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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Rob94hawk - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
The MSI Gaming board would not do 2560x1440 off the DVI-D port.Aikouka - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
One thing to note is that ASRock does have a version of the Extreme6 that does NOT have 802.11ac built in. I think it's about $20 cheaper.I thought about going with the Extreme6 when I built a Haswell machine, but I figured that some of those features would go unused. Unused chips that aren't disabled still need to be initialized during POST, so I get an increased POST time and spend more money. :P I went with the Extreme4, and honestly... I wish that I hadn't. The UEFI BIOS on my system is so flaky that it randomly hard locks a few seconds after the GUI appears. I don't know if it's a bad board, a bad batch, or an issue with that model, because I'm not the only one with that issue. I've seen other reports on the Anandtech forums and a quick Google search turns up results on other forums and in the Newegg reviews. I'm assuming that the Extreme6 did not have this problem?
DanNeely - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Check your BIOS; you should be able to disable unused controllers to boost post time. This shortened my i7-920/930 post times from ~30s to ~20s.Aikouka - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Oh, I know. I just figured that it wasn't worth spending more on a board just to disable the unused controllers. Although, then I ran into the Extreme4's BIOS problem, and I wish I would have spent a little more! =PJames5mith - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Since when is $200 a "reasonable price bracket"? In my mind $50-$100 = budget. $100-$160 = mainstream. $160+ is enthusiast pricing. It is not reasonable at all.WeaselITB - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
$200 is a reasonable price bracket for the enthusiast chipset family that they're reviewing. If you're looking for lower price, check out the lower families, such as H87 for the mainstream segment.MrSpadge - Friday, June 28, 2013 - link
A solid Zx7 board without any BS used to be around 100€ (-> 100$ without VAT for you). Now that parts of the voltage supply have transitioned into the CPU the boards should not become any more expensive.I may be enthusiastic about tweaking my PC for efficiency and value, but I'm certainly not enthusiastic about paying big bucks for my toys.
crimson117 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Ian, this line/paragraph sounds a bit too much like it was lifted from marketing materials: "Whenever a user considers purchasing an ASUS motherboard they know that it is built to perform and has a great feature set"IanCutress - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Haha I can assure you those are my words, although it does sound generic given that I was meant to be referring to the board in the review. Perhaps a bit subjective for a review, but I had a good experience with the board and that filtered through. Changed it a little...-Ian
snakyjake - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
I've had an ASUS mother board for years, and the EZ-Update never downloaded updates from the Internet. It never was able to connect with any of the update servers. I always had to go to the Asus website and download the updates, and then update the BIOS from disk.I do wish the ASUS software was all integrated, and not separate programs on my system tray.