Final Thoughts

Checking out the Intel Core i7 3770k we're able to get a better idea of what's going to be happening come the launch of the new Ivy Bridge platform. It's disappointing that officially we're going to see the "Z77" based motherboards launch a month before the Ivy Bridge based CPUs. Launching together would give Intel that bigger impact.

In the end, though, it's Intel. The launch of the Ivy Bridge platform isn't going to be seen the same way when AMD launched the "Bulldozer" platform which saw no Bulldozer based chips when the 990FX series chipset hit us. With the amount of leaks already happened with the new Ivy Bridge chips as well, people already have a really good idea of what's going on with the upcoming platform.

Of course the leaks are mainly due to the fact that the platform is ready to go. Like we mentioned in our Ivy Bridge preview with GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H (Intel Z77) and Core i5 3570K piece, though, is that stock to supply both the main channel market and the SI market means that Intel have chosen to delay the stock.

On the topic of the motherboard, the new GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H looks to be a great offering and when we get into the overclocking side of things we're really going to get a chance to see what it's made out off. Features are strong, though, and it hasn't skipped a single beat with our Ivy Bridge testing which is exactly what we love to see.

I wish that we were seeing the whole Ivy Bridge platform launch this month and not next month, but we're not. We've got a really good idea of what's going on with the platform and where it's going to sit. If you're looking at something that's going to draw less power than the current crop of Sandy Bridge based systems yet offer better performance, it's going to be a great option.

You combine the CPU improvements then with the changes that GIGABYTE has brought to the 7 Series chipset over the 6 Series chipset boards and you have some real reasons to upgrade. Now we've got to see what happens when we overclock these new chips. So, that's exactly what we're going to start doing now.

See you soon!