Integrated Device Testing
Audio Subsystem Testing
Audio Playback Testing
Using a selection of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music tracks and Windows Media Player, the audio subsystem playback performance was tested for playback accuracy and fidelity.
Playback using the app provided test sounds and audio test tracks was clear and distortion free with the 7.1 speaker setup going through the integrated analogue audio ports. Note that the side channel output must be attached to the Line-In port when audio is set for 7.1 speaker output.
Listening tests using the selected audio tracks were performed with a Kingston HyperX Cloud Gaming audio headset as well as a 5.1 speaker setup to exercise the subsystem's audio fidelity. In both cases, audio reproduction was clear and distortion-free with little quality difference between the listening sessions. Note that the DTS processing settings must be enabled through the Realtek control panel applet for music to be played through all speakers in any mode above stereo mode.
Microphone Port Testing
For testing the board's Microphone input port, the microphone from a Kingston HyperX Cloud Gaming audio headset was used to capture a 10 second spoken phrase with the assistance of the Microsoft Voice Recorder application. The resulting audio file was saved to the desktop and played back using Windows Media Player.
Audio pickup was distortion free without Microphone Boost enabled, but was best with a recording volume of 75%. The audio subsystem required no tweaking of the Microphone Boost settings for usable audio recording. Also, there was no quality difference between audio pickup in normal mode and with the Noise Suppression and Accoustic Echo Cancellation functionality active.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
To validate that the board’s device ports were functioning correctly, we connected an Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SATA III SSD to the system and ran the ATTO Disk Benchmark against the drive. The SSD was directly connected to the native SATA 3 ports, the USB 3.0 ports, and USB 3.1 Gen2 ports. NGFF port testing was performed using an M.2 based Samsung 950 Pro PCIe M.2 2280 256GB SSD. The M.2 device was tested using the board's integrated M.2 slot. USB port testing performed using the SSD in a USB 3.1 Gen 2 compatible enclosure. ATTO was configured to test against transfer sizes from 0.5 to 8192 KB with Total Length set to 512 MB and Queue Depth set to 10. The M.2 SSD selected for testing has a maximum read throughput of 2200 MB/s and a write throughput of 900 MB/s over a PCI-Express x4 bus. The selected SSD has a maximum read throughput of 540 MB/s and a write throughput of 520 MB/s on a SATA III controller. The drive tests were repeated three times with the highest repeatable read and write speeds recorded.
No suprises with the drive performance numbers. The 850 EVO drive performance pushed its limits on the SATA and USB 3.1 ports, while falling a bit lower on the USB 3.0 ports at just under 470 MB/s. Drive performance was best for the 950 Pro M.2 device with drive performance equivalent on both of the board's integrated M.2 ports.
SoftPerfect Research NetWorx Speed Test
In conjunction with Windows Performance Monitor, SoftPerfect Research NetWorx Speed Meter application was used to measure the upload and download performance of the motherboards integrated network controllers. Speed Meter was used to measure average network throughput in MB/s with Windows Performance Monitor used to measure average CPU utilization during the tests.
The LanBench network benchmarking software was used to generate send and receive traffic between the local and remote systems over a five minute period with packet size set to 4096 and connection count set to 20. A LanBench server was set up on the remote system to generate or receive traffic for the tests performed. The upload and download tests were repeated three times with the highest repeatable average throughput, the lowest repeatable average CPU utilization, and lowest repeatable performance spike percentages recorded.
Note that that theoretical maximum throughput for a Gigabit Ethernet adapter is 125 MB/s (1.0 Gbps).
Peformance on the Intel I219-V controller averaged an impressive 117 MB/s for both upload and download. More impressive was the minimal CPU utilization during the tests. CPU utilization averaged 2% during upload and 6% during download, with no spikes much above 10% during either test.
Morry: good job!
What
Morry: good job!
What happens when 2 x M.2 SSDs are stacked
on top of each other? Overheating maybe?
It depends. If you have
It depends. If you have airflow over them, should be ok. But you'd probably want to put thermal tape or some other type of non-conductive medium between the two drives to keep any electrical contact from occuring between the two.
However, this board doesn't have stacked M.2 slots. It's slots are separated by a good bit of space. The only design I've heard with stacked slots was in the Intel NUC…
How conjucted will it be if
How conjucted will it be if one tries to install an Asus Gtx 1070 8g? Will it be possible? And the board is going to be. ASUS PRIME Z270-K and cooler is Scythe Mugen 5. Waiting for your reply, Thank you!
I have this board and the H20
I have this board and the H20 radiator also fits with a pair of Gentle Typhoon 120’s which keeps an I5 3.8 overclocked to 5.0 at 60 degrees while gaming. The thing about these boards is to run the load the 5ghz tuning profile, then back the core voltage down to 1.3 and you’re set, even with air cooling. Also pass on the LED RAM if at all possible for better clearance, and make sure your case has a lot of top clearance, since this board goes all the way out to the edge with things, even my Corsair mid tower can’t fit their own water cooling with this board in it.
my Azus Prime Z270 – A dont have DIP5 for some reason how do i get it then?
This is a good article. i got more information about motherboard review. i m sharing with you about gaming cpu under 10,000.