Gigabyte Z77X-UP5 TH

grambo said:
Depends what your needs are? The main differences are:

- software/UEFI
- I/O/port config
- possibly extreme overclocking
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I have never owned one of the sabertooth motherboards and it seems like the thermal armor may not really be that necessary.


Munch MaCoochi said:
I have been cruising the forums reading as much as possible about the Supreme FX IV audio chip on the Asus MVF. So far, the feedback on the audio has been positive. There are many converts out there, guys that swore by discrete audio and had no confidence to make the switch. Seen some guys even still clinging to their old Audigy II cards...which is ridiculous really. The ones that took the time to try it and hear it for themselves have given up the add in sound card and been happy with the MVF's onboard.

I have an older AMD 790 chipset board and I cannot tell between my X-Fi Gamer and that. So I ditched it 2 years ago.

I would say, unless you are truly an extremely picky, anal retentive audiophile...you will not notice.
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Thanks for the feedback about the audio card / on-board sound. Since I have the Xonar I would just have to see if the same though regarding no being able to hear the difference is the same. I just game with a 2.1 sound system or headphones right now.
 
Just for the sake of FYI -
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/07/09/asus_dgx_dsx_xonar_rog_phoebus_sound_cards/1

Excellent article on the 3 newest Xonar cards. I found in enlightening. Obviously, there is always the chance that some new card budget card will come along and blow away the best on board sound.

99% of gamers out there game with just headphones or 2.1 speakers. Most believe they have quality components but actually do not. In other words, 99% of gamers will never notice much of a difference when testing by themselves. The placebo affect is an issue. That is why we did our tests blind and did tests on 3rd parties too - to act as controls. Go ahead, spend $100 on a sound card, pop it in and listen....it could be slightly worse than your on board audio but you won't think so because that shiny box is there, you just installed it, you are all excited...etc, etc, etc.
 
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Will have to review that article. Thanks!

I saw that Asus had a Thunderbolt Header "TB Header" available for some of their Z77 boards.

Maximus V Formula -- TB Header present. The "TB Header" notation is hard to spot because the writing is above the pin layout. May confuse people thinking that header is not present. Audio: SupremeFX IV

Maximus V Gene -- micro ATX -- TB Header present.

ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 -- TB Header present.

ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE -- TB header is present. No Micro PCIexpress. Audio: Realtek ALC898, Dual LAN (Intel 82579V and Realtek 8111F) Not sure if it has the same packet shaping that the Maximus V Formula has for the intel.

ASUS P8Z77-V PREMIUM -- Thunderbolt is native on-board -- Expensive too!!

Thunderbolt Upgrade card info. Spaghetti wire mess.
 
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calikool said:
Maximus V Formula -- No TB header. Bummer!! Audio: SupremeFX III
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Very wrong on both counts.

The MVF has a ThunderBolt header on it, you can see it pointed out in their video on YouTube.
Also, it is SupremeFX IV.

However, all that said, I have decided on going with the GA-Z77X-UD5H!!! lol
 
Munch MaCoochi said:
Very wrong on both counts.

The MVF has a ThunderBolt header on it, you can see it pointed out in their video on YouTube.
Also, it is SupremeFX IV.

However, all that said, I have decided on going with the GA-Z77X-UD5H!!! lol
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I corrected the above. I was looking in the wrong place for MVF to find the header. Their board specs doesn't list it on their website.

With the Gigabyte you have 1 plus NIC and some of the legacy video connections. Plus you save $100.
 
Munch MaCoochi said:
I have been cruising the forums reading as much as possible about the Supreme FX IV audio chip on the Asus MVF. So far, the feedback on the audio has been positive. There are many converts out there, guys that swore by discrete audio and had no confidence to make the switch. Seen some guys even still clinging to their old Audigy II cards...which is ridiculous really. The ones that took the time to try it and hear it for themselves have given up the add in sound card and been happy with the MVF's onboard.

I have no direct experience specifically with the MVF but I can testify to my friends and I trying to tell the difference between the new Realtek 898 and a Creative X-Fi Gamer PCI card. We had girlfriends, friends, family, etc. all come in...sit and lsiten to the same sounds, games and music. No one could pick a better one. Out of us gamers, roughly 80% of the time we chose the onboard sound...but it was just guessing...we could not tell the difference. I have an older AMD 790 chipset board and I cannot tell between my X-Fi Gamer and that. So I ditched it 2 years ago.

I would say, unless you are truly an extremely picky, anal retentive audiophile...you will not notice.
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Thanks for posting this, honestly, because I've been sticking to my X-Fi XtremeGamer because of a bias against onboard dating back a while. I haven't given it a shot lately and probably will on my next build rather than upgrading to a PCI-e soundcard. If I had higher end speakers/phones or a DAC I might consider a discrete card more important, but I don't, and 95% of my music listening is compressed MP3s anyway.
 
calikool said:
Their board specs doesn't list it on their website.

With the Gigabyte you have 1 plus NIC and some of the legacy video connections. Plus you save $100.
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True...their webpage does not reveal that! Huge mistake IMO for ASUS! lol
Yeah, in the end, I felt the UD5H was better for me. As tempted as I am to go balls out on my wallet, I will wait. My girlfriend will need a new mobo around XMAS/ I can give her my UD5H and get something else if I desire. If not, I can buy another UD5H at a rock bottom price by then. Either way, I cannot lose.
 
grambo said:
Thanks for posting this, honestly, because I've been sticking to my X-Fi XtremeGamer because of a bias against onboard dating back a while. I haven't given it a shot lately and probably will on my next build rather than upgrading to a PCI-e soundcard. If I had higher end speakers/phones or a DAC I might consider a discrete card more important, but I don't, and 95% of my music listening is compressed MP3s anyway.
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My pleasure to help. Personally, I feel audio is embarrassingly ignored or avoided on most hardware review sites. Pisses me off too but I don't think many sites care or have the knowledge. I see big name HW review sites out there and their latest audio HW review is from last year...early last year...like Jan/Feb!!! WTF??? Put down the damn SSDs and Mobos for 5 minutes guys and get cracking! Geeez!

And you are exactly right, only the most dedicated audiophiles or (forgive me) spoiled brats will need $200-$300 audio cards! Almost everyone else does not even need a dedicated card any more...but even if you do,most of the newest $50 cards will do.

I have a friend that has to build the BEST rig every single time. I nicknamed it The VORTEX...not because of the rig, but due to the HUGE HOLE in his wallet! Oh...working on another "VORTEX" I see...G.SKILL Trident X Series 32GB RAM huh? How much? $800...wow...that is impressive. Huh? Oh...a $300 Lian-Li case...yipee! 3 $400 video cards??? 6 256GB SSDs....WOW....and a Xonar Phoebus.
Uhhmmmm...what 3D modelling work are you doing? None! Just playing COD once in a while....World of Warcraft, Diablo III, then WTF the do you need all of that machine for?
But he has to...he has to brag....
 
Munch MaCoochi said:
I have a friend that has to build the BEST rig every single time. I nicknamed it The VORTEX..
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Do you or your VORTEX Buddy water cool your systems? I was going to get the Corsair H100 but saw that if I got the MVF then you could potentially cool the two corners surrounding the CPU. Corsair's solution is a closed system which couldn't include the already prepped cooling mosfet sections. However, looking at the ASUS site for their water cooling suggestions has really presented a kit that would include the CPU and the extra tube, fastners, and any dye mixtures for your cooling water.

Have any suggestions?
 
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He has not fooled with water but a friend of mine does. That friend loves to tinker and play. I have never done water cooling beyond a closed loop system like the H100. Yes, the Asus MVF has watercooling block over the VRM (VERY NICE!)....completely optional. Unless you plan on doing some serious high performance overclocking, and/or if you are the kind of guy that loves to fool and fiddle with his PC....I would just have a case that can provide excellent air flow (Corsair 500R or Cooler Master HAF XM) with fans and use something like the H100 for water cooling as a bonus.

I have an H100 on the way for this new rig and I have the HAF XM case. I will use the 2 200MM fans to cool from the side and front, will replace the noisy H100 fans with some Cougar CF-V12HPs to make it whisper quiet and will use the rear140mm fan to exhaust hot air out the rear. I also have a few 140MM and 120MM Cougars lying around in case I need to add more...but really...2 x 200MM fans, plus the 120MMs on the H100 and the 140MM on back should be waaaaaaaay more than enough.

I lean toward a closed water cooling kit for most gaming rigs for myself now because
A) they leave room for any kind of tall RAM modules (nothing worse than a big air cooler blocking DIMMs)
B) I feel the air coolers are getting so big now they are putting undue stress on the CPU sockets themselves...remember, most systems stand vertical with the big monster CPU coolers hanging on the horizontal plane. I have seen some boards with stress cracks from this.
C) I love the clean, simple look it gives.
D) I feel cleaning out dust, etc. is easier without a big honkin' CPU cooler in the way.
E) I have seen, tested and read numerous reviews showing how well something like the H100 can perform and generally beat 99% of the best air coolers.

All of that said...water cooling absolutely crushes air cooling completely IF you go all out and build a high end custom water cooling rig...but then you are talking about serious commitment, big $$$ (like $300-$500) and then their is the regular maintenance and upkeep of that setup!

I was toying with the idea but have decided to pass. I want to spend my free time (very little these days) gaming and pwning...not tweaking and moaning. Kind of reminds me of when I was a teenager and we all had muscle cars. There were those of us that built it then enjoyed it and their were those that always had to 'fix' or 'tweak' something else. They were in their garages and I was racing down the strip at the beach, getting tickets and picking up girls. I bought a rusted out 1969 Mustang Boss 429 and spent my high school years and 2 more of college fixing her up. Got that sweetness up to 130 mph before a trooper pulled me over! lol

So what do you want to do? There is no right or wrong answer...you just have to really think about it before you dive in. I am betting if you test the waters with the H100, you will be happy and most likely get rid of the water cooling itch! lol
 
Munch MaCoochi said:
My pleasure to help. Personally, I feel audio is embarrassingly ignored or avoided on most hardware review sites. Pisses me off too but I don't think many sites care or have the knowledge. I see big name HW review sites out there and their latest audio HW review is from last year...early last year...like Jan/Feb!!! WTF??? Put down the damn SSDs and Mobos for 5 minutes guys and get cracking! Geeez!

And you are exactly right, only the most dedicated audiophiles or (forgive me) spoiled brats will need $200-$300 audio cards! Almost everyone else does not even need a dedicated card any more...but even if you do,most of the newest $50 cards will do.

I have a friend that has to build the BEST rig every single time. I nicknamed it The VORTEX...not because of the rig, but due to the HUGE HOLE in his wallet! Oh...working on another "VORTEX" I see...G.SKILL Trident X Series 32GB RAM huh? How much? $800...wow...that is impressive. Huh? Oh...a $300 Lian-Li case...yipee! 3 $400 video cards??? 6 256GB SSDs....WOW....and a Xonar Phoebus.
Uhhmmmm...what 3D modelling work are you doing? None! Just playing COD once in a while....World of Warcraft, Diablo III, then WTF the do you need all of that machine for?
But he has to...he has to brag....
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People don't like being talked down to for buying what they like or want. What is "overkill" to you might be "barely acceptable" to someone else. $400 video cards are not high end. I have 2 $500 video cards and the performance is still not as good as I would like when I'm using all 3 monitors in NVSurround. I have a higher end sound card because I wanted something that could output true DD/DTS 5.1 positional audio to my stereo and surround system, and most can't unless you're watching a movie. You absoulutely can tell the difference between onboard and add-on sound cards if you have good speakers and like to crank the volume. That being said, I am curious about the Supreme IV chip and whether it can send 5.1 DTS to my receiver when gaming. If it CAN, color me impressed. I might try it this weekend and see (or hear, rather) how it works.

I'm not sure how you go from complaining no one reviews high end sound cards to calling folks spoiled brats for being interested in them. Seems like if that were the general attitude concerning audio you just answered your own question as to why no one reviews them...

Obviously you weren't talking about me, I can see you were talking about people who buy the highest end parts for no other reason than that they can, but being a drama queen on a tech forum will never end well, and you know, sometimes I want the best I can get just because I can... for the longest time I couldn't... ;)
 
Astral Abyss said:
Obviously you weren't talking about me, I can see you were talking about people who buy the highest end parts for no other reason than that they can, but being a drama queen on a tech forum will never end well, and you know, sometimes I want the best I can get just because I can... for the longest time I couldn't... ;)
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Yes...lol...obviously I was not talking to you. I was referring to my VORTEX friend (and similar ilk or the spoiled brat teens) which was pretty clear I thought. Of course I know there are those that want the best which is fine. I did not call them out as being bad guys or call them out in anyway. I was speaking of the fact that 99% of gamers will not notice the difference because 99% are not on the extremist edge. When generalizing like I was, I would expect most people to understand that I (or anyone generalizing) am referring to the lunkheads and not those with common sense or just those that have the money and want the goodies. I am speaking about the lunkheads. The lunkheads that believe they need that extreme 1% boost in performance to pwn the gaming world at the risk of not making the mortgage or padding the savings account. lol

I can afford the major goodies easily. But I know I do not need them and that is why I was slamming the lunkhead mentality, not the enthusiasts. My VORTEX friend is a lunkhead. Kind of the same way I slam the gym rat meatheads that believe the overpriced products sold by MuscleTech and endorsed by the juiceheads will "make 'em HUGE" (said with Brooklyn accent ;)) but year after year they remain the same size and just as dumb and others really do get huge. lol

And yes, you are exactly the guy that is not in the 99%, so you WILL notice the difference and the SupremeFX IV is not going to make you happy...I am quite sure of that. But please...for the sake of fun and knowledge...give it a whirl. Test it, try it and report back! I would love to know how it goes, performs, etc.
 
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Munch MaCoochi said:
...give it a whirl. Test it, try it and report back! I would love to know how it goes, performs, etc.
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I would like to know what Astral Abyss thinks of the Supreme IV as well. If for whatever reason it doesn' t really sound that great I have a PCIe Asus Xonar card to throw on the board to take the onboard audio's place.

Munch MaCoochi said:
I will replace the noisy H100 fans with some Cougar CF-V12HPs to make it whisper quiet and will use the rear140mm fan to exhaust hot air out the rear. I also have a few 140MM and 120MM Cougars lying around in case I need to add more...but really...2 x 200MM fans, plus the 120MMs on the H100 and the 140MM on back should be waaaaaaaay more than enough.
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I have four Noctua NF-S12B FLX 120mm fans that I could scavage from my current case. I was looking at buying new NF-F12 PWM from Newegg for the push/pull system along with the Corsair H100. Are these cougar fans similar in performance or are they just already around so you'll re-use them?


Munch MaCoochi said:
I was toying with the idea but have decided to pass. I want to spend my free time (very little these days) gaming and pwning...not tweaking and moaning. Kind of reminds me of when I was a teenager and we all had muscle cars. There were those of us that built it then enjoyed it and their were those that always had to 'fix' or 'tweak' something else. They were in their garages and I was racing down the strip at the beach, getting tickets and picking up girls. I bought a rusted out 1969 Mustang Boss 429 and spent my high school years and 2 more of college fixing her up. Got that sweetness up to 130 mph before a trooper pulled me over! lol

So what do you want to do? There is no right or wrong answer...you just have to really think about it before you dive in. I am betting if you test the waters with the H100, you will be happy and most likely get rid of the water cooling itch! lol
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Time is pretty limited for me also. I would have to agree. Tweaking a DIY watercooled system probably isn't worth the hassle especially since I won't be overclocking the system because the "K" processor lacks some virtualization features. Damn Intel gimping their processors.
 
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Munch MaCoochi said:
Yes...lol...obviously I was not talking to you. I was referring to my VORTEX friend (and similar ilk or the spoiled brat teens) which was pretty clear I thought. Of course I know there are those that want the best which is fine. I did not call them out as being bad guys or call them out in anyway. I was speaking of the fact that 99% of gamers will not notice the difference because 99% are not on the extremist edge. When generalizing like I was, I would expect most people to understand that I (or anyone generalizing) am referring to the lunkheads and not those with common sense or just those that have the money and want the goodies. I am speaking about the lunkheads. The lunkheads that believe they need that extreme 1% boost in performance to pwn the gaming world at the risk of not making the mortgage or padding the savings account. lol

I can afford the major goodies easily. But I know I do not need them and that is why I was slamming the lunkhead mentality, not the enthusiasts. My VORTEX friend is a lunkhead. Kind of the same way I slam the gym rat meatheads that believe the overpriced products sold by MuscleTech and endorsed by the juiceheads will "make 'em HUGE" (said with Brooklyn accent ;)) but year after year they remain the same size and just as dumb and others really do get huge. lol

And yes, you are exactly the guy that is not in the 99%, so you WILL notice the difference and the SupremeFX IV is not going to make you happy...I am quite sure of that. But please...for the sake of fun and knowledge...give it a whirl. Test it, try it and report back! I would love to know how it goes, performs, etc.
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I see what you're getting at and appreciate the clarification.

Unfortunately I have not yet tried out the SupremeFX IV audio yet. I did not have the time I thought I would this weekend. I hope to do that "soon". Maybe tonight, because I am actually curious also how it holds up to a dedicated X-Fi Titanium card.
 
Astral Abyss said:
I see what you're getting at and appreciate the clarification.

Unfortunately I have not yet tried out the SupremeFX IV audio yet. I did not have the time I thought I would this weekend. I hope to do that "soon". Maybe tonight, because I am actually curious also how it holds up to a dedicated X-Fi Titanium card.
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I have the Asus Xonar card. So if the Supreme IV sounds just as good if not better than the X-FI then there may be no point in carrying over the soundcard over to my new build. I'll just leave it in the old computer.
 
calikool said:
Are these cougar fans similar in performance or are they just already around so you'll re-use them?
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I actually bought these fans specifically for the H100 and other uses. I do have some running in the case of one of my louder, hotter test servers. These fans are a newer build and better done than the previous mode, which was already very good! They have really excellent build quality and do not just move lots of air, they give high static pressure, have anti-vibration pad design built in, are silent as the grave even on high, and Cougar even went to the lengths of using air-inlets to reduce turbulence noise. Among modders and enthusiasts, Cougar fans are known and the model CF-V12HP is dearly loved. NOW...the problem is they have a bad color combo IMO. One version is black/orange...the other black/black. I can never find the black/black on sale. I caught an excellent NewEgg deal and got four of the black/orange ones. Not a big deal cause I will not see them once installed. (I don't stare lovingly at my PC or build it to show off...I use it! lol) The prices are not bad compared to what you get but I would set up a deal alert on SlickDeals and wait if not on sale right away. In the mean time the H100 fans will do a good job but will be NOISY on highest setting. Yes, the Cougar fans do actually provide lower temps and quieter performance than the stock Corsair fans. These Cougar fans are perfect for any kind of use...so do not limit your thinking to just the H100.

calikool said:
The Gigabyte Z77X-UP5 TH is now listed at newegg. It is out of stock at the moment. The "older" GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H that was purchased by some of you is now selling for $179. ($20 off instantely)
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Cheaper than I thought it would be but the limit of SATA III ports kills it for me. Sometimes I need to use my gaming rig to assit my other workstations in testing network setups or transferring data or running VM machines. So it will have 2 Vertex 4 256GB SSD drives...1 for the OS, one for games. The other 4 drives will be 2-3TB SATAII and III HDs for data storage, VMs, HD images, etc. If they had slapped on more SATA III ports it would have been a done deal! DARN!

Astral Abyss said:
Unfortunately I have not yet tried out the SupremeFX IV audio yet. I did not have the time I thought I would this weekend. I hope to do that "soon". Maybe tonight, because I am actually curious also how it holds up to a dedicated X-Fi Titanium card.
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That might be an interesting test. Is it an older Titanium card or newer version? A basic one or Fatality version? (just for FYI, I read a lot of reviews that slammed the Fatality version for being average performer compared to cost...cannot say since I never owned it) If older, the Supreme might give it a run. Alright...give us good feedback my friend. But please, do good tests..try various types of music and games. Do movies if you feel like it but I and probably most others, only care about game sounds and music. What is going to be a game changer are some of the new games coming out with 7.1 sound support like BF3. Might motivate me to get a good pair pf headphones again if it becomes standard practice for developers! Just too few games right now for me to care. lol

calikool said:
I have the Asus Xonar card. So if the Supreme IV sounds just as good if not better than the X-FI then there may be no point in carrying over the soundcard over to my new build. I'll just leave it in the old computer.
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Well, wait a minute...now he was talking about a TITANIUM card! lol I have an X-Fi Xtreme Gamer(don't use it any more due to the 'disappearing' issues you can read about on the various forums) and that would probably be a fairer comparison. Asus makes the Xonar cards and Supreme on board sound...so it should be comparable to the budget or even moderate Xonar cards. I did get the chance to hear a friends new Xonar GSX card that was released back in April I think...the one in the reviews I linked to. It did sound very good. We have not done any comparisons yet though. Probably will once the summer time family fun settles down and we can experiment again. But at roughly $40-50 without a sale, the price is not bad at all. I would buy it just to have a spare part laying around just in case audio goes on another mobo.
 
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Humm, had I known I might've waited a few more weeks for the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP4 TH since it's about the same price as the Gigabyte z77 UD5. I really wanted that Ultra Durable 5 thing but, it's brand new and maybe needs a revision or two or three first? What do you guys think?
 
JoseJones said:
Humm, had I known I might've waited a few more weeks for the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP4 TH since it's about the same price as the Gigabyte z77 UD5. I really wanted that Ultra Durable 5 thing but, it's brand new and maybe needs a revision or two or three first? What do you guys think?
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Brand new and untested - my thoughts exactly. Consider this though...do you really need the Ultra Durable 5 and Thunderbolt on the UP4 TH or the UP5 TH even? That is what is adding the extra $100 to the price tag. Basically, the UP4 for most gamers is a total waste UNLESS you are just a hardcore gamer that will NOT mind the measly two SATA III port limitation AND you are really going to overclock this beyatch high and hard. Otherwise, if you are not going to bring HEAT...then you don't need the Ultra Durable 5 magic....so the UD5H is the waaaay better buy. Besides, the UD3/UD5H series have already proven themselves to handle high Z77 overclocks with air and/or water cooling.
 
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^ Agreed, that's why I'm fine with my choice of the Gigabyte z77 UD5. It actually suited me better for my needs with 5 x SATA 6Gb/s ports instead of just 2 with the UP4 TH.

I really like what gigabyte is trying to do with the Ultra Durable 5 by keeping mobo temps low but, as we've agreed it's new and untested and I've yet to see it confirmed as really making much of a difference. I like it for long life-span purposes but, since I'm not overclocking it's just not a necessity.

I'll be more interested in Thunderbolt when it reaches 20g to 40g/ps since sata express SSD's will be reaching 16g/ps in a couple years. It'll probably be a couple years after that before prices would come down enough for me though.

So, maybe I'll consider Thunderbolt in like 5 to 8 years after I'm ready to replace this new i7 Ivy bridge system I just got last week. At that point, DDR 4, sata 4 and even PCIe 4 will be out.
 
I just purchased the Asus MVF and I7-3770 and new Corsair Vengence RAM. It will be fun putting it together. I want to see how much time is saved while encoding with handbrake and H.264.
 
calikool said:
I just purchased the Asus MVF and I7-3770 and new Corsair Vengence RAM. It will be fun putting it together. I want to see how much time is saved while encoding with handbrake and H.264.
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Nice! I went with the same RAM but the low profile version for my UD5H.

For all interested in the UP5 TH or similar - this is probably going to be one of the best threads to follow since it is dedicated to those boards only and their owners sharing experiences and helping each other troubleshoot.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1285652/official-z77x-up5-up4-d3h-th-owners-club-discussion-and-info-thread
 
Here's a video giving the Gigabyte UP5 TH a very good going over:

Z77X-UP5-TH Review
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcTnvnWfF0g

He explains several things about the motherboard I've never seen anyone explain before. I'm glad gigabyte is being so innovative but, I'm happy with our UD5 for now and look forward to these new generation boards in the future for my next new build in a few years.

We have several computers here since we have our own small business. I'll need to do a new build for myself in a few years - the UD5 was for the lady since her system was built in 2004. So, needless to say she is very happy with the new system and it will serve her well for the next 5 to 8 years. I hope to be able to afford a Haswell or Broadwell system or the next one after that when the time comes.
 
JoseJones said:
but, I'm happy with our UD5 for now and look forward to these new generation boards in the future for my next new build
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Me too. Dipping my toe into the IB waters.

the UD5 was for the lady
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Exact opposite for me. This was for me since I needed updating. She will probably get this system after IB goes 'tock' and maybe I will get a Gigabyte UPx rev. 2 or 3. By then, it will be perfect for my girl and I will get the new improved. Yes....she always gets my hand me downs...lol But she rarely does anything more than emails, watches YouTube and occasionally gets into a groove and games. She loves UT3. Got her Bioshock...she played it for 20 minutes then never got back into it again.:mad: She has played every single F.E.A.R. game though and has always loved them. Until she is more committed to gaming...she gets my second hand goods!
 
Maybe the next UP5 mobo will have better features.
 
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So, if you guys were wondering, I did actually test the Supreme FX IV on the Maximus V Formula board. It didn't really go well. The problem wasn't the sound quality. It actually sounded amazingly good in the music I listened to. The problem was getting it to output the digital 5.1 audio to my receiver, which was what I was worried about all along. I fought with it, uninstalling and reinstalling drivers, including removing all the SB Titanium drivers, and I actually got it to output 5.1 audio for a bit. Unfortunately when I rebooted it went back to 2.0 and I never got it working again. At that point I had about 3 hours invested in it and didn't want to waste more time on it. I just put back in my Sound Blaster Titanium and disabled the Supreme FX IV.

I may have just been missing something in the setup, but the driver configuration is pretty crappy and childish looking with limited sound adjustment options so I had to resort to the Windows settings for most of it, which never seems to end well. Maybe I'll play around with it again if/when a newer driver comes out for it, as it does seem like a viable, quality sounding option if I can get it working with my receiver. I think I would have been hard pressed to tell any difference between Supreme FX IV and my Titanium card when listening to music. (MP3s recorded w\VBR 320kbps max) I didn't try any games as I didn't see the point since surround wasn't working correctly.
 
^ Sorry to hear it didn't work out, Astral Abyss. Have you considered contacting them to ask for either a solution or just to let them know that they may need to put it on the list for a future driver update?
 
I was going with the mpower and I patiently waited all June and July for it. I got sick of waiting today and ordered this Gigabyte board :) It appears to me that this is superior. Shame on MSI for claiming a July release.
 
Curious to see if anyone is using 32GB 1600 DDR3 with this board. If so what brand DDR3 and cpu heatsink. Those Dim slots look really close to the cpu. Worried about clearance.
 
^ Yeah, good job, those are the best pics I've seen of those boards. It's interesting to see that the UD5 is slight better in SSD performance than the UP5 scoring 831 and 817 respectively.

The UD5 and the UP5 are basically the same at stock CPU speeds. So, I'm glad I went ahead with the UD5.
 
Working on my Z77x-UP5 TH review right now. I have never seen a board that runs this cool. It has heatpipes and large heatsinks, but with the new IR3550 PowIRstage i wonder if they are even that necessary.Even when overclocked beyond 4.8Ghz the board barely rises much above room temperatures (Mid 30s maximum). My review should be up by next week, but the board impresses...
 
I would love to see the UP 4 or 5 without the Thunderbolt ports. I don't think I will be using thunderbolt in this generation but this looks like a worthy update from the UD 5 & I'm sure quite a few people buying the UP5 won't be using Thunderbolt & it is such a large part of the cost of these boards
 
^ Yep, I agree, 10g/ps Thunderbolt ports are not enough to motivate people to buy due to costs and especially since HD & SSD's are still stuck at sata 3 6g/ps.

I'm looking forward to sata 4 and sata express at 12g/ps and 16g/ps respectively. At that point, I'd like to see Thunderbolt at 20g/ps. This is all still a couple years away though. So, I'm happy with my UD5 for now.
 
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