Testing Configuration and Benchmarks Used

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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 Z170-based systems
ECS Z170-Lightsaber
ASUS Z170-A

Intel Z270-based systems
ASUS Prime Z270-A

Intel X99-based systems
ASUS X99-A II
CPU Intel Z170-based system
Intel Core i7-6700K
(4.0GHz CPU and Ring Bus, 40 x 100MHz Base Clock)

Intel Z270-based system
Intel Core i7-7700K
(4.2GHz CPU and Ring Bus, 42 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 Z170-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
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