Gigabyte Z77X-UP4 TH Review: Thunderbolt Times Two
by Ian Cutress on September 17, 2012 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gigabyte
- Z77
- thunder
Many thanks to...
We must thank the following companies for kindly donating hardware for our test bed:
OCZ for donating the Power Supply and USB testing SSD
Micron for donating our SATA testing SSD
G.Skill for donating our memory kits
ASUS for donating AMD GPUs and some IO Testing kit
ECS for donating NVIDIA GPUs
Test Setup
| Processor |
Intel Core i7-3770K ES 4 Cores, 8 Threads, 3.5 GHz (3.9 GHz Turbo) |
| Motherboards |
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ASRock Z77 Extreme6 ASRock Z77 Extreme9 ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional ASUS P8Z77-V Pro ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe ASUS P8Z77-V Premium Biostar TZ77XE4 ECS Z77H2-AX EVGA Z77 FTW Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3 Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP4 TH MSI Z77A-GD65 |
| Cooling | Intel All-in-One Liquid Cooler |
| Power Supply | OCZ 1250W Gold ZX Series |
| Memory |
GSkill RipjawsZ 4x4 GB DDR3-2400 9-11-11 Kit GSkill TridentX 2x4 GB DDR3-2666 11-13-13 Kit |
| Memory Settings | XMP (2400 9-11-11) |
| Video Cards |
ASUS HD7970 3GB ECS GTX 580 1536MB |
| Video Drivers |
Catalyst 12.3 NVIDIA Drivers 296.10 WHQL |
| Hard Drive | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| Optical Drive | LG GH22NS50 |
| Case | Open Test Bed - CoolerMaster Lab V1.0 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit |
| SATA Testing | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| USB 2/3 Testing | OCZ Vertex 3 240GB with SATA->USB Adaptor |
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.
Similar to the X79S-UP5, the IR3550 ICs used in these UP boards do really well when it comes to power consumption. The Z77X-UP4 TH takes the top spot in idle power consumption on our test bed.
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ElFenix - Monday, September 17, 2012 - link
"Despite all this, Gigabyte’s foray into the Thunderbolt world is spurned in part by the board we are reviewing today...."You probably meant 'spurred,' though that doesn't really fit either.
Also, the very first sentence should be more like "Because the exclusive license has expired...."
IanCutress - Monday, September 17, 2012 - link
Thanks for pointing the first one out - it should have been 'initiated in part'. As to the phrasing of the first sentence, I find it common enough where I am. Not sure if it's a UK thing or not, though US vs. UK idioms have been commented on in past reviews. As always, if anything catches your eye please feel free to email :)Ian
freedom4556 - Monday, September 17, 2012 - link
Speaking of UK vs US, I had to Google your Stella Artois reference, and I actually drink the stuff occasionally. Must have been a UK specific ad campaign.lurker22 - Monday, September 17, 2012 - link
I understand that Thunderbolt is a lot faster and a different usage than USB 3. Frankly, it's not so much better than USB 3 that consumers will pay for Thunderbolt. USB 3 is already leading, and Thunderbolt will be left behind like Firewire despite the tech being superior...dagamer34 - Monday, September 17, 2012 - link
It's rather meh on desktops since it's pretty easy to add new hardware internally, but it makes far more sense on laptops when you have limited number of ports. Having an external PCI-Express bus is interested, especially if external GPUs ever actually arrive at an affordable price point.Kjella - Monday, September 17, 2012 - link
If you're going to plug in one device, yes. I think the strength of Thunderbolt is as a laptop dock - plug in one cable and you got wired network, sound, keyboard, mouse, printers external screens, any USB 1/2/3.0 device, firewire, esata, external graphics card dock, regular 3.5" HDDs and whatnot. That can have a future in many companies I think who've now chosen laptops for higher flexibility - now you can have that and dock into a full system with one cable.sean.crees - Monday, September 17, 2012 - link
It will mean a lot if they ever put thunderbolt on a mini itx board. I know a lot of SFF enthusiasts who would love to try external graphics with a sub 10 liter enclosure. But on a full size ATX board it doesn't really mean a whole lot.Skidmarks - Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - link
That's possibly true but only time will tell.GeorgeH - Monday, September 17, 2012 - link
It really would've been nice to see some Thunderbolt testing. I realize Anand is hogging all of the shiny TB gear, but the review didn't really test the primary draw of this MB and as such is kind of useless.zanon - Monday, September 17, 2012 - link
Agreed. As the summary correctly states, the raison d'etre of this board are the TB ports. Even if it's just the overpriced Promise a review should give them some stress and see how they perform. Maybe it'll get easier if QNAP ever releases their JBOD.