced panel has a variety of settings to configure various aspects of the board, such as CPU, PCH and SATA devices.

The monitor panel has separate areas for voltage and temperature monitoring. The boot panel allows the user to disable the full screen image on post, and to configure the priority of the attached drives.

The tool panel can be used to flash the bios, and to save and load pre-configured overclock settings.

System Validation is available over here.

For this review we decided to have a look at the automatic overclocking options, built into the bios. CPU Level up has presets for 4.2 ghz, 4.4 ghz and 4.6 ghz.

The preset overclocking setting wasn't ideal, as it decided to downclock the memory again to 2,133mhz. We had to reload the XMP profile as shown above.

We also noticed that the voltage seemed a little higher than we would like, as the automatic setting pushed the core volts to 1.33. We backed down to 1.25 volts as highlighted above.

Above, system validation at 4.6ghz. You can look at the validation over here.

Higher speeds were possible, but we are using a highly affordable, £20 Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 so temperatures could quickly get out of control above 1.25 volts. We can't imagine anyone in the market for a Micro ATX board will want to push everything to breaking point anyway.

This specific review is going to focus on the performance of the Intel Core i7 3770k and the integrated HD4000 graphics performance. We don't believe that many enthusiast users will use integrated graphics, but the Asus ROG Maximus V Gene Z77 is the ideal partner for these tests … after all the Micro ATX size is ideal for a media center system build.

Is Intel's latest HD4000 good enough to handle a variety of tasks, including gaming at modest settings?

Some of the sections of the review will be compared against other systems, listed below.

Main Test System:

Processor: Intel Core i7 3770k
Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus V Gene Z77
Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 13
Memory: 8GB Corsair 2,400mhz GTX8. (4x2GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W.
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive.
Chassis: Cooler Master Cosmos 2.
Monitors: Dell U3011, 3x Ilyama ProLite E2472HDD.
Boot Drive: Kingston SSDNow V+200 90GB.
Storage Drive: Patriot 240GB Wildfire.

Comparison Systems:

Processor: Intel Core i7 3930K
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 WS WorkStation
Cooler: Corsair H100
Memory: 8GB Corsair Dominator GT8 2400mhz memory
Graphics Card: AMD HD7770 CrossfireX
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Cooler Master Cosmos 2
Boot Drive: Crucial C300 128GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 240GB Pyro SE

Intel i7 3960X EE
Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV Extreme
Cooler: Antec H20 920
Memory: 8GB Corsair Dominator GT 2400mhz memory
Power Supply: Enermax Platimax 1200W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li PC-A77FR Aluminium Red Full Tower Case
Boot Drive: Patriot WildFire 120GB
Secondary Drive: 1TB Samsung

Intel i7 3820
Motherboard: ASRock Extreme4-M
Cooler: Intel reference cooler
Memory: 8GB Corsair GTX8 @ 2133mhz
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: Lian Li PC60
Boot Drive: Crucial C300
Secondary Drive: Patriot Pyro SE 240GB

AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Processor: AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire

Intel Core i7 990X
Processor: Intel Core i7 990x
Cooler: Corsair H100
Motherboard: Gigabyte G1 Assassin
Memory: Kingston HyperX 6GB
Drives: Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Chassis: Antec Twelve Hundred

Intel Core i7 2700k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2700k
Cooling: ThermalTake Frio OCK
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Chassis: Silverstone Raven 3.
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory
Storage: Intel 80GB SSD (boot) / Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD.

Intel Core i7 2600k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600k
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen 3
Cooler: Intel XTS-100H
Memory: ADATA 1600mhz DDR3 8GB (2x4GB)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W
Boot Drive: Intel 510 SSD 250GB

Intel Core i5 2500k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2500k
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 CPU Cooler
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory 8GB (2x4GB)
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Boot Drive: Patriot Pyro 120GB SSD.

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire

Gaming System Comparison System:
Processor: Core i7 970 @ 3.9ghz
Graphics: Asus GTX680
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Memory: 6GB ADATA @ 2133mhz 9-10-9-32
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)

PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use.

The system scores 5,766 points which is a very impressive score, especially as we aren't using a discrete graphics card with this system.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.

The 3770K scores 4,394 points and 3,429 points from the HD4000 graphics. It is a pretty decent result overall and indicates that gaming performance might be decent at reasonable settings later in the review.

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

The physics score from the 3770k is very impressive, scoring 8,926 points. The overall score however is dragged down to 1,507 because of the graphics score @ 1,256.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We use the following settings:

This is an intensive benchmark and we were surprised to get over 12 frames per second from the 3770k and HD4000, even though we slightly reduced the image quality against our usual settings when we test discrete graphics cards.

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

Strong results in the default clock state, especially in the Cryptography test. Memory bandwidth when paired up with the Corsair GTX8 is exceptionally good, scoring over 30 GB/s when four sticks were installed.

CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.

The 3770k system scored 7.93 points, which is significantly ahead of the last generation 2700k scoring 7.65 points.

Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0 x64.

We connect the Patriot Wildfire drive to an Intel Z77 chipset controlled SATA 6 Gb/s port.

These scores are some of the best we have seen to date. Sequential data transfer is 517 MB/s and 497 MB/s for read and write, respectively.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

The ATTO results mirror the previous test, highlighting class leading performance. 560 MB/s read and 510 MB/s write are the peak results.

V2011 is the first release of 3DStudio Max to fully support the Windows 7 operating system. This is a professional level tool that many people use for work purposes and our test will show any possible differences between board design today.

Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 software offers compelling new techniques to help bring designs to life by aggregating data, iterating ideas, and presenting the results.

Streamlined, more intelligent data exchange workflows and innovative new modeling and visualization tools help significantly increase designers’ creativity and productivity, enabling them to better explore, validate, and communicate the stories behind their designs.

Major new features:

• Slate: A node based material editor.
• Quicksilver: Hardware renderer with multithreaded rendering engine that utilizes both CPU and GPU.
• Extended Graphite Modeling Toolset
• 3ds Max Composite: A HDRI-capable compositor based on Autodesk Toxik.
• Viewport Canvas toolset for 3D and 2D texture painting directly in the viewport
• Object Painting: use 3D geometry as ‘brushes’ on other geometry
• Character Animation Toolkit (CAT): now integrated as part of the base package
• Autodesk Material Library: Over 1200 new photometrically accurate shaders
• Additional file format support: includes native support for Sketchup, Inventor
• FBX file linking
• Save to Previous Release (2010)

We created a new 8200×3200 scene and recorded the time for the hardware to finalise the render.

The 3770k powered system finishes the render in 6 minutes and 33 seconds, which is around 14 seconds faster than the 2700k at the same clock speeds.

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 3.3GB 720p MKV file (2h:12mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We are using the newest version which has been optimised for Sandybridge processors.

We disable then enable onboard Intel graphics acceleration.

Media Espresso does not use 100% of all the cores, so therefore the results above don’t tie in accurately with some of the other software today.

Disabling all hardware acceleration when using the latest version of Mediaespresso causes huge performance penalties for the 3770k, as shown above. Enabling all hardware functionality shortens the time taken to only 8 minutes and 40 seconds, on a par with the Core i7 3960X EE at reference clocks.

Enabling hardware acceleration not only reduces the rendering time but it lowers the demand on the compute core, dropping from over 60 percent average, to around 20 percent average. Enabling hardware acceleration would allow the 3770k to multitask with a variety of other tasks.

We measured the power at the wall from the system when handling the encoding above, with hardware acceleration enabled. The system was demanding between 89 watts and 96 watts, which is extremely efficient considering the performance.

Handbrake is a fantastic free program which we wanted to include to confirm findings with Media Espresso, earlier in the review. HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

We used the latest V 0.9.5 for testing today across all platforms. We encoded an DVD.MPG file.

The system completed the encode in 5 minutes and 16 seconds, around 12 seconds faster than the 2700k. Very noticeable.

Resident Evil 5, known in Japan as Biohazard 5, is a survival horror third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the seventh installment in the Resident Evil survival horror series, and was released on March 5, 2009 in Japan and on March 13, 2009 in North America and Europe for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Windows version of the game was released on September 15, 2009 in North America, September 17 in Japan and September 18 in Europe. Resident Evil 5 revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.

Within its first three weeks of release, the game sold over 2 million units worldwide and became the best-selling game of the franchise in the United Kingdom. As of December, 2009, Resident Evil 5 has sold 5.3 million copies worldwide since launch, becoming the best selling Resident Evil game ever made.

Today we decided to measure game performance with the built in benchmark, so you could directly compare against your own system.

This is the first time we have seen smooth performance from an onboard GPU solution, although we dropped a few of the image quality settings to help improve the frame rate a little. The 3770K/Intel HD4000 is able to deliver smooth frame rates with this Direct X 10 title, even at 1080p! There are a few times it drops below the sweet spot of 25 frames per second, however many people will find this acceptable.

With the last generation HD3000, these frame rates were basically halved at these settings.

Far Cry 2 (commonly abbreviated as “FC2 or “fc2″) is an open-ended first-person shooter developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It was released on October 21, 2008 in North America and on October 23, 2008 in Europe and Australia. It was made available on Steam on October 22, 2008. Crytek, the developers of the original game, were not involved in the development of Far Cry 2.

Ubisoft has marketed Far Cry 2 as the true sequel to Far Cry, though the sequel has very few noticeable similarities to the original game. Instead, it features completely new characters and setting, as well as a new style of gameplay that allows the player greater freedom to explore different African landscapes such as deserts, jungles, and savannas. The game takes place in a modern-day East African nation in a state of anarchy and civil war. The player takes control of a mercenary on a lengthy journey to locate and assassinate “The Jackal,” a notorious arms dealer.

Far Cry 2 is still a popular game and the open world environment can be taxing on even the latest hardware available today.

Today we are using the built in benchmark with Direct X 10 settings shown above.

The 3770K/HD4000 is able to deliver smooth frame rates at 720p with high quality image quality settings, which is impressive. Anti Aliasing proved too much however.

That said, the previous generation HD3000 couldn't maintain a 25 frames per second average result at the same settings.

Shogun 2 is set in 16th-century feudal Japan, in the aftermath of the Ōnin War. The country is fractured into rival clans led by local warlords, each fighting for control. The player takes on the role of one of these warlords, with the goal of dominating other factions and claiming his rule over Japan. The standard edition of the game will feature a total of eight factions (plus a ninth faction for the tutorial), each with a unique starting position and different political and military strengths.

We are using the built in benchmark which is available via the STEAM client for this game.

We spent a long time trying to get the game playable via the 3770k/HD4000 but we continually received various error messages.

These error messages seemed to vary randomly, however we were unable to get the engine running at all for a benchmark result.

F1 2011 is the newest Direct X 11 racing game from industry pioneers CodeMasters. The 2011 Formula One season is the 62nd FIA Formula One season. The original calendar consisted of twenty rounds, including the inaugural running of the Indian Grand Prix before the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Pirelli returns to the sport as tyre supplier for all teams, taking over from Bridgestone. Red Bull Racing are the reigning Constructor’s Champions. Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel is the defending Drivers’ Champion, one of five World Champions appearing on the grid.

Today we are using the built in benchmark, so you can directly compare against your own system.

The game was perfectly smooth at these settings, although I know some gamers prefer 30 fps+ all the time when playing racing games. By lowering some of the image quality settings, this would be possible with the 3770K/HD4000 solution however.

Some of our other reviews today focus on power consumption when featuring a discrete graphics card. This particular review however uses the Intel 3770K processor with integrated HD4000 graphics, so it is ideal to measure efficiency under ‘real world' situations.

Firstly we measure power drain at the socket when the system is configured in the default state, idling at the desktop. Secondly we load the processor with Cinebench R11.5 64 bit. Lastly we overclock the system to 4.6ghz with 1.25 volts and load the 3770K again with Cinebench R11.5 64 bit.

Intel's 3770k is certainly an efficient design, with this system only demanding 58 watts at the socket when idling at the desktop. This rises to 110watts when powering through the Cinebench R11.5 benchmark. Increasing the core voltage to 1.25v and overclocking to 4.6ghz caused the power demand to rise to 149 watts when running Cinebench R11.5 64 bit. Very impressive results, im sure you will agree.

If you want to build a new high performance media center then the Asus ROG Maximum V Gene Z77 motherboard should without question be right at the top of your shortlist. When paired up with the latest Intel Core i7 3770k this builds the foundation for a very formidable system.

Intel's Core i7 3770k is a step up from the previous generation 2600k and 2700k, although I don't think it is such a dramatic performance shift that people should get into debt, just to upgrade their system.

The Intel Core i7 3770k delivered some noticeable improvements when compared to the 2700k, especially in the Sandra Cryptography test, showing the benefits of the new architecture. Core by Core, those gains translated into performance improvements when rendering 3D scenes with Cinema 4D and 3D Studio Max. Video encoding showed similar gains, and the Core i7 3770k system landed right at the top of our performance chart. It is an ideal, reasonable cost option for gamers who also have media demands.

The one remarkable area is power consumption as the 3770k system we built today only demands 58 watts when idling, which is breaking new ground for a Core i7 desktop build. It demands less power than the 2700k at the same clock speed while also outperforming the older design.

Overclocking the 3770k proved easy, requiring only a modest core boost to achieve 4.6ghz. This was possible with the £20 Arctic Cooler Freezer 13, meaning you don't need high end cooling to achieve a decent overclock with the 3770K. After 4.6ghz it gets a little more difficult as the voltage needs to exceed 1.3 volts. This has the effect of raising the temperatures significantly, so hardcore air, or liquid cooling will be required. We have two 3770k samples which required similar settings, so be prepared to pay more for cooling if you want to achieve 4.8ghz or higher.

Pricing of the Intel i7 3770k has yet to be confirmed as it won't be available via the channel for another week, but estimations at time of publication are around the £249.99 inc vat mark.

The Asus Republic Of Gamers Maximus V Gene is on special offer with ARIA, having dropped in price from £160 to £150 inc vat. At this price we think it is a steal, and should make any final shortlist for a new media center build.

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