PC Information: a

How to setup a 4K Collage display rig on GIGABYTE dual thunderbolt motherboard

Earlier this week we announced support for 4k UltraHD displays using Intel Collage technology and our dual thunderbolt motherboards. Although the setup process is actually reasonably straight forward, I thought today I’d give you quicky guide as to how it all works. Let’s kick off with a list of the things you will need

Stuff You Will Need

Motherboard – A PC built using any GIGABYTE 7 series dual Thunderbolt motherboard.

Processor – Any 3^rd generation Intel® Core™ i5 or Core™ i7 processor supporting Intel®HD4000 processor graphics.

HD Displays - Four displays supporting 1920 x 1200 or 1900 x 1080 native resolutions with DisplayPort interfaces. For Intel Collage vertical mode you may also require a stand to hold the four displays in position.

Intel Collage driver – This will be released later this month, downloadable from the motherboard product download page – as per a regular VGA driver update.

DisplayPort Splitter Dongles - Finally, you also need two DisplayPorts splitter dongles plus DisplayPort cables that allows you connect four displays using the onboard Mini DisplayPorts of your GIGABYTE motherboard.

Here’s the splitter adapter from Lenovo that we used.

Installation

Step 1: Connect the PC

First, you connect the two display port cables to the mini-Display Ports on the motherboard back panel. Each of these DisplayPort cables can then be connected to the splitter dongle. Note: Depending on which splitter dongle you are using, you may need to use DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort adapter cables.

Step 2: Connect the DisplayPort splitter dongles.

Now you can connect the two additional DisplayPort cables from each of the two splitter dongles. These will then be used to connect your standard HD displays.

Step 3. Connect the Four Displays

Next you can connect the four DisplayPort cables coming from the two splitter dongles to the respective displays. In the image below you can see the four displays setup in vertical mode. You can see that purchased a really sturdy stand that can easily hold all Dell displays in place, offering plenty of adjustment points so you can get a really flat front viewing surface.

Step 4. Install the Intel® Collage driver.

This is a special Collage driver developed by Intel and GIGABYTE that allows you create a 4K UltraHD resolution (3840 x 2400 pixel) desktop environment across your four standard HD displays. You can download the specific Intel® driver for your motherboard at the respective product page of our website. Follow the onscreen instructions during the installation process as you would with a regular VGA driver install. You then be asked to restart your system.

Step 5. Configure the Intel Collage Driver

Once installed, you can find the Intel Graphics and Media Control Panel in the bottom right corner of the screen. Right click the icon and select Graphics Properties. This is the software used to control and configure the Intel® Collage driver.

For Vertical Mode on four displays, first you must select Clone Mode from the ‘Operating Mode’ drop-down menu. Then select a screen resolution of 3840 x 2400 or 3840 x 2160 depending on the native resolution of your displays.

For ‘Horizontal Mode’ you must first select ‘Extended Desktop’ from the ‘Operating Mode’ drop-down menu, then a screen resolution of either 7680 x 1200 or 7680 x 1080 depending on the native resolution of your displays.

And that’s it. You can find more info about compatible components and more here at the GIGABYTE website.

Atomic GIGABYTEs OC and games night a hit TeamAU takes global world records with left over LN2!

Atomic Magazine and GIGABYTE put on a show for its lucky readers at AtomicHQ in Sydney overnight.

The LN₂ flowed free and fast last night, at our first sub-zero overclocking event here at Atomic HQ!

We opened the doors as the rest of Haymarkets staff were leaving, after casting a rather curious eye over the mess of gaming systems being set up by Team Immunity, and at the arcane tools of the serious overclocker. As folks showed up, both youngpro and dinos22, from TeamAU, got down to the action.
After a brief safety intro from Dino (essential when dealing with stuff as chillingly cold as LN₂), our guests split into teams and got to work on two GIGABYTE boards, a UD3 and a UD5, each with a new Ivy Bridge processor, while some of the staff (ahem) got to testing out the Battlefield 3 LAN.
Its tough work!

Couple of readers warming up for an insane Battlefield3 frag off!

Dinos22 giving a quick rundown on GIGABYTE digital PWM and monster overclocking boards the lucky group was about to OC on their own (and hit some tremendous frequencies!)

Visit Atomic site for the event photo gallery and more on how the two competitions went with Battlefield3 playoff and LN2 OC dinos22 vs youngpro’s teams!

TeamAU boys, dinos22 and youngpro, had some extra LN2 to burn off and benchmarked 3DMARK01 with a new killer 3D01 bios and showed off nice efficiency the boards have now. Any 3DMARK01 tragic out there will absolutely love the new bios (to be released next week in beta!). Benchmarks were done on GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H and Z77X-UD3H, both solid extreme OC boards!

3DMARK01 > 157700points (3rd fastest global score)

3DMARK03> 245K, world record 3x GIGABYTE 7970OC GPUs

3DMARK05 > 62K, world record 3x GIGABYTE 7970OC GPUs

Video Newegg TV complete a ‘Live Build’ based on the GIGABYTE G1 Sniper 5

Leon, our man in the US office, made it over to the Newegg offices to lend a hand with a Live Build they were undertaking based on a GIGABYTE G1.Sniper 5. Leon does a great job of answering comments and questions during the build which is lead by their ‘Resident PC-Building Lion’… also known as Paul.

Liquid nitrogen RAM coolers released by a couple of big evaporator makers!

I came across a PR release from EK releasing their first LN2 cooler. This one is based on RAM and by the looks of it has had some testing done on our new generation OC motherboard. It’s nice to see people passionate about their RAM clocking! We’re working hard at the moment on numerous ICs to see how they fair subzero with an upcoming new generation boards.

An alternative to this is the well established Kingpin cooler which we’ve successfully used in GIGABYTE’s labs to do a lot of our testing. It’s a great LN2 RAM cooler!

Check out this cool PC mod in a Harley Davidson skeleton!

We noticed WestCoastMods put up a really unusual looking PC mod on their facebook page. I really like the theme on this one based around a bike frame. GIGABYTE matte black PCB motherboard fits in pretty good into the overall colour scheme as well.

Nicely done fellas! Looks legit Open-mouthed smile

Best custom PC mod by a PC shop check it out because it might just be THE one you are after!

I often see PC shops have a good crack at making cool custom made PCs but this one from Scorptec in Australia is seriously the best looking PC I’ve seen in a long time. How awesome does this green beast look? Good to see a nice G1 Sniper Z87 and GIGABYTE GTX780 GHz edition in the spec, very nice guys!

Give these guys some love on Facebook over here!

Most deserving winner takes home a GIGABYTE Z77X UP7

A few weeks ago we asked our Facebook friends and followers to tell us why they thought they were the most deserving of a brand new, top-of-the-line GIGABYTE Z77X-UD7 motherboard. More than 800 of you left your comment, explaining why you deserve to win. But one comment from Darren Wong drew the most ‘Likes’. Here’s what Darren had to say:

“Because i never owned such powerful motherboard and im dying to get one! The past few weeks ive changed my PSU, GPU, monitor and casing left the other components which will be upgraded slowly(Due to lack of budget) to a high-end gaming and editing PC. And there i saw this great opportunity, which would save me from paying with my arms and legs!! I have to honest that i really dint used a gigabyte mobo before but i believe this board will be the BEAST and id really really like to have it in my case to try on(Not to mention the crazy overclocking on this board) and replace my current 6 years old cheapy Asus board”

Sounds like our Z77X-UP7 motherboard will be put to good use. Congrats to you Darren.

Check out all the comment submissions here.

Wow what a great comp! Christian Ney smashes all Llano records to oblivion!

HWBOT.ORG’s competition called GIGABYTE XMAS & New Year Contest just finished with Christian Ney from Switzerland absolutely smashing all scores in style.

Hardware used:

GIGABYTE GA-A75-UD4H
AMD A8-3870K Llano CPU
Geil Eva Corsa RAM
Both RAM & CPU Cooled with LN2

Records achieved:

World Record Llano Reference Frequency at 200MHz
World Record Llano Memory Frequency at 1752.8MHz & 2nd highest overall global RAM frequency achieved! WOW!!!
World Record Llano CPU Frequency at 6067.71MHz (also well done to Tsunamijuan and _mat_ for reaching past 6GHz :)

Overclockers are super-nerds and what better way to express happiness than to load up some old school MC Hammer in your submission posts, love it. Christian Ney says… U Can’t Touch This

Hammer time

GIGABYTE rolls up a 962 ‘Gold Cup’ submissions at HWBOT in 2012

So just out out curiosity, I went and had look at exactly how many overclockers are winning awards, specifically Gold Cup awards at HWBOT using our motherboards. Let’s just say the results were pretty damn impressive. In 2012, which of course isn’t quite over yet, exactly 962 1st place ranking hardware submissions – i.e. Gold Cup awards - on HWBOT.org were made by from people using GIGABYTE motherboards. That’s not a total submissions number, nope. That’s just Gold Cup submissions! Unbelievable!

Here’s the permalink so you can check it out for yourself: http://url.hwbot.org/VBtJJK

Gold Cups are awarded at HWBOT when a submission beats an existing highest score on a particular piece of hardware and a particular benchmark. Gold Cups are also league-agnostic, so Pros, enthusiasts and amateurs compete side by side.

As we move into 2013, we are seriously considering having monthly prize draws for these Gold Cup submissions that use GIGABYTE motherboards. I reckon it’d be a great way to give recognition to the hundreds of overclockers who might not be contenders for the heavyweight world records, but nonetheless, deserve recognition for their efforts. If you have any opinions on this, feel free to chime in below with comments.

Image source – Tony McCoy…. real Gold Cup legend in his own right. Not sure he can overclock hardware too well though.

Win a GIGABYTE Z87 D3HP with eTeknix com

Our buddies over at eTeknix.com have a cool competition open to all and sundry where you can get your hands on the ‘Bang for Buck’ winning GIGABYTE Z87-D3HP motherboard. As is the way with many of these comps, joining is super simple and requires a mere flick of the wrist here or there with a Facebook ‘Like’ for eTeknix, another the GIGABYTE UK Facebook page, a few personal details and you’re done.

Facebook page Linkage.

If you’re in India you could win a GIGABYTE motherboard

GIGABYTE India has just announced their GIGABYTE mobo Comment Contest where you can win a GA-Z77M-D3H motherboard. Contestants need to comment on GIGABYTE mobo features or specs and the wittiest most liked comments will be considered for the prize.