MSI Z77A-GD65 (Z77) Motherboard Review

3DMark 11

3DMark 11 is the latest offering from Futuremark, taking full advantage of DirectX 11 by utilising tessellation features and volumetric lighting. It takes your graphics and CPU hardware to the edge to simulate the most extreme conditions whilst working as a stand point to compare results with other users online.

Moving over to the more gaming related tests, we can see that within 3DMark11, the GD65 at stock speeds was the worst performer compared to the other boards, but the marginal difference isn’t substantial at all. The overclock saw a small increase, though other boards at stock seemed to give higher results.

Metro 2033

Metro 2033 is a first-person shooter game based in the Russian metro system. Metro 2033 is very similar to the much loved game STALKER as it is developed by the same programmers. The game utilises DirectX 11 and relies heavily on tessellation features and is considered to be one of the most graphics intense games on the market.

Within Metro 2033, the GD65 at stock fell inline with its competitors, and the overclock gave only a 1FPS difference on the lower resolution, though other boards offered the same performance, while at stock speeds.