I am a bencher now, but like most benchers I started out as a gamer. And like all gamers you try to squeeze that extra bit of performance from your kit to get just that little bit of an edge in game. I was no different. And it was that trying to squeeze every last drop of performance out of my rig that I got hooked on benching.
So today is a real pleasure for me. I am going to be showing off my new gamer rig that I built this week.
Here are the new toys that will make up the rig. What are not in the picture above are those bits that I already had. Corsair 600T case and a HX750 power supply unit and my very first i7-920 CPU.
Gigabyte X58 G1 Sniper Intel X58 (Socket 1366)
Corsair DDR3 2000MHz GT 7-8-7-24 3x2GB kit
Asus 580GTX CUII graphic card
Antec Kueler 620 Cooler
OCZ 60GB Vertex 2E SSD
The really exciting thing about this build was the motherboard. This motherboard is something special and designed from the ground up for the gamer. And exclusively for the gamer.
Gone are the days of boring blue from Gigabyte this new board looks hard-core and as you will see later it most certainly performs well for the hard-core gamer. The green and black are a killer combination and less garish than some boards I have seen lately. Only bit I did not like was the fake bullet thing on the clip. What I do like a lot are the features of this board. And especially one particular feature that will make many gamers sit up and take notice.
Features:
Industry leading 8 phase power VRM design with Dual Power Switching Technology
3-way SLI and 3-way CrossFireX multi-graphics support for ultimate graphics performance
Featuring Bigfoot Networks Killer™ E2100 LAN onboard for Game Networking Platform
Quick Boost button in rear panel enabling instantaneously overclocking
Creative's top-of-the-line 20K2 digital audio processor onboard with X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity™ and EAX AHD 5.0 technologies
Utilizing high capacity amplifier for professional audio usage
Nichicon MUSE Audio Capacitors create the highest quality sound resolution and sound effects
5 sets Smart Fans strategically eliminate the thermal
Driver MOS delivers the lower power loss and higher power efficiency
Patented GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ now supports 3TB+ (terabytes) hard drive booting
Locked and loaded heatpipe design
Front USB 3.0 port panel provides outstanding connectivity
Ultra Durable 3 Technology with copper cooled quality for lower working temperature
Supports USB 3.0 with superfast transfer rates of up to 5 Gbps
GIGABYTE 3x USB Power with On/Off Charge USB ports
High speed SATA6Gbps storage interface with RAID
The special feature I was talking about is not the great sound that comes part of the package but the Bigfoot Networks Killer™ E2100 game networking platform. Oh my word, this is just the best thing.
Here are some really good reasons why I am so impressed with the E2100 networking platform.
Heaps more information can be found here. http://www.bigfootnetworks.com/technology
Okay so I can hear some of you going so what. A network card is a network card. Not!
And you just have to ask any online gamer how frustrating it can be during game play. Now if you have played Battlefield: Bad Company 2; Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops you will know just how demanding those games are on a network, plus if you are teaming there is nothing worse than for an order or warning arriving too late to make any difference. Well with this network solution you will find that you will have fewer dropouts and your voice traffic will arrive sooner than ever before. This network card is the real deal and I love it. The Bigfoot control panel has been completely redone and is much simpler to use. So it is really easy to manage my connection and how it is working during online gaming. If while playing you want to download a patch, or a new game to play you can do so without and loss in performance of the online connection. This I tested while game playing at a LAN and we did not skip a beat during the file transfer. I downloaded a complete game of more than 7GB in size while playing. No loss in connectivity while playing. I would go as far as saying the on-board Lan is the best I have every used to game with.
The Creative Sound Solution is pretty fine too.
The G1 Sniper motherboard comes with a Creative Audio processor – 20K2 audio processor. This is the processor found on the top end Creative products.
What that means is there is no overhead on the actual CPU to produce sound like on other on-board solutions. So no performance loss due to sound creation, no lagging or stutters while the CPU works on other stuff. Plus the sound quality is very good. Now don’t take my word for it. I have no test equipment that I can use to produce data to back that claim up. But others have and I am going to quote from a article that Victor Mikhaltsevich wrote.
This motherboard is not about shifting the bar significantly with regard to CPU overclock ability or radical performance improvements from an efficiency perspective. No, and in truth that is very unlikely to be achievable anyway. Why I say that is because the technology used is still X58 and while small tweaks can be affected with a new motherboard design the technology that is the foundation of the motherboard is the same technology that was licensed three or four years ago by Intel. So you are not going to see major differences in performance between this motherboard and other X58 based motherboards. The huge difference is that this board incorporates the best gaming network and audio experience onboard. There is no need to spend £’s on a top end network card, it is built in. Same with the sound it is there, onboard sound is top notch. Compatibility or driver issues are just not going to be a factor. So what we have is an all in one out the box top end gaming solution. I love it.
Time to get the build done
The 600T case is not huge looking but surprisingly roomy inside. Partly because the case has much more width than many others that it makes working inside the case such a breeze. The 750W PSU slots in neatly at the bottom and using the retention mechanism it is surprisingly stable. I was a bit concerned at first when I saw that. I needn’t have been.
Plenty room as you can see and the Antec 620 looks quite lost inside.
The motherboard was next and I like the way it looks inside my case. The black and green just works and the cooler is a pleasure to fit because of the handy cutaway in the motherboard tray.
All finished.
Now all that’s left is to put the side panel back on and power her up.
I have basically upgraded my old gaming rig. My trusty Rampage Extreme 2 has been pulled and the Sniper has stepped up to the plate. And like many gamers who might be thinking of freshening up their system but not wanting to change platform I too have a i7-920 CPU that has served me well. It is not a particularly good CPU, clocks like a dog. And needs far to much voltage. But I was surprised how easy it was this time. Popped it in and with first boot to BIOS set BCLK to 200 and the multi to 20x. All the rest was left on auto. 4GHz done deal. That was a nice surprise compared to the first time I tried to clock the CPU to 4GHz three years ago with the RE2 board. I kept looking for the reset and power button when I first started playing around with the board but of course since this motherboard is meant to be used by gamers and is normally in a case there was not any. And that is why I chose this particular version of the new Killer series. It is a standard ATX size and will fit into my lan case.
I like 3DMarkVantage as a game stability test. While no benchmark can expect to duplicate all aspects of what a system will be expected to cope with in a game environment I do find it is pretty good and closely replicates the kinds of stress my Graphic card and CPU are going to have to deal with. And just to round off I find that 32mil super Pi gives me a good idea of the liner processing of a single thread, and since so many games are still single threaded it is a handy tool to see how good your system will be in the game.
Not world record breaking but pretty darn satisfactory at 4GHz I think.
Since each one of us has our own preferred games and graphic card there is no point in trotting out heaps of graphs showing what my FPS were in game. All I can say is that the Asus 580GTX is a pretty outstanding card and even at 950MHz on the clock the card never got above 54'C. If you do want to see what you can expect from the different graphic cards I can recommend the Anandtech graphic card bench section. The thing to keep in mind is that the 580GTX will handle anything at the resolution I play at. 1920 x 1200. It is only when you get to multi-screen or monitors with heaps more real estate that even this beast will begin to struggle with all the eye candy switched on. I did test Sli with two of the cards but could not see any difference in game. My screen is just too small.
The G1 Sniper is not aimed at the bencher or the overclocker; it is not a board for the video editor either. Since it has no fire wire and I have never used one so I do not mind I guess there are some that would have preferred to have the option. Just as I would have liked to have a reset button on the board it self. So what is this board then?
What this board is is simple. It is a great platform for a gamer. And I wrote this from a gamer’s perspective. And it is a very good platform at that. I am enjoying this board and must say it is a keeper. Here is why I say that. Gigabyte have combined top-end network and sound solutions into the main board, which is the reason that the there was a noticeable performance improvement on my overall online gaming experience. Look I am not talking about huge increases of FPS that is not going to happen; there was some gains due to the CPU not having to do extra work true. But I am talking subjective compared to the system I played on four hours earlier on my old game rig. Same OS by the way not a fresh install. The overall package of motherboard designed just for gamers coupled with a reasonable graphic solution and an average CPU make this board is a true winner.
So today is a real pleasure for me. I am going to be showing off my new gamer rig that I built this week.
Here are the new toys that will make up the rig. What are not in the picture above are those bits that I already had. Corsair 600T case and a HX750 power supply unit and my very first i7-920 CPU.
Gigabyte X58 G1 Sniper Intel X58 (Socket 1366)
Corsair DDR3 2000MHz GT 7-8-7-24 3x2GB kit
Asus 580GTX CUII graphic card
Antec Kueler 620 Cooler
OCZ 60GB Vertex 2E SSD
The really exciting thing about this build was the motherboard. This motherboard is something special and designed from the ground up for the gamer. And exclusively for the gamer.
Gone are the days of boring blue from Gigabyte this new board looks hard-core and as you will see later it most certainly performs well for the hard-core gamer. The green and black are a killer combination and less garish than some boards I have seen lately. Only bit I did not like was the fake bullet thing on the clip. What I do like a lot are the features of this board. And especially one particular feature that will make many gamers sit up and take notice.
Features:
Industry leading 8 phase power VRM design with Dual Power Switching Technology
3-way SLI and 3-way CrossFireX multi-graphics support for ultimate graphics performance
Featuring Bigfoot Networks Killer™ E2100 LAN onboard for Game Networking Platform
Quick Boost button in rear panel enabling instantaneously overclocking
Creative's top-of-the-line 20K2 digital audio processor onboard with X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity™ and EAX AHD 5.0 technologies
Utilizing high capacity amplifier for professional audio usage
Nichicon MUSE Audio Capacitors create the highest quality sound resolution and sound effects
5 sets Smart Fans strategically eliminate the thermal
Driver MOS delivers the lower power loss and higher power efficiency
Patented GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ now supports 3TB+ (terabytes) hard drive booting
Locked and loaded heatpipe design
Front USB 3.0 port panel provides outstanding connectivity
Ultra Durable 3 Technology with copper cooled quality for lower working temperature
Supports USB 3.0 with superfast transfer rates of up to 5 Gbps
GIGABYTE 3x USB Power with On/Off Charge USB ports
High speed SATA6Gbps storage interface with RAID
The special feature I was talking about is not the great sound that comes part of the package but the Bigfoot Networks Killer™ E2100 game networking platform. Oh my word, this is just the best thing.
Here are some really good reasons why I am so impressed with the E2100 networking platform.
Heaps more information can be found here. http://www.bigfootnetworks.com/technology
Okay so I can hear some of you going so what. A network card is a network card. Not!
And you just have to ask any online gamer how frustrating it can be during game play. Now if you have played Battlefield: Bad Company 2; Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops you will know just how demanding those games are on a network, plus if you are teaming there is nothing worse than for an order or warning arriving too late to make any difference. Well with this network solution you will find that you will have fewer dropouts and your voice traffic will arrive sooner than ever before. This network card is the real deal and I love it. The Bigfoot control panel has been completely redone and is much simpler to use. So it is really easy to manage my connection and how it is working during online gaming. If while playing you want to download a patch, or a new game to play you can do so without and loss in performance of the online connection. This I tested while game playing at a LAN and we did not skip a beat during the file transfer. I downloaded a complete game of more than 7GB in size while playing. No loss in connectivity while playing. I would go as far as saying the on-board Lan is the best I have every used to game with.
The Creative Sound Solution is pretty fine too.
The G1 Sniper motherboard comes with a Creative Audio processor – 20K2 audio processor. This is the processor found on the top end Creative products.
What that means is there is no overhead on the actual CPU to produce sound like on other on-board solutions. So no performance loss due to sound creation, no lagging or stutters while the CPU works on other stuff. Plus the sound quality is very good. Now don’t take my word for it. I have no test equipment that I can use to produce data to back that claim up. But others have and I am going to quote from a article that Victor Mikhaltsevich wrote.
SOURCE
This motherboard is not about shifting the bar significantly with regard to CPU overclock ability or radical performance improvements from an efficiency perspective. No, and in truth that is very unlikely to be achievable anyway. Why I say that is because the technology used is still X58 and while small tweaks can be affected with a new motherboard design the technology that is the foundation of the motherboard is the same technology that was licensed three or four years ago by Intel. So you are not going to see major differences in performance between this motherboard and other X58 based motherboards. The huge difference is that this board incorporates the best gaming network and audio experience onboard. There is no need to spend £’s on a top end network card, it is built in. Same with the sound it is there, onboard sound is top notch. Compatibility or driver issues are just not going to be a factor. So what we have is an all in one out the box top end gaming solution. I love it.
Time to get the build done
The 600T case is not huge looking but surprisingly roomy inside. Partly because the case has much more width than many others that it makes working inside the case such a breeze. The 750W PSU slots in neatly at the bottom and using the retention mechanism it is surprisingly stable. I was a bit concerned at first when I saw that. I needn’t have been.
Plenty room as you can see and the Antec 620 looks quite lost inside.
The motherboard was next and I like the way it looks inside my case. The black and green just works and the cooler is a pleasure to fit because of the handy cutaway in the motherboard tray.
All finished.
Now all that’s left is to put the side panel back on and power her up.
I have basically upgraded my old gaming rig. My trusty Rampage Extreme 2 has been pulled and the Sniper has stepped up to the plate. And like many gamers who might be thinking of freshening up their system but not wanting to change platform I too have a i7-920 CPU that has served me well. It is not a particularly good CPU, clocks like a dog. And needs far to much voltage. But I was surprised how easy it was this time. Popped it in and with first boot to BIOS set BCLK to 200 and the multi to 20x. All the rest was left on auto. 4GHz done deal. That was a nice surprise compared to the first time I tried to clock the CPU to 4GHz three years ago with the RE2 board. I kept looking for the reset and power button when I first started playing around with the board but of course since this motherboard is meant to be used by gamers and is normally in a case there was not any. And that is why I chose this particular version of the new Killer series. It is a standard ATX size and will fit into my lan case.
I like 3DMarkVantage as a game stability test. While no benchmark can expect to duplicate all aspects of what a system will be expected to cope with in a game environment I do find it is pretty good and closely replicates the kinds of stress my Graphic card and CPU are going to have to deal with. And just to round off I find that 32mil super Pi gives me a good idea of the liner processing of a single thread, and since so many games are still single threaded it is a handy tool to see how good your system will be in the game.
Not world record breaking but pretty darn satisfactory at 4GHz I think.
Since each one of us has our own preferred games and graphic card there is no point in trotting out heaps of graphs showing what my FPS were in game. All I can say is that the Asus 580GTX is a pretty outstanding card and even at 950MHz on the clock the card never got above 54'C. If you do want to see what you can expect from the different graphic cards I can recommend the Anandtech graphic card bench section. The thing to keep in mind is that the 580GTX will handle anything at the resolution I play at. 1920 x 1200. It is only when you get to multi-screen or monitors with heaps more real estate that even this beast will begin to struggle with all the eye candy switched on. I did test Sli with two of the cards but could not see any difference in game. My screen is just too small.
The G1 Sniper is not aimed at the bencher or the overclocker; it is not a board for the video editor either. Since it has no fire wire and I have never used one so I do not mind I guess there are some that would have preferred to have the option. Just as I would have liked to have a reset button on the board it self. So what is this board then?
What this board is is simple. It is a great platform for a gamer. And I wrote this from a gamer’s perspective. And it is a very good platform at that. I am enjoying this board and must say it is a keeper. Here is why I say that. Gigabyte have combined top-end network and sound solutions into the main board, which is the reason that the there was a noticeable performance improvement on my overall online gaming experience. Look I am not talking about huge increases of FPS that is not going to happen; there was some gains due to the CPU not having to do extra work true. But I am talking subjective compared to the system I played on four hours earlier on my old game rig. Same OS by the way not a fresh install. The overall package of motherboard designed just for gamers coupled with a reasonable graphic solution and an average CPU make this board is a true winner.
I am a function over forum kind of person. I buy what I think is the best at the price for my needs. Look we all would prefer to pay less for stuff that is human nature I think. But I have no buyers remorse about this board. I do wish I had gone bigger with the PSU mind you. That is an error right there. 750W is just to small for SLi with the 2 Asus 580GTX CUII cards I have. 
