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

If you are in the market for a new, competitively priced gaming system then today's review will be of particular interest.

We are taking a look at the new MSI Z77A-GD80 motherboard due for release in July and the R7770 Power Edition graphics card with a rather unusual, proprietary single/dual fan cooling system.

The MSI Z77A-GD80 board is the first motherboard we have received for review with Thunderbolt support. Unfortunately we have yet to receive our first batch of external Thunderbolt drives, but we aim to get a test system up and running over the next month.

MSI Z77A-GD80 Overview

• Thunderbolt™ Technology : The world’s fastest I/O standard
• Military Class III components: Top quality & stability
• OC Genie II: Auto OC to boost performance in 1 sec
• ClickBIOS II: Easy-to-use UEFI BIOS interface
• Super Charger: fast charge iPad/iPhone/smartphone
• THX TruStudio PRO: deliver the fullest audio experience
• Support USB 3.0 & SATA 6Gb/s

The MSI R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC graphics card has a triple overvoltage feature, to allow the end user to increase GPU, memory and VDDCI voltage for improved overclocking. The card also ships in a single fan configuration, but MSI include an additional fan which can be used alongside, or on top of the standard fan. We look at this in more detail later in the review.

R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC Overview

• Power Edition
  – Triple Overvoltage: adjust the voltage of GPU, memory and VDDCI to unleash the potential of graphics card.
  – Enhanced PWM Design: provide higher overclocking capability and better stability in peak load.
• TransThermal with Dust Removal technology
  – Dust Removal technology: keep out dust for optimal cooling performance.
  – Double Airflow Mode: offer higher air pressure and enhances the heat dissipation capacity.
  – Dual Fan Mode: provides a bigger dissipation area and cools the components on the PCB more efficiently.
• Military Class III Components
  – Meet MIL-STD-810G standard to ensure the best stability and quality.
  – Adopt Hi-c CAP, SFC and All Solid CAP
• MSI Afterburner overclocking utility
  – MSI's exclusive overclocking software.
  – Support Kombustor to test user’s graphics cards.
  – Support Real-Time Video Capturing function to record in-game scenes and share with friends.

MSI artwork is very distinctive, and this box highlights the ‘Military Class III' components. MSI also focus on the claim that they are the World's first to market with Thunderbolt technology.

The box is a gatefold design, opening up with an overview of the motherboard and the technologies. The lower panel is focused entirely on Thunderbolt.

The MSI bundle is extensive. There is a quick guide, software disc, software and user manual, backplate I/O, SATA cables, SLI cable, USB 3.0 panel and voltage readout (V-Check) cables.

The ATX motherboard is built on a dark PCB with blue ports and black and blue heatsinks. This is a socket LGA1155 which supports both Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge processors.

The motherboard has four memory slots (dual channel), which support DDR3 1066/1333/1600/1866*/2000*/2133*(OC), 2200*/2400*/2600*/2667*/2800*(OC, 22nm CPU required). Next to these slots is a power, reset and overclock button (O.C. Genie).

Underneath the 24 pin Motherboard power connector there is a V-Check point connector which is useful if you wish to monitor CPU, CPU Graphics, DDR VCC, PCH 1P05 and VCCP voltages with a digital multimeter.

The board ships with a warning sticker. If you use a 2500/2600/2700 processor then the bottom PCIe lane will be lost. MSI recommend an Ivy Bridge chip. The board has 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots and 4 x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots.

Along the bottom of the board are various USB and audio headers, and the front panel connector. There is a diagnostic LED just underneath the passively cooled heatsink in this area.

Next to the ram slots are 10 LED lights. One of the LED's is the DrMos alarm system and the other LED's showcase the power phase currently being adopted by the CPU.

Another useful sticker, if you are too lazy to refer to the manual. The two white ports on the right are native SATA 6Gb/s connectors for the latest Solid State Drives.

There are a total of 8 SATA ports, the four black ports in the middle are SATA II 3 Gbps rated. The two white ports on the left are SATA III 6Gbp/s rated and linked to the ASMedia ASM1061 controller.

The front USB 3.0 header is mounted horizontally to the PCB, which is ideal to keep cable routing as tidy as possible.

Yes, you can spot the Thunderbolt connector underneath the VGA port.

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 DisplayPort with max. resolution up to 1920×1200 @60Hz
• 1 x VGA port  with max. resolution up to 2048×1536 @75Hz

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.

The MSI R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC arrives in a very distinctively designed box featuring the enhanced PWM design.

Another fancy gatefold design which details the military class components and enhanced PWM design. This card is tied into the Afterburner software which opens up various voltage settings to improve the chances of successful overclocking. They also mention their ‘Dust Removal Technology' along the bottom of the box panel.

The bundle includes a software disc, secondary fan, video and power converter cables and some literature on the product. This is no ordinary video card however so it is worth reading the literature, for a change.

The video card is  built to match the motherboard colour scheme, detailed on the previous pages. The PCB is dark, and the cooler is tough plastic, also black, with a dual blue strip running along the full length. A large fan is placed centrally.

The R7770 is Crossfire capable, but only in a two way configuration. It requires a 6 pin power cable for stable operation.

It includes a DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort connector on the panel, all of which are full size. The MSI logo is cut into the backplate.

The really interesting topic of conversation is the dual fan system. The images above show the secondary blue fan mounted on top of the primary cooler fan. This will take up more room in the chassis however.

On the cooler are two black clips which can be pushed in, so the cooler can be ‘extended' in length.

When the cooler is fully extended, this will leave enough space to mount the other fan above the heatsink, alongside the primary black fan.

The blue fan slots into a plastic section of the cooler and can be then locked into place, with two small screws.

When the secondary fan is installed, the cooling performance should be significantly improved.

The fan plugs into a tiny header on the side of the cooler as shown above.

The image above highlights the video card in two states of operation. The bottom image is the default shipping mode and above, with the extra fan installed alongside the main fan. It adds around 3-4 cm's to the overall length.

The Cooler is easily removed, exposing the single heatpipe copper cooler and aluminum fins.

The CPU Z screenshot highlights the 28nm AMD Cape Verde core, with 1GB of GDDR5 memory connected to a 128 bit memory interface. The HD7770 ships with 16 ROPs with 640 Unified Shaders.

Product	MSI R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC	AMD HD7770 1GHZ
Process	28nm	28nm
Transistors	1.5 billion	1.5 billion
Engine Clock	1,100 mhz	1000mhz
Stream Processors	640	640
Compute Performance	1.28 TFLOPS	1.28 TFLOPS
Texture Units	40	40
Texture Filrate	40.0 GT/s	40.0 GT/s
ROPs	16	16
Pixel Filrate	16.0 GP/s	16.0 GP/s
Z/Stencil	64	64
Memory Type	1GB GDDR5	1GB GDDR5
Memory Clock	1,125mhz	1,125mhz
Memory Data Rate	4.5 Gbps	4.5 Gbps
Memory Bandwidth	72 GB/s	72 GB/s

The R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC has received a significant core clock increase from 1,000mhz to 1,100mhz. The memory speeds are set at 1,125mhz (4.5Gbps effective), which is the same as the reference AMD card.

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.

The MSI UEFI bios is attractively laid out and I found it easy enough to navigate, although not quite at the same level as the latest ASUS motherboards.

There are options to automatically let the motherboard attempt to overclock the processor, but today we are using the Standard mode to push it further. The main panel gives an overview of the connected drives and the memory installed.

The boot device priority can be adjusted with the mouse by simply dragging and dropping the positions, top right.

The motherboard defaulted the 3770k to the correct speeds, although the Corsair GTX8 2,400mhz memory was initially configured to 1,333mhz. This is pretty much a standard feature however to ensure a safe, first post in case of incompatibility issues. Loading the X.M.P. corrects this easy enough and we had no problems running 2,400mhz memory from Corsair, Kingston and G.Skill during our time with the motherboard.

The CPU ratio can be adjusted directly via the menus. We will look at overclocking in more detail shortly.

A range of bios shots above.

We know our Core i7 3770K sample limitations and it can tick over at 4.7ghz with good air cooling @ 1.28 volts. 4.8ghz is possible, but the voltage needs increased to around 1.35, which would cause long term problems for the sample. Watercooling or phase change would be needed for this speeds.

CPU-Z Validation is available over here. We did get a 4.8ghz post with this MSI motherboard, but as detailed above, we wouldn't risk it long term. This is a good overclocking motherboard which offers a variety of droop and voltage settings to achieve maximum stability.

MSI have their own Afterburner software for overclocking and we used the latest beta version which supports this card directly, with several voltage settings.

We found that the core reached a limit around 1,240mhz, regardless of the software or voltage tweaks. We actually achieved the same results with a slightly different version of Afterburner which opened up a Power Limit percentage reading (shown below).

Both core and memory clocks could be increased by just under 13 percent, good results.

Today we are testing the MSI Z77A-GD80 Motherboard & R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC graphics card as the foundation of an enthusiast system.

We leave the graphics card at the default, out of the box settings and overclock the Core i7 3770k to 4.7ghz. We have tested the 3770k before at reference clock speeds and the audience interested in this motherboard will assuredly want to overclock their processor close to the limits.

Processor: Intel Core i7 3770k @ 4.7ghz

Motherboard: MSI Z77A-GD80
Cooler: Thermaltake Frio Extreme
Memory: Corsair GTX8 2,400mhz (10-12-11-30)

Graphics Card: MSI R7770 Power Edition Transthermal OC
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.

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)

Some game descriptions are edited with courtesy from Wikipedia.

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.

A good score, pretty much as we would expect from an overclocked Core i7 3770k 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 processor scores 33,435 points and it is clearly held back by the R7770 graphics card, which scores 14,588 points. The overall score is 16,981 points.

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.

Again, the overclocked 3770k processor delivers a great score of 11,534 in the Physics test. The R7770 scores 3,439 points which brings the overall score down.

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: 1920×1080 resolution. Anti Aliasing off. Anisotrophy 4, Tessellation normal. Shaders High. Stereo 3D disabled. API: Direct X 11.

The system scores almost 38 frames per second, a generally smooth experience. Adding another R7770 later would help improve Tessellation and Direct X 11 performance significantly.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evalute motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on Bluray. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

Read our initial analysis over here

	MSI R7770
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	5
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Skin Tones	7
Total	196

A score of 196 points is class leading right now, the ideal solution for high definition media playback on a big screen.

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

At 4.7ghz the Core i7 3770k is a formidable processor, topping the charts behind the very costly Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition .

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.

At 4.7ghz, the 3770k is a fantastic low cost processor for heavy duty 3d rendering duties. It lags significantly behind the 3960X EE, however when factoring in the price difference it offers great value for money.

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

SSD performance from the native SATA 6 Gbps ports is spot on, averaging close to 500 MB/s in both sequential read and write tests.

The Kingston drive peaked around 560 MB/s read and 504 MB/s write, which is much as we would hope from the onboard controller. Great 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 results mirror our findings with Cinebench R11.5 – an excellent system to use for high demand 3D rendering tasks.

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.

For testing today we are enabling graphics acceleration encoding.

The Core i7 3770k works great with this software, even though it doesn't fully utilise 100% of all cores. Hardware acceleration helps boost the time to just over 7 minutes. Excellent results.

We always like to mention, as a point of reference that an Intel ATOM powered system will take over 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete the same task.

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 takes 4 minutes and 49 seconds to complete the encoding task, which is around 5 seconds quicker than the Core i7 2600k clocked to 4.8ghz.

Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007.

We first benchmarked at 1080p with 2MSAA and the Ultra preset.

Performance was a little juddery, with the frame rate often dropping below the 25 sweet spot. We felt the need to lower the preset to ‘high', rather than ‘ultra' which will demand a higher powered graphics card.

We switched to High, while increasing the Anti Aliasing to 4x.

This preset is much better suited to a lower end graphics card, and the frame rates were perfectly smooth throughout. The enhanced anti aliasing setting helped improve the appearance of the in game cars too.

Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.

To test the system we used a 1080p resolution with DX11, Texture Quality Very High, MSAA Samples 1, 16 af, ambient occulsion on, shadow complexity high, motion blur on. We use this with most of our graphics card testing so cards are comparable throughout reviews.

Alien V Predator is a taxing Direct X 11 game and we were pleasantly surprised to achieve perfectly smooth performance at these high settings.

Max Payne 3 is a third-person shooter in which the player assumes the role of its titular character, Max Payne. Max Payne 3 features a similar over-the-shoulder camera as its predecessors, with the addition of a cover mechanic, while also retaining much of the same run-and-gun style of gameplay. Max Payne 3 also marks the return of bullet-time in action sequences, for which the franchise is notable.

In bullet-time it is possible to see every bullet strike an enemy in detail. New to the series is a “Last Stand” mechanic, which gives the player a grace period after losing all health during which time the player may kill the enemy that wounded them in order to continue playing, however this mechanic is only usable if the player has one or more bottles of painkillers in their possession.

Max Payne 3 is one of the most demanding games at very high settings and we found it was very juddery when running in Direct X 11 mode with the single R7770. We opted for a high quality DX 10.1 configuration as detailed above. The performance was very smooth and the game was enjoyable.

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.

Settings: 1920×1200, D3D10, Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(8x), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Ultra High), Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Ultra High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High), Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High).

Good results at these high settings, averaging 57 frames per second, and dropping just under 40 fps a few times. Perfectly smooth throughout.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.

Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by playing Crysis Warhead for 30 minutes and measuring the peak temperature. We also have included Furmark results, recording maximum temperatures throughout a 30 minute stress test. All fan settings were left on automatic.

We tested the R7770 with single fan and then both fans installed in parallel. With one fan installed the temperatures increased by 3-4c under load. Both solutions offer superior cooling performance when compared against the reference solution.

The MSI R7770 cooler is a big improvement over the reference solution. With a single fan installed, it takes 21 seconds to return to idle temperatures. With two fans installed the time is reduced to 17 seconds, with a consistently lower variable across the curve.

We have changed our method of measuring noise levels. We have built a system inside a Lian Li chassis with no case fans and have used a fanless cooler on our CPU. We are using a heatpipe based passive power supply and an Intel SSD to keep noise levels to a minimum. The motherboard is also passively cooled. This gives us a build with completely passive cooling and it means we can measure noise of just the graphics card inside the system when we run looped 3dMark tests.

Ambient noise in the room is around 20-25dBa. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation.

Why do this? Well this means we can eliminate secondary noise pollution in the test room and concentrate on only the video card. It also brings us slightly closer to industry standards, such as DIN 45635.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

The reference card generates more noise than the MSI R7770 Power Edition, noticeable under load. The extra fan adds very little to the overall noise emissions. We would run this graphics card in dual fan mode all the time, unless constrained by physical space, such as when inside a small HTPC chassis.

To test power consumption today we are using a Keithley Integra unit and we measure power consumption from the VGA card inputs, not the system wide drain. We measure results while gaming in Crysis Warhead and record the results.

In such an energy aware climate, AMD are making a big deal out of their new ‘ZeroCore Power’ technology. Many solutions today use power gating, clock gating and memory compression to reduce idle power requirements, but ZeroCore power technology can completely power down the core GPU while the rest of the system remains active.

The R7770 Power Edition demands 65 watts at the slot when under gaming load. This rises to around 80 watts under Furmark load. There is no doubt the R7770 is an efficient design from AMD.

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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