Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H Review – Z77 and MicroATX

3D Movement Algorithm Test

The algorithms in 3DPM employ either uniform random number generation or normal distribution random number generation, and vary in various amounts of trigonometric operations, conditional statements, generation and rejection, fused operations, etc.  The benchmark runs through six algorithms for a specified number of particles and steps, and calculates the speed of each algorithm, then sums them all for a final score.  This is an example of a real world situation that a computational scientist may find themselves in, rather than a pure synthetic benchmark.  The benchmark is also parallel between particles simulated, and we test the single thread performance as well as the multi-threaded performance.

Due to Gigabyte's policy of providing their boards with an automatic overclock (single thread performance in multithread mode) using the Turbo modes of Intel processors, we see the Z77MX-D3H is in the top grouping in multithreaded speed at stock.

WinRAR x64 3.93 - link

With 64-bit WinRAR, we compress the set of files used in the USB speed tests. WinRAR x64 3.93 attempts to use multithreading when possible, and is a good indicator of how well the motherboard switches between turbo modes on processors.

The Z77MX-D3H surprises me in taking the lead in our WinRar test, edging out the performance of the P8Z77-V Deluxe.

FastStone Image Viewer 4.2 - link

FastStone Image Viewer is a free piece of software I have been using for quite a few years now.  It allows quick viewing of flat images, as well as resizing, changing color depth, adding simple text or simple filters.  It also has a bulk image conversion tool, which we use here.  The software currently operates only in single-thread mode, which should change in later versions of the software.  For this test, we convert a series of 170 files, of various resolutions, dimensions and types (of a total size of 163MB), all to the .gif format of 640x480 dimensions.

In our single threaded FastStone test, the Z77MX-D3H performs on par with other Z77 motherboards.

Xilisoft Video Converter

With XVC, users can convert any type of normal video to any compatible format for smartphones, tablets and other devices.  By default, it uses all available threads on the system, and in the presence of appropriate graphics cards, can utilize CUDA for NVIDIA GPUs as well as AMD APP for AMD GPUs.  For this test, we use a set of 32 HD videos, each lasting 30 seconds, and convert them from 1080p to an iPod H.264 video format using just the CPU.  The time taken to convert these videos gives us our result.

Due to the highly optimized multithreaded nature of Xilisoft, the Z77MX-D3H continues lighting up the multithreaded benchmarks, achieving a joint top score.

x264 HD Benchmark

The x264 HD Benchmark uses a common HD encoding tool to process an HD MPEG2 source at 1280x720 at 3963 Kbps.  This test represents a standardized result which can be compared across other reviews, and is dependant on both CPU power and memory speed.  The benchmark performs a 2-pass encode, and the results shown are the average of each pass performed four times.

Again, in a fully multithreaded test the Z77MX-D3H stretches its legs/pins and performs very well in our x264 HD benchmark, reaching the upper echelons seemingly with ease.