GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H Review: Choose Your Storage Option
by Ian Cutress on May 14, 2014 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Gigabyte
- Z97
Real World CPU Benchmarks
Readers of our motherboard review section will have noted the trend in modern motherboards to implement a form of MultiCore Enhancement / Acceleration / Turbo (read our report here) on their motherboards. This does several things – better benchmark results at stock settings (not entirely needed if overclocking is an end-user goal), at the expense of heat and temperature, but also gives in essence an automatic overclock which may be against what the user wants. Our testing methodology is ‘out-of-the-box’, with the latest public BIOS installed and XMP enabled, and thus subject to the whims of this feature. It is ultimately up to the motherboard manufacturer to take this risk – and manufacturers taking risks in the setup is something they do on every product (think C-state settings, USB priority, DPC Latency / monitoring priority, memory subtimings at JEDEC). Processor speed change is part of that risk which is clearly visible, and ultimately if no overclocking is planned, some motherboards will affect how fast that shiny new processor goes and can be an important factor in the purchase.
Rendering – Adobe After Effects CS6: link
Published by Adobe, After Effects is a digital motion graphics, visual effects and compositing software package used in the post-production process of filmmaking and television production. For our benchmark we downloaded a common scene in use on the AE forums for benchmarks and placed it under our own circumstances for a repeatable benchmark. We generate 152 frames of the scene and present the time to do so based purely on CPU calculations.
Compression – WinRAR 5.0.1: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30 second 720p videos.
Image Manipulation – FastStone Image Viewer 4.9: link
Similarly to WinRAR, the FastStone test us updated for 2014 to the latest version. FastStone is the program I use to perform quick or bulk actions on images, such as resizing, adjusting for color and cropping. In our test we take a series of 170 images in various sizes and formats and convert them all into 640x480 .gif files, maintaining the aspect ratio. FastStone does not use multithreading for this test, and thus single threaded performance is often the winner.
Video Conversion – Xilisoft Video Converter 7: link
The XVC test I normally do is updated to the full version of the software, and this time a different test as well. Here we take two different videos: a double UHD (3840x4320) clip of 10 minutes and a 640x266 DVD rip of a 2h20 film and convert both to iPod suitable formats. The reasoning here is simple – when frames are small enough to fit into memory, the algorithm has more chance to apply work between threads and process the video quicker. Results shown are in seconds and time taken to encode.
Video Conversion – Handbrake v0.9.9: link
Handbrake is a media conversion tool that was initially designed to help DVD ISOs and Video CDs into more common video formats. The principle today is still the same, primarily as an output for H.264 + AAC/MP3 audio within an MKV container. In our test we use the same videos as in the Xilisoft test, and results are given in frames per second.
Rendering – PovRay 3.7: link
The Persistence of Vision RayTracer, or PovRay, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 2-3 minutes on high end platforms.
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Ian Cutress - Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - link
At this point, it is more up to the motherboard manufacturer and what they implement.The chipset diagrams will show you how the slots are arranged, and which can be used at the expense of others. We will try and add these as we go forward.
As for protocols, it is all AHCI right now.
Jon-Tech - Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - link
I wanted to ask about USB controllers. Are all the USB 2.0 ports using one controller? Are the USB 3.0 ports on the same controller? Also from the sounds of it, the extra USB 3.0 ports are just using a hub rather than an extra controller? Due to my setup I often run into USB bandwidth issues with lots of ports on one controller. So I'm looking at motherboards that have as many as possible for more flexibility and none of the review sites ever seem to mention how many there are!Regarding the z97 chipset, it appears that the xHCI Host Controller supports up to 6 USB 3.0 and 14 USB 2.0, this sounds like one controller. It also has two EHCI Host Controllers which support up to 14 external USB 2.0, though it doesn't look like any of the motherboards are using these. From the sounds of it this motherboard runs all the ports off the single controller? That strikes me as being daft and therefore unlikely, could you shed any light onto what the actual USB controller set up is please? I'm also unclear on how USB affects the PCIe lanes...
repoman27 - Thursday, May 15, 2014 - link
The Z97 chipset contains one xHCI which supports 14 USB ports, up to 6 of which can be USB 3.0. It also contains 2 legacy EHCI host controllers which can be used in lieu of the xHCI for USB 2.0 ports, but there are still only external connections for 14 USB ports total.With this board, it appears that Gigabyte has connected a motherboard header and the two back panel USB 3.0 ports above the HDMI port directly to the PCH xHCI, and then used a Renesas USB 3.0 hub chip to expand an additional PCH xHCI connection to support the other four back panel ports.
The PCH is connected to the CPU via a DMI 2.0 x4 link, which is equivalent to PCIe 2.0 x4, and thus provides a maximum of 16 Gbit/s less protocol overhead of total bandwidth for all PCH attached devices. Obviously the nominal bandwidth of just 6 USB 3.0 ports is greater than that. What isn't so obvious is how the various controllers within the PCH are connected to the PCIe bus internally. From the benchmarks I've seen of previous chipsets, it would appear that the xHCI only has the equivalent of an x2 connection. This still makes it one of the fastest USB 3.0 controllers out there since the only discrete controller I know of with an x2 back end is the Etron EJ198. Seeing as most motherboard manufacturers use discrete controllers with x1 back ends and connect them to PCIe lanes coming from the PCH, the performance generally sucks. If you need more than 785 MB/s of USB 3.0 bandwidth, you'd be better off buying a card like the HighPoint RocketU 1144C and sticking it in a slot that uses some of the PEG lanes coming from the CPU.
Jon-Tech - Thursday, May 15, 2014 - link
Thanks repoman, you've been the most insightful into this from all the various places I've asked! That HighPoint card looks spot on though it's rather pricey, especially considering my old mobo has 3 controllers on it for the 2x USB 3.0 and 12x USB 2.0. Though I only know the amount of controllers cause I have it and can check.Seems the only way I'm going to actually find out controllers per motherboards is to ask owners on forums to check for me. It's a really quick test that reviewers could do and its just as annoying it's never listed in the official mobo specs! Alternatively I could buy and try them out for myself though that doesn't seem practical.
Adriak - Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - link
Why are there still (conventional) PCI slots on motherboards? Didn't they become obsolete when PCIe arrived in 2004? I understand these slots are likely added for legacy reasons, but are people still using PCI cards? What type of cards are they? Was the ISA bus supported for this long after it was effectively rendered obsolete? I am genuinely curious.Nathan539 - Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - link
This would save me some money for my new comp that im buildingpeterfares - Wednesday, May 14, 2014 - link
Are people still using PCI devices on consumer boards? What could you possibly need to add that goes into PCI for home use?fluxtatic - Thursday, May 15, 2014 - link
Sound cards. If you're not using the Asus Xonar or a Turtle Beach card, odds are good your discrete card is PCI.Luay79 - Thursday, May 15, 2014 - link
Do you lose the 16 lanes for the single video card if you use M2/SAta Express SSDs?DanNeely - Thursday, May 15, 2014 - link
No. See the block diagram at the bottom of the first page. The 16 CPU lanes go to the 16x physical slots. The M2/SataExpress connectors use lanes from the southbridge.