Rating: 9.0.

1. Introduction 2. MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming: Packaging and Bundle 3. MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming: Layout and Features 4. MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming: BIOS and Overclocking 5. Testing Methodology 6. Synthetic: PCMark 7 7. Synthetic: 3DMark 8. Synthetic: 3Dmark 11 9. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven 10. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra 2013 11. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 12. Synthetic: Super Pi 13. Synthetic: SATA Performance 14. Real World: WinRAR 15. Real World: MKV Playback 16. Real World: Media Encoding 17. Gaming: Battlefield 3 18. Gaming: Call of Duty Black Ops 2 19. Gaming: DiRT Showdown 20. Technical: Power Consumption 21. Closing Thoughts 22. View All Pages



Today we are going to look at the MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming motherboard. It’s MSI’s latest model, targeted at the enthusiast audience, more specifically enthusiast gamers. It boasts an impressive feature set which is specifically tailored for those gamers who want the best possible performance from their system.

MSI are one of the four market leaders, along with Asus, ASRock and Gigabyte. It has been clear that they have been looking to cement their reputation over the past couple of years by releasing numerous enthusiast grade products.

The ‘gaming’ series of motherboards differ from MSI’s other models in a number of ways. Firstly, they have given the aesthetic design an overhaul by adding metallic red accents to the heatsinks and a dragon design to the chipset. However, the changes aren’t just skin deep. All ‘gaming’ series motherboards feature a Bigfoot Killer E2200 network chip for optimum performance as well as support for up to 3000 MHz memory. Other improvements include a Sound Blaster Cinema audio codec and a dedicated gaming device USB port.



Features