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 motherboards 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.
| Test System Setup | |
| Motherboards | Intel Z270-based systems ASUS Strix Z270E Gamine GIGABYTE Z270X-Gaming 5 ASUS TUF Z270 Mark1 ASUS Prime Z270-A Intel Z170-based systems ASUS Z170-A Intel X99-based systems ASUS X99-A II |
| CPU | Intel Z270-based system Intel Core i7-7700K (4.2GHz CPU and Ring Bus, 42 x 100MHz Base Clock) Intel Z170-based system Intel Core i7-6700K (4.0GHz CPU and Ring Bus, 40 x 100MHz Base Clock) Intel X99-based systems Intel Core i7-5960X (3.0GHz CPU and Ring Bus, 30 x 100MHz Base Clock) |
| Memory | Intel Z270-based system Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 modules (2133MHz, 16-18-18-35-1T, 1.225V) Intel Z170-based system Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 modules (2133MHz, 16-18-18-35-1T, 1.225V) Intel X99-based systems Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 modules (2133MHz, 15-17-17-35-1T, 1.225V) |
| Hard Drive | Intel 730 240GB SSD Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA III HD |
| Sound Card | On-board sound |
| Video Card | NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB |
| CPU Cooling | XSPC Raystorm water block Koolance CPU-360i water block |
| Video Drivers | NVIDIA 376.33 |
| Power Supply | Corsair HX750 |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Pro x64 Anniversary Release (build 1607) |
Test Setup Explanation
The 64-bit Windows 10 based test bench used for Intel Z270 LGA1151 board testing includes an Intel Core i7-7700K processor, 16GB of DDR4-2666 memory, an NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB video card, and an Intel 730 240GB SSD drive. For the Z170-based board testing, n Intel Core i7-6700K processor, 16GB of DDR4-2666 memory, an NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB video card, and an Intel 730 240GB SSD drive were used in the test system. For Intel X99 LGA2011-V3 board testing includes an Intel Core i7-5960X CPU, 32GB of DDR4-2666 memory, an NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB video card, and an Intel 730 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 2016 SP1a (v2016.03.22.20)
- Intel Linpack Benchmark v2017.4.014
- Maxon Cinebench R15
- PCMark 8 v2.7.613
HDMI 2.0(a? b?) and/or
HDMI 2.0(a? b?) and/or HDCP2.2?
Does the 2 M.2 ports support
Does the 2 M.2 ports support raid 0 or 1?
It should. Intel RST supports
It should. Intel RST supports RAID for M.2.
There is still the DMI 3.0 bottleneck of 3.93 GB/s theoretical though. Sequentials won’t see true scaling for RAID 0 for something like 960 Pros and Evos, but you can see up to around 3.5 GB/s reads with two of them.
Great review. When you start
Great review. When you start your full reviews of all the new boards with RGB could I ask if you would comment on the control of the illumination offered. Knowing number of seperate zones and brigtness control of the LEDs would be wonderful information for me as an aesthetic builder.
Again, great review.
Thanks.
Does this mobo support nvme
Does this mobo support nvme and can it boot Windows from an nvme m.2 drive, or two in raid 0?