Gigabyte H77N-WiFi Review – First Look at Ivy Bridge with mITX
by Ian Cutress on November 6, 2012 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gigabyte
- H77
- mITX
Many thanks to...
We must thank the following companies for kindly donating hardware for our test bed:
OCZ for donating the SSDs
Micron for donating our SATA testing SSD
G.Skill for donating our memory kits
ASUS for donating AMD GPUs and some IO Testing kit
ECS for donating NVIDIA GPUs
Gigabyte for donating the i3-3225 used for comparison
Rosewill for donating the Power Supply
Test Setup
| Test Bed | |
| Processor |
Intel Core i3-3225 @ 3.3 GHz 2 Cores, 4 Threads |
| Motherboards | Gigabyte H77N-WiFi |
| Cooling | Thermalright TRUE Copper |
| Power Supply | Rosewill SilentNight 500W |
| Memory | GSkill RipjawsX 2x4 GB DDR3-1600 9-9-9 |
| Memory Settings | XMP |
| Video Cards |
ASUS HD7970 3GB ECS GTX 580 1536MB |
| Video Drivers |
Catalyst 12.3 NVIDIA Drivers 296.10 WHQL |
| Hard Drive | OCZ Vertex 3 240GB |
| Optical Drive | LG GH22NS50 |
| Case | Open Test Bed - CoolerMaster Lab V1.0 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit |
| SATA Testing | OCZ Vertex 3 128GB |
| USB 2/3 Testing | OCZ Vertex 3 240GB with SATA->USB Adaptor |
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system as a whole with a wall meter connected to a Rosewill 500W 80PLUS Platinum SilentNight power supply. As I am in the UK on a 230-240 V supply, leads to ~75% efficiency at low loads, and 90%+ efficiency between 20% and 100% loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.
Using the i3-3225 processor gives an amazing idle power usage – 21 W on IGP. Even with a 500W Platinum power supply, 21 W is still on the very low end of efficiency. I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual draw was more like 14-16 W.
POST Time
Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we are now going to look at the POST Boot Time - this is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.) These results are subject to human error, so please allow +/- 1 second in these results.
With the launch of Windows 8, most of the motherboard manufacturers are scrambling to update their BIOSes to take advantage of some of the Windows 8 features. This has resulted in reduced boot times – manufacturers that were taking 18 seconds to POST are down to 12 or below. I have been quoted that with the right combination of hardware and BIOS options, some setups can be in the operating system in 2-4 seconds. Nevertheless it also has a knock on affect for other operating systems – the Gigabyte H77N-WiFi is able to boot in a highly respectable 11.61 seconds with a 7970 attached.
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52 Comments
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extide - Tuesday, November 6, 2012 - link
Seems like it would be more appropriate than using a 7970 or 580desiredusername145 - Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - link
C'mon Anandtech whats the point testing this with an i3???Now I wasted time even opening this article, shame on you
cjs150 - Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - link
"C'mon Anandtech whats the point testing this with an i3???"That is a bit harsh. I suspect lots of people will pair an i3 with a mini-itx board.
Personally I have an i7-3770T in my mini z77 board but lots of people would regard that as overkill (also runs a bit hot - I suspect the culprit is intel using cheap thermal paste on the IHS as widely reported).
HappyCracker - Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - link
Agreed. Even a Clarkdale i3 will happily push 1080p content to a 1080p display with its integrated graphics and I think this is where a lot of users will position their ITX boxes. As long as you're not in a huge hurry, you can also encode video. It's all about positioning the right computer in the right spot.hasseb64 - Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - link
mITX boards are more and more intresting, but I want you as a reviewer to focus more on power consumption.Th-z - Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - link
Is there going to be a review on APU (FM2) with mITX? I'm also looking for a prebuilder that sells APU mITX system using small chassis with external power supply. Puget has them using Antec ISK 110 and 310 cases, but you can only customize them for Intel parts.Last question, isn't it illogical to say "UEFI BIOS"? As UEFI is to replace BIOS, not an extension of BIOS, as "UEFI BIOS" would imply. The F in UEFI already stands for Firmware, so conceptually, it's like saying "Firmware BIOS". If wheel is to replace feet, we just need to call it wheel, not wheel feet.
Urbanos - Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - link
you didn't cover wireless! its a main feature of this mobo.missing all networking bench's, also does it allow for teaming? and how well?
did you test the raid setup? will each controller see each other's array in the config utility?
chassis options? temperatures?
dual HDMI tests and examples? image quality?
don't mean to be a dick here, but anandtech has a much higher standard than this.
klmccaughey - Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - link
We need you to spot the flaws before we buy it Ian, so I see no problem with you being critical as you are always constructive.Keep up the great reviews! I'm still waiting for my ITX HTPC killer board - they are all far to expensive.
rwpritchett - Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - link
Good review Ian. I've been running with this motherboard for about a month now in an ISK 310-150. It's good to see someone review the H77 version rather than the Z77.I'd like to add another gripe about the layout- the 24-pin power header. It's right on the top edge of the board. My case has fans on that side and the fan blades hit the clip on the power connector. If it was moved away from the edge just 2mm it would be in the clear (or better yet, it should be on the memory side of the motherboard like the Asus H77 ITX) . I had to forego a fan in that position for now, but I plan to add washers to slightly space a fan away from the 24-pin connector.
Another slight annoyance is that the BIOS refuses to see my SSD if the SATA is set to RAID. I don't know if it is specific to my model of SSD, a Crucial M4, or there is a bug that needs to be fixed.
cjs150 - Thursday, November 8, 2012 - link
Would the 24 pin position work for you ?I prefer the 24 pin to be at the edge of the board but at right angles to current position (ie not pointing straight up). Would be nice if someone would prefer a 90 degree 24 pin adapter