Introduction

With the release of Ivy Bridge processors we finally start on our reviews on Intel Z77 motherboards as well. As such we'll handle the MSI Z77A-GD65 motherboard today.

The Z77 is of course the Intel chipset predominantly released for Ivy Bridge based processors. These motherboards will have a slightly altered feature set and thus support the new Ivy Bridge apples from Intel. Good to know however is that Z77 also supports Sandy Bridge Socket 1155 based processors, that's right your favorite Core i5 2500K and Core i7 2600K will be perfect for these motherboards as well.

The changes for Z77 can primarily be found in the native USB 3.0 support as well as an upgrade towards PCie gen 3 PCIe x16 slots. The MSI Z77A-GD65 is intended for Intel's 22nm Ivy Bridge processors on Socket LGA1155, and they tend to overclock rather well as we'll show you. You can reach 5 GHz even on air cooling, with a motherboard as the one used today.

Have a peek at what was just released, this is the MSI Z77A-GD65 'Ivy Bridge' motherboard.