It seems like Intel's Z77 and Ivy Bridge parts have been around for quite some time now but in fact it has only been six months since they both launched. At launch there were a decent number of boards available as manufacturers found it reasonably easy to build on their experience with P67 and the like but that said there was still a lot more that could be done to create enthusiast class models.

Now six months on from the Z77 launch manufacturers such as Gigabyte are launching their new generation of products based around the chipset. The top model in Gigabytes family is GA-Z77X-UP7 and we have one on our test bench today. It will be put through a selection of synthetic and real world tests to establish how it compares to a first generation Z77 product.