Benchmark Testing
Synthetic Benchmark Testing
SiSoft Sandra 2012
The Sandra benchmarks remain a fast and easy way to determine how well the system's CPU and memory are functioning. The Z97X-SOC Force board performed well in the both tests with its theoretical memory performance falling slightly behind the other board, but still within acceptable tolerances. Performance on par with other similarly classed systems indicates CPU and memory subsystem performance within expected operational parameters.
LinX
LinX is a graphical interface for CPU-based testing using the Intel Linpack benchmarks. It serves as a good indicator of proper system CPU functioning and is considered one of the most intensive CPU benchmarks currently available. LinX was run with Memory set to All and for a total of 3 runs. This test was repeated three times with the highest repeatable GFlops (Giga-Floating Point Operations Per Second) score recorded.
This CPU torture test is a proven method for identifying possible issues with the CPU to motherboard interface layer. The Z97X-SOC Force board manages to perform within expectations, falling squarely in the middle of the comparison systems performance-wise.
Multimedia and System Benchmark Testing
Maxon Cinebench 11.5
Maxon’s Cinebench 11.5 benchmark can be used determine a system's ability to render 3D content based on their Cinema 4D animation software. The CPU benchmark test was run three times, with the highest reproducible Cinebench points score recorded.
Again, the Z97X-SOC Force board performs on par with the other systems. Its performance fell slightly behind the other test systems, but against remains within tolerances.
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…