Overclocking and Conclusion
Overclocking
To give a feel for the Z87H3-A3X motherboard's overclocking performance capabilities, we attempted to push the board to known CPU-supported performance parameters with minimal tweaking. While i was able to get the CPU to a 4.6GHz clock speed, I could not get the board to stabilize at any base clock speed over 100Mhz. For a Z87-based board, a 167MHz base clock should be easily achievable, so this was a bump in the road for an otherwise strong board. The board remained stable for over 4hrs at a 4.6GHz CPU speed, a 1866MHz memory speed, and a 4.0GHz ring bus speed at a 100MHz base clock. System stability was tested running the AIDA64 stability test in conjunction with FurMark running at 1280×1024 resolution and 2x MSAA in stress test mode.
Note that this is is meant only as a quick preview of the board's performance potential. With more time to tweak the settings to a greater extent, pushing to a higher base clock and ring bus speed may have been achievable, in addition to an overnight stability run without issue.
Performance
The Z87H3-A3x Drone is truly a diamond in the rough and is one of those unique products that disproves the old adage "You get what you pay for". This board kept pace with the other more costly Z87-based boards without a hitch at stock settings. Even overclocked, the Z87H3-A3X made a great showing, barring the slight base clock-related issues.
Pricing
As of January 08, the ECS Z87H3-A3X motherboard was available at Newegg.com for $104.99. The board was also available from other retailers such as Amazon.com for $119.68 with Prime shipping.
Conclusion
Before continuing with our final thoughts on the Z87H3-A3X, we would like to take this opportunity to give our friends at ECS a hearty “Thank You” for allowing us the opportunity to review this board. The Z87H3-A3X is an interesting experiment by ECS where they successfully developed a value-priced motherboard without sacrificing on performance or feature set. Somehow, ECS was even able to package in an Intel Z87 chipset. The Z87H3-A3X motherboard does not have the sleek looks of its big brother, the Z87H3-A2X Extreme, but does have some nice features that differentiate the board besides its price. The board layout is clean and uncluttered with plenty of room to spare around all components. Includes eye-catching heat sinks on both the CPU VRMs and the Intel Z87 chipset, gold colored and optimized for heat passive heat transfer. Additionally, ECS integrated there Durathon power delivery system into the board's design, pairing the board with high quality Ice chokes and gold-plated solid capacitors rated for operational stability up to 200k hours. While ECS had to keep the integrated peripheral count to a minimum to keep board costs down, they chose to integrate an Intel-base GigE NIC into the board, further proving this board's performance potential. From a stock performance perspective, you would not be able to tell the difference between this board and any other Intel Z87-based system.
Where the budget nature of the board begins to become apparent is in the BIOS and overclocking potential of the board. Overclocking-wise, we were able to get our test 4770K CPU to an impress 4.6GHz speed. However, the speed was only achievable with a base clock of 100MHz. Any base clock over 100MHz was unstable, resulting in a non-booting board or windows instability. This is most likely caused by the lack of clear voltage configuration options for the CPU. The CPU voltage mode was selectable as Adaptive or Offset, but the values allowed were not sufficiently documented in the BIOS. Further, Adaptive was found to be the only reliable setting for overclocking without the option of setting a fixed mode value. The other BIOS-related issue that affected CPU overclocking performance was the inability to configure integrated power phase operation. This affected the ability to increase the base clock of the CPU more than the physical CPU speed and could be addressed via a future BIOS release.
Strengths
- Stock performance
- Overclocking potential without base clock enhancement
- CMOS battery placement
- Board layout and design
- Accessible PCI-Express x1 slot with multiple PCI-Express x16 slots filled
- UEFI BIOS design and usability
- Motherboard manual information on base features
- Intel GigE NICs
- Quality of included power circuitry
- Price to Performance ratio
Weaknesses
- Lack of clear-cut CPU voltage settings in BIOS
- Lack of power phase configuration in BIOS
- Limited base clock overclocking ability
Why don’t we call Intel GigE
Why don’t we call Intel GigE NIC port what it is, a RJ-45 port? Calling it ‘a thing we stick our UTP cable into’ would be better.
The top-down shot of the
The top-down shot of the motherboard looks like diarrhea. Still can’t get over the terrible name either.
no promo shots of it covered
no promo shots of it covered in dust?
I don’t think you can count
I don’t think you can count giant slabs of copper as heatsinks. There just isn’t enough surface area. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of the underdog, but when the company that was renowned for making Fry’s house brand boards where every boot was a flip of the coin where heads was it booting and tails was it exploding into a puff of magic smoke and taking every component connected to it with it, they really need to step up the game with their design.
My thoughts:
Board color – Meh. Never really cared about board color.
Component layout – Decent enough, except for that giant block of copper. Looking at the pictures, I doubt you’d be able to fit a high-end air cooler on there like a Noctua or a Zalman CNPS series cooler. Plus, I don’t see how that giant block of copper will cool very well, there just isn’t enough surface area.
The heat shield between the CPU and the memory looks like a clever idea. I could see where that might be useful to help lower memory temperatures. Whether or not it helps in reality is a different story, but I think this is a good design choice. Plus it can be used to help cool the PCB.
I/O Panel: VGA? Seriously? They couldn’t have put display port on a “Leet” board? How are users supposed to take advantage of the triple display capability of current gen Intel graphics with a VGA port?
There’s a good amount of USB 3.0 ports there, but I would have liked to see thunderbolt on a board with this branding.
Based on the specs and features listed here, and the design, I’d be surprised if the MSRP was much above $150.
Page 3 of the review shows
Page 3 of the review shows how the Noctua NH-D14 fits on the board – there were absolutely no fit related issues with this cooler, so any other cooler should fit the board without issue (the Noctua cooler is one of the larger air coolers I've encountered).
As far as the MSRP, the board retails for $119, but can be found cheaper. Check the last page of the review for links to retailers.
Thanks…
Thank you for doing a
Thank you for doing a thorough review of this board. Yours is the best and most comprehensive that I’ve been able to find. It gives me confidence to pull the trigger on this board. It seems like a no-brainer with the included Intel NIC and higher quality audio that is absent on pricier boards.
Hey!!I am buying this ECS
Hey!!I am buying this ECS Z87H3-A3X MotherBoard…
i just wanted to know whether linux can be installed on this or not..pls reply fast
I’m running Ubuntu on it, has
I’m running Ubuntu on it, has been working fine for the 6 months I’ve had it. For the money it has features more expensive boards lack, such as ALC 1150 audio chip, eSata port, SLI and CrossfireX, and both DVI and HDMI. Even recognized my TP-LINK wireless PCI card with an Atheros chip during Linux install and correctly configured it right off the bat. What’s not to like, the color scheme? Who cares? I’m very pleased with this board.
Several years ago I had an ECS Athlon64 board that I bought for the same reason: features relative to price. Board went kaput after about 5 years, but I also had an ASUS board that lasted less than two years. Point is I’ve been pleased with ECS quality in my experience and they seem on par with other manufacturers boards.