Board Software

For included software, we find the long-lived standard of EasyTune for board-level tweaking, wrapped in the same old and familiar interface. The tool itself provides listings of system information for both the CPU and the memory, as well as providing access to voltage and clock adjustments, as seen in the images above. There is a section for automatic overclocking profiles as well as manual settings, and as is usual for high-end boards, I found the voltage section to offer a multitude of settings that can all be adjusted from within the OS.


For BIOS updating, Gigabyte has included the now-standard @bios software, which allows updates both from the Internet, as well as from previously downloaded files. It also serves as a good way to verify that you have the most recent BIOS, and if not, you can download it using the @bios tool, and then flash from within the board's BIOS itself using the provided in-BIOS Q-Flash tool, if so desired.


What has been updated, however, is the software VRM interface, this time called "3D Power". The image above shows the main menu of that software interface, which provides access to all the same VRM options we found in BIOS. It is a nice and easy-to-use software, and although I much prefer to make such adjustments from within the BIOS itself, those that wish to do a bit of tweaking from within Windows do have the option if so desired.


The onboard Creative Recon3D sound chip is confingured using the software shown above, which contains the same basic features found on the discrete Creative cards that sport the same audio CODEC.