Intel Z87 Motherboard Review with Haswell: Gigabyte, MSI, ASRock and ASUS
by Ian Cutress on June 27, 2013 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- MSI
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- Asus
- Haswell
- Z87
- Shark Bay
- Lynx Point
Many thanks to...
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our test bed:
Thank you to OCZ for providing us with 1250W Gold Power Supplies.
Thank you to G.Skill for providing us with memory kits.
Thank you to Corsair for providing us with an AX1200i PSU, Corsair H80i CLC and 16GB 2400C10 memory.
Thank you to ASUS for providing us with the AMD GPUs and some IO Testing kit.
Thank you to ECS for providing us with the NVIDIA GPUs.
Thank you to Rosewill for providing us with the 500W Platinum Power Supply for mITX testing, BlackHawk Ultra, and 1600W Hercules PSU for extreme dual CPU + quad GPU testing, and RK-9100 keyboards.
Thank you to ASRock for providing us with the 802.11ac wireless router for testing.
Test Setup
| Test Setup | |
| Processor |
Intel Core i7-4770K Retail 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 3.5 GHz (3.9 GHz Turbo) |
| Motherboards |
ASRock Z87 Extreme6/AC ASUS Z87-Pro Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming |
| Cooling |
Corsair H80i Thermaltake TRUE Copper |
| Power Supply |
OCZ 1250W Gold ZX Series Corsair AX1200i Platinum PSU |
| Memory |
GSkill TridentX 4x4 GB DDR3-2400 10-12-12 Kit Corsair Vengeance Pro 2x8 GB DDR3 2400 10-12-12 Kit |
| Memory Settings | XMP (2400 10-12-12) |
| Video Cards |
ASUS HD7970 3GB ECS GTX 580 1536MB |
| Video Drivers |
Catalyst 13.1 NVIDIA Drivers 310.90 WHQL |
| Hard Drive | OCZ Vertex 3 256GB |
| Optical Drive | LG GH22NS50 |
| Case | Open Test Bed |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit |
| USB 2/3 Testing | OCZ Vertex 3 240GB with SATA->USB Adaptor |
| WiFi Testing | D-Link DIR-865L 802.11ac Dual Band Router |
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system as a whole with a wall meter connected to the OCZ 1250W power supply, while in a dual 7970 GPU configuration. This power supply is Gold rated, and as I am in the UK on a 230-240 V supply, leads to ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, which is suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.
While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our test bed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.
In terms of power consumption in our roundup, the Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H takes the crown in all factors, with Idle and Long Idle being 10-20W lower than the ASRock. All boards get under 500W during Metro.
Windows 7 POST Time
Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we are now going to look at the POST Boot Time - this is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows 7 starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.) These results are subject to human error, so please allow +/- 1 second in these results.
The ASUS Z87-Pro sneaks in at under 10 seconds which is a great achievement, with the ASRock under 12 seconds. The Gigabyte almost hits that 12 second ideal line, whereas the MSI BIOS has to be stripped of all controllers to get near the Gigabyte. Overall boot times seem to be better than Ivy Bridge, however.
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Timur Born - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
Balanced inputs would only help when the outputs to be tested offered balanced outputs, but you won't find these on mainboard solutions. Still a professional solution might be preferable, because don't just concentrate on listing theoretical spec numbers of the converter chips, but also make sure to get the most out of it in practical implementation.The English ASUS site lists little (and partly wrong) information about the Xonar Essence STX for example, there is much better information on the German site, though. Still they list frequency response at -3 (three!) dB points, while usually you would choose -0.5 dB or -1 dB points to give a real picture.
repoman27 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
While the Intel block diagram for the DZ87KLT-75K does appear to show 20 lanes of PCIe 3.0 coming from the CPU, the 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes from the PCH are used for the GbE controllers (2 x1), Thunderbolt controller (1 x4), the PCIe mini card / mSATA slot (1 x1), and a "PCIe Hub" (1 x1). We can presume this is really a conventional PCIe switch, and the Marvell 88SE9172, the 3 x1 slots, and the PCIe to PCI bridge are all connected to that.What's the deal with FDI now that there are display connections coming directly from the CPU? The block diagrams still show FDI and the Thunderbolt controller being fed DisplayPort from the PCH. Are the CPU display outputs DP 1.2 and the PCH connections still DP 1.1a?
repoman27 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Sorry, I should have kept reading before commenting about the display interfaces.repoman27 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
The article does however say, "leaving the VGA behind", which should read, "leaving LVDS and SDVO (like anybody cares) behind." The PCH does still support VGA via the FDI x2 link as long as those lanes aren't being co-opted by Port D for eDP.Also, I meant to point out in my original comment that the additional USB 3.0 ports on the Intel board appear to be provided by a pair of USB 3.0 hubs, not a discrete controller.
Jaaap - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Great Review Ian.I'd also be very interested in the minimal power consumption of Z87 motherboards without videocards and a PSU efficient at low powers (a PicoPSU or a light Seasonic).
IanCutress - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
I think Anand hit 34W idle on his 4770K with IGP?http://www.anandtech.com/show/7003/the-haswell-rev...
I have 500W Platinums for mini-ITX reviews, but I that might be too much for IGP idle at sub-10%.
DanNeely - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
500W probably is too much for anything other than relative comparison scores. IIRC most of the 80+ standards only require specific efficiency levels between 20 and 80% loads.ex The 400W Seasonic X-400 2 is 89.5% efficient at an 86W load; but only 82.6% at 37W.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReview...
igxqrrl - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Am I the only one confused by the video out options?I'm looking for integrated graphics that can drive 2x30" (2560x1600) or 2x27" (2560x1440) displays. Can any of these motherboards do that?
repoman27 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
The Gigabyte, Asrock and Asus boards theoretically can, however in each case you'll need to drive one of the displays via the HDMI output. AFAIK there aren't a ton of displays that support 2560x1440 or 2560x1600 over HDMI.Earballs - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
The max resolutions are listed with typical refresh rates, but not max refresh rates. Just thought I'd throw that out there while talking about confusing video out options.