Intel’s newest UEFI opening screen reads “Welcome to the Future of BIOS.” That ambitious-sounding statement accompanies menus that primarily focus on pre-programmed overclocking techniques.

Fortunately, a small tab on the top of the above menu switches us to Classic Mode, where we can cover all of the important manual overclock settings within a few pages.

Though it's now more colorful and sports spiffier icons compared to Intel’s previous UEFI, the Performance tab of Classic mode still provides only a few overclock settings, of which Host Clock Frequency is primary.

Even after disabling low power states and setting Processor Idle State to “High”, our CPU would idle down when not loaded. Full load voltage was our biggest problem, though, as the shift from partial to full load caused a voltage spike of around 50 mV, even with Processor VR Droop Control set to “High V-droop”. Things got even worse at lower Vdroop modes, forcing us to use the 1.205 V setting to reach our 1.25V full-load goal.
Our maximum stable CPU clock dropped to 4.64 GHz. Less than 2% behind today’s leader, the compromise appears barely worth mentioning in spite of the time we wasted trying to overcome it.

Intel doesn’t offer automatic settings for individual timings, but gives us the same benefits in a different way. Switching from Auto to Manual modes causes the board to retain SPD values, while switching from an XMP profile to Manual modes causes the board to retain those XMP timings. This allowed us to adjust the memory’s data rate without taking time to manually configure XMP values, though the maximum multiplier supported by this board (DDR3-2400) is actually lower than our memory’s DDR3-2666 rating.

Up to five custom UEFI configurations can be saved as user profiles on the DZ77SL-50K.
- Seven Affordable Z77 Express-Based Motherboards Get Dissected
- ASRock Z77 Extreme4
- Z77 Extreme4 Applications
- Overclocking With ASRock Extreme Tuning Utility
- Z77 Extreme4 UEFI
- Asus P8Z77-V LX
- P8Z77-V LX Applications
- Overclocking With Asus TurboV
- P8Z77-V LX UEFI
- Biostar TZ77XE3
- TZ77XE3 Applications
- Overclocking With Biostar Toverclocker
- TZ77XE3 UEFI
- ECS Z77H2-A2X Deluxe
- Z77H2-A2X Deluxe Applications
- Overclocking With ECS eOC
- Z77H2-A2X Deluxe UEFI
- Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H
- Z77X-D3H Applications
- Overclocking With Easy Tune6
- Z77X-D3H UEFI
- Intel DZ77SL-50K
- DZ77SL-50K Applications
- Overclocking With Intel Extreme Tuning Utility
- DZ77SL-50K UEFI
- MSI Z77A-G45
- Z77A-G45 Applications
- Overclocking With MSI Control Center
- Z77A-G45 UEFI
- Benchmark Settings And Peripheral Compatibility Testing
- Benchmark Results: 3DMark 11
- Benchmark Results: PCMark And Sandra
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Overclocking
- Three Sub-$160 Motherboards Rise To The Top
The things that actually get screwed-up are typically related to the clock generator, multiplier control, memory timings and power options.
Nice review.
You're kidding - Biostar. I guess this article is not about the 'Best Sub-$160 Z77' MOBO's but about the best manufacturers sent you. The cheapest MOBO I recommend for the SB/IB (K) is the ASUS P8Z77-V which pops your 'unique' budget cap depending where you shop; found it here for $159.99 - http://www.gadgetneeds.net/asus-p8z77-v-atx-intel-motherboard/
Interesting you didn't get an ASUS P8Z77-V LK ~$120 which offers SLI. The ASRock Z77 Extreme4 and Gigabyte Z77X-D3H for the price aren't bad.
There's NO WAY I'm recommending Biostar in the forum, folks and myself would thing I've lost my mind.
Would really like to see how the UD3X Atheros Ethernet controller fares against the Intel and broadcom ones.
Thank you!
This is what differentiates them performance wise.
Also, I love the True Studio Pro software, if you are running digital audio it really makes any idea of a dedicated sound card a thing of the past. Every computer I build now either has True Studio Pro with the mobo, or I purchase the MB2 software suite, it makes such a difference if using headphones or quality speakers, and much less buggy that Creative's sound cards and driver issues that we all know and love.