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 TUF Z270 Mark 1 ASUS Strix Z270E Gaming MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon GIGABYTE Z270X-Gaming 8 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 (2400MHz, 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, an 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 v2017.1.014
- Maxon Cinebench R15
- PCMark 8 v2.7.613
- ATTO v3.05
Every year it looks more and
Every year it looks more and more the MB manufacturers are actually trying to insulate the VRMs and power delivery components. What happened to old fashioned heat sink fins and heat-pipes? Now everything is covered in a layer of airflow blocking, insulating plastic. Is there some sort of ducted fan under that crazy shroud?
EDIT (read this in the article):
Underneath the TUF logo in the rear panel cover, an optional fan can be installed for active cooling of the heat sinks and components sitting under the TUF Armor. The fan is held in place with screws through the vertical tabs on the underside of the removable plate. The plate is held to the rear panel cover via two screws to each side of the panel. There is also a groove in the back right of the rear panel cover through which the fan’s power cord can be routed and plugged into one of the onboard fan headers.
So glad I didn’t go with the
So glad I didn’t go with the Noctua NH-D15 like my plan was because it is one of the only boards on the market that fit that ugly in my opinion color scheme. Went with the be quiet! dark rock pro 3 and had no problems mounting it the proper way because I already had be quiet! fans I was going to reuse from my older case.
Overall really happy with my purchase because I wanted a backplate on my motherboard because I noticed sagging on my Asus Hero VIII due to my case being horizontal instead of vertical. Ten fan headers mean I don’t need a fan controller (although I still use one) and the thermal armor stuff looks cool even if I don’t know if it is doing anything.
What is the point of using
What is the point of using two different ethernet controllers?
My old Asus p8p67 had 2
My old Asus p8p67 had 2 nics… when one went bad I used the other 😉
I think its for workstation or server stuff like having some traffic use one nic and the other is for LAN traffic.
One is integrated into the
One is integrated into the chipset. The other model number is essentially the same in add-on chip packaging. I haven’t looked it up, but there should be little functional difference.