Introduction and Technical Specifications
The GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC Force motherboard is the flagship board in GIGABYTE’s overclocking series. The board was built from the ground up to appeal to overclockers, offering a mix of features and performance to great effect…
Introduction
Courtesy of GIGABYTE
The Z97X-SOC Force motherboard is the premier offering in GIGABYTE's Overclocking Series of boards. The overclocking series boards are designed with enhancements and features meant to appeal to enthusiasts and professional overclockers alike. The Z97X-SOC Force board deign is based on the previous generation Z87X-OC Force, featuring the same black and orange coloration typical to the series. The board does contain several evolutionary changes making the board easier to use and more appealing to its target users. At an MSRP of $209.99, the Z97X-S0C Force is competitively priced to appeal to all levels of enthusiasts.
Courtesy of GIGABYTE
Courtesy of GIGABYTE
Courtesy of GIGABYTE
GIGABYTE enhanced the board power regulation system designed into the current generation boards, allowing for use of a simplified cooling and fewer power phases. As a result, the Z97X-SOC Force is packed with 8-phase digital power circuit for the CPU, using International Rectifier (IR) based PowIRstage digital controllers and 10k-rated black solid capacitors to ensure system stability under any conditions. The Z97X-SOC Force board comes standard with the following integrated features: six SATA 3 ports; one SATA Express 10 Gb/s ports; a Qualcomm® Atheros Killer E2201 NIC; four PCI-Express x16 slots; a PCI-Express x1 slots; two PCI slots; 2-digit diagnostic LED display; on-board power, reset, CMOS clear, CMOS battery clear, OC Ignition, OC Tag, OC Turbo, OC Touch, Settings Lock, Direct to BIOS, and Memory Safe buttons; Dual-BIOS, active BIOS, and IC Trigger switches; OC PCIe and OC DIMM switch jumper blocks; integrated voltage measurement points; and USB 2.0 and 3.0 port support.
Courtesy of GIGABYTE
Technical Specifications (taken from the GIGABYTE website)
| CPU | Support for Intel® Core™ i7 processors/Intel® Core™ i5 processors/ Intel® Core™ i3 processors/Intel® Pentium® processors/Intel® Celeron® processors in the LGA1150 package L3 cache varies with CPU (Please refer "CPU Support List" for more information.) |
| Chipset | Intel® Z97 Express Chipset |
| Memory | 4 x DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory * Due to a Windows 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than the size of the physical memory installed. Dual channel memory architecture Support for DDR3 3300(O.C.) / 3200(O.C.) / 3100(O.C.) / 3000(O.C.) / 2933(O.C.) / 2800(O.C.) / 2666(O.C.) / 2600(O.C.) / 2500(O.C.) / 2400(O.C.) / 2200(O.C.) / 2133(O.C.) / 2000(O.C.) / 1866(O.C.) / 1800(O.C.) / 1600 / 1333 MHz memory modules Support for non-ECC memory modules Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules (Please refer "Memory Support List" for more information.) |
| Onboard Graphics | Integrated Graphics Processor: 1 x D-Sub port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920×1200@60Hz 1 x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920×1200@60Hz * The DVI-D port does not support D-Sub connection by adapter. 1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096×2160@24Hz or 2560×1600@60Hz * Support for HDMI 1.4a version. 1 x DisplayPort, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096×2160@24Hz or 3840×2160@60Hz * Support for DisplayPort 1.2 version. Support for up to 3 displays at the same time Maximum shared memory of 1 GB |
| Audio | Realtek® ALC1150 codec High Definition Audio 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel Support for S/PDIF Out |
| LAN | Qualcomm® Atheros Killer E2201 chip (10/100/1000 Mbit) |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16) * For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8) * The PCIEX8 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16 slot. When the PCIEX8 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot will operate at up to x8 mode. 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x4 (PCIEX4_1, PCIEX4_2) * The PCIEX4_1 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX8 and PCIEX16 slots. When the PCIEX4_1 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot will operate at up to x8 mode and the PCIEX8 will operate at up to x4 mode. * When installing a x8 or above card in the PCIEX4_1 slot, make sure to set PCIE Slot Configuration (CPU) in BIOS Setup to x4. (Refer to Chapter 2, "BIOS Setup," "Peripherals," for more information.) * The PCIEX4_2 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX1 slots. The PCIEX1 slot will become unavailable when a PCIe x4 expansion card is installed. (The PCIEX16, PCIEX8 and PCIEX4_1 slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.) 1 x PCI Express x1 slot (The PCIEX4_2 and PCIEX1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.) 2 x PCI slots |
| Multi-Graphics Technology | Support for 4-Way/3-Way/2-Way AMD CrossFire™/2-Way NVIDIA® SLI™ technology |
| Storage Interface | 1 x SATA Express connector 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10 (SATA Express and SATA3 4/5 connectors can only be used one at a time.) |
| USB | Chipset: 6 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header) 8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 2 ports onboard, 2 ports available through the internal USB header) |
| Internal I/O Connectors | 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector 1 x OC PEG power connector 1 x SATA Express connector 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors 1 x CPU fan header 1 x water cooling fan header (CPU_OPT) 6 x system fan headers 1 x front panel header 1 x front panel audio header 1 x S/PDIF Out header 1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header 1 x USB 2.0/1.1 header 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 1 x serial port header 1 x Clear CMOS jumper 1 x power button 1 x reset button 1 x Clear CMOS button 1 x Gear button 1 x OC Turbo button 1 x OC Tag button 1 x OC Trigger switch 1 x CPU BCLK Down button 1 x CPU BCLK Up button 1 x CPU Ratio Down button 1 x CPU Ratio Up button 1 x Memory Safe button 1 x Settings Lock button 1 x Direct to BIOS button 1 x OC DIMM switch 1 x OC PCIe switch 1 x OC Ignition button 1 x Clear Battery button 2 x BIOS switches 1 x onboard voltage measurement module |
| Back Panel Connectors | 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 4 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector 1 x D-Sub port 1 x DVI-D port 1 x HDMI port 1 x DisplayPort 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port 1 x RJ-45 port 6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Side Speaker Out, Line In, Line Out, Mic In) |
| I/O Controller | iTE I/O Controller Chip |
| H/W Monitoring | System voltage detection CPU/System/Chipset temperature detection CPU/CPU OPT/System fan speed detection CPU/System overheating warning CPU/CPU OPT/System fan fail warning CPU/CPU OPT/System fan speed control * Whether the fan speed control function is supported will depend on the cooler you install. |
| BIOS | 2 x 128 Mbit flash Use of licensed AMI UEFI BIOS Support for DualBIOS™ PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.7, WfM 2.0, SM BIOS 2.7, ACPI 5.0 |
| Unique Features | Support for APP Center * Available applications in APP Center may differ by motherboard model. Supported functions of each application may also differ depending on motherboard specifications. @BIOS EasyTune EZ Setup Fast Boot ON/OFF Charge Smart TimeLock Smart Recovery 2 System Information Viewer USB Blocker Support for Q-Flash Support for Smart Switch Support for Xpress Install |
| Bundle Software | Norton® Internet Security (OEM version) Intel® Rapid Start Technology Intel® Smart Connect Technology Intel® Smart Response Technology |
| Operating System | Support for Windows 8.1/8/7 |
| Form Factor | ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 24.4cm |
fix the pricing section
fix the pricing section
Fixed, thanks for pointing
Fixed, thanks for pointing this out…
What i want to see is a truly
What i want to see is a truly striped down board that is meant to do nothing but overclock. I mean why would you need audio on an OC board, just fill it with PCI-e slots and plx splitters, same thing goes for the onboard video. Get rid of everything that is not needed.
I agree on no need for
I agree on no need for integrated audio, but on these consumer sockets gpu is embeded into cpu so they cannot be removed by board manufcaturers. Also there really is no need of plx chips on oc oriented boards.
don’t see why they could not
don’t see why they could not ditch the ports on the back though, put something like more usb or something there. Also plx chips would be nice of you wanted to bench 4 way gpus not by amd.
Morry, I noticed in the
Morry, I noticed in the Conclusions you noted that the CMOS battery placement was a strength. If I am running Crossfire or SLI, the CMOS battery placement in my opinion sucks, especially if I have my video cards water cooled. What exactly is an ideal place for the CMOS battery and why?
Theoretically, you could run
Theoretically, you could run SLI or CrossFire with the board without impacting the battery. Ideally, the best place for the battery is by the DIMM slots in the the lower left corner of the board, both locations which remain accessible most of the time.
If you start talking about dual or tri-card mode, there are quite a few components that become hard to get to especially when using full sized cards…
Vs it’s predecessor’s battery
Vs it’s predecessor’s battery placement, it’s definitely an improvement.
WHY WHY WHY DO THEY CONTINUE
WHY WHY WHY DO THEY CONTINUE TO PUT PCI SLOTS?!
There are not enough PCI-E
There are not enough PCI-E slots from the chipset to allocate a 1x slot to each board position. Therefore the motherboard makers have a choice of using a PCI-E 1x to 2x PCI bridge which allows for using all seven slots in the ATX spec or leaving one of the slots blank on the board. I can see why they don’t want to leave blank slots, but the slot next to the primary GPU is almost always useless anyways. Some boards also leave the first slot blank and put the primary GPU in the second slot which makes more room for the CPU cooler. and GPU backplate.
Why, oh why, did Gigabyte
Why, oh why, did Gigabyte replace the perfectly good Intel NIC with this killer rubbish? When you ran the network tests, did you have the killer bloatware installed, or just the driver? Also, how exactly was the CPU utilization measured? Does your percentage include the CPU overhead from the simultaneous disk I/O too?
For the network testing, the
For the network testing, the Killer software was installed in addition to the driver. For measuring CPU utilization, Windows Performance Monitor was used with the average measured from that taken as the reported average…