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 GIGABYTE Z270X-Gaming 5 ASUS Strix Z270E Gamine 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
The pricing links for Amazon,
The pricing links for Amazon, NewEgg and B&H (together with the prices) are still placeholders. You might want to fix those 😉
I imagine this is because
I imagine this is because there is no pricing on these sites yet, the board isn’t available. At least wasn’t on Newegg when I checked. 🙂
We fixed this for now.
We fixed this for now. Unfortunately, board’s will not be available in retail until Jan 5…
Can anyone explain why
Can anyone explain why Gigabyte keeps pushing the uglier AORUS line with its do you even lift bro eagle chicken as the enthusiast brand?
In regards to the Killer
In regards to the Killer brand network card integrated- Windows 10 auto-installs a broken driver with enormous memory leaks. It’s been doing it for months.
It’s not something that is game-breaking or a slight against Killer necessarily, but be warned, anyone who buys one- you’ll need the latest drivers from Killer immediately after installing Win10. The NIC will *work*, but you’ll find yourself out of available RAM in no time if you don’t manually install the fixed driver.
Have yet to have personally seen anyone say that their Killer Nic gained them anything for the record. Might be magnificent, but they haven’t threatened Intel or Realtek chipsets.