Testing Configuration and Benchmarks Used
To verify that the motherboard works as advertised, the board was run through our standard benchmark suite. In most cases, the results are presented for the motherboard under review as well as a different similar-class motherboard for performance comparison purposes. The benchmark tests used should give you a good understanding of the board’s capabilities for both office and gaming use so that you, the reader, can make a more informed purchasing decision.
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Test System Setup |
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CPU |
Intel Core i7-4770K (3.5GHz, 35 x 100MHz Base Clock) |
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Motherboards |
ECS Z87H3-A2X Extreme GIGABYTE Z87X-OC Force |
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Memory |
Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 modules (1600MHz, 9-10-9-27-1T) |
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Hard Drive |
Intel 520 240GB SSD Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA III HD |
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Sound Card |
On-board sound |
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Video Card |
NVIDIA GTX 570 1.25GB |
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CPU Cooling |
Corsair Hydro Series™ H100i Extreme Performance CPU Cooler |
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Video Drivers |
NVIDIA 320.18 |
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Power Supply |
Corsair 750w |
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Operating System |
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 |
Test Setup Explanation
The 64-bit Windows 7 based test bench used for Intel Z87 LGA1150 board testing includes an Intel Core i5-4770K CPU, 16GB of DDR3-1866 memory, an NVIDIA GTX 570 1.25GB video card, and an Intel 520 240GB SSD drive. Using the selected components gives us the ability to demonstrate the motherboard’s capabilities rather than that of the components themselves.
Benchmark Tests used for evaluation:
- SiSoft Sandra 2012
- LinX Intel Linpack Benchmark v0.6.4
- Handbrake video transcoder v0.9.8
- Maxon Cinebench 11.5
- FutureMark PCMark 7
Sounds like a pile of gank to
Sounds like a pile of gank to me.
Great review Morry. I just
Great review Morry. I just wanted to point out an error in your article: GIGABYTE includes only the bare minimum needed to get the board functional. Shouldn’t “Gigabyte” say “ECS”? LOL
Thanks for pointing that
Thanks for pointing that out…
You just got *puts on
You just got *puts on sunglasses* ganked. YEEEOOOWWWW!
I was really thinking this
I was really thinking this would be a good motherboard, until the picture showing the gfx card next to the cooler. This made me realise that the pcie slot is placed right at the top of the board.
Not only does this mean you can install some gfx cards with large backplates (think msi lightening with the addon board) but also it means on many cases you cant plug cables intot the gfx card as the space between the top of the cases surround of the expansion slots gets in the way (mainly due to thickness of cable connectors).
This will definately stop me from buying this, everything else seemed so great too. Oh dear.
Whats with companies in
Whats with companies in putting nameplates on heatsinks designed for passive cooling. My old m4a78 plus got a 15c drop in temperature on the northbridge when I pried the name plate off.
The side panel fan then did a better job at cooling the motherboard.
Covering the top of a heatsinks only increases cooling performance when you have active airflow in the direction of the fins (eg taping some cardboard to the top of the xbox 360 heatsinks lowers the temperature)
But if airflow is coming from the top then it significantly reduces performance.
Are you Ganking my chain…I
Are you Ganking my chain…I thought they were out of business…my first build 13 yrs ago was an ECS.
AMD Athlon ! LOL
AMD Athlon ! LOL
What a terrible name for a
What a terrible name for a motherboard, it should be a big hit with 12 year old pant saggers.
Indeed; the name puts this in
Indeed; the name puts this in the “will not buy I don’t care how good it is” category.
Good piece, but the
Good piece, but the watermarks in the photos are incredibly distracting. I know you want to protect your property, but they’re too much.