| Test System Configuration | |
|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7-4770K (Haswell): 3.5-3.9 GHz, 8 MB Shared L3 Cache, LGA 1150 |
| CPU Cooler | Thermalright MUX-120 w/Zalman ZM-STG1 Paste |
| RAM | G.Skill F3-17600CL9D-8GBXLD (8 GB) at DDR3-1600 C9 Defaults G.Skill F3-3000C12D-8GTXDG (8 GB) at XMP-3000 C12 Timings |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon HD 7970 3 GB: 925 MHz GPU, GDDR5-5500 |
| Hard Drive | Samsung 840 Series MZ-7PD256, 256 GB SSD |
| Sound | Integrated HD Audio |
| Network | Integrated Gigabit Networking |
| Power | Corsair AX860i: ATX12V v2.3, EPS12V, 80 PLUS Platinum |
| Software | |
| OS | Microsoft Windows 8 Professional RTM x64 |
| Graphics | AMD Catalyst 13.4 |
| Chipset | Intel INF 9.4.0.1017 |
Many critics said this would never happen, but I was able to keep this Core i7-4770K sample well-under 100° Celsius at 4.7 GHz using nothing more than an ancient Thermalright MUX-120. Perhaps the cool room helped, or perhaps Thermalright rigged this particular sample by filling its heat pipes with unobtanium?

After trying every memory sample in the lab, the only set I found that defaulted to DDR3-1600 CAS 9 was an old pair of G.Skill’s DDR3-2200. Since some boards automatically turn on “Enhanced Turbo” when XMP is enabled, I avoided that technology in benchmarks.

The old RAM couldn’t push beyond the overclocking capabilities of the Shark Bay platform, though. For that we secured a new set of DDR3-3000 that, unfortunately, defaults to DDR3-1333 prior to enabling XMP.

Corsair warns that some power supplies won’t wake up from C7 suspend mode, and tells us that’s why it's disabled on many motherboards. I didn’t have time to test every power supply in the lab, so I took the company's advice as an opportunity. The AX860i is, after all, an 80 PLUS Platinum-rated part.

Due to tight scheduling and the need to provide additional hardware and software details, we skipped the individually-tested games and reserved benchmarks to our batch-process applications suite. Apparently, Chris sees me and the batch process for getting these stories done. ;)
| Benchmark Settings | |
|---|---|
| Adobe Creative Suite | |
| Adobe After Effects CS6 | Version 11.0.0.378 x64: Create Video which includes 3 Streams, 210 Frames, Render Multiple Frames Simultaneosly |
| Adobe Photoshop CS6 | Version 13 x64: Filter 15.7 MB TIF Image: Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Median, Polar Coordinates |
| Adobe Premeire Pro CS6 | Version 6.0.0.0, 6.61 GB MXF Project to H.264 to H.264 Blu-ray, Output 1920x1080, Maximum Quality |
| Audio/Video Encoding | |
| iTunes | Version 10.4.1.10 x64: Audio CD (Terminator II SE), 53 minutes, default AAC format |
| Lame MP3 | Version 3.98.3: Audio CD "Terminator II SE", 53 min, convert WAV to MP3 audio format, Command: -b 160 --nores (160 Kb/s) |
| HandBrake CLI | Version: 0.98: Video from Canon Eos 7D (1920x1080, 25 FPS) 1 Minutes 22 Seconds Audio: PCM-S16, 48,000 Hz, Two-Channel, to Video: AVC1 Audio: AAC (High Profile) |
| TotalCode Studio 2.5 | Version: 2.5.0.10677: MPEG-2 to H.264, MainConcept H.264/AVC Codec, 28 sec HDTV 1920x1080 (MPEG-2), Audio: MPEG-2 (44.1 kHz, Two-Channel, 16-Bit, 224 Kb/s), Codec: H.264 Pro, Mode: PAL 50i (25 FPS), Profile: H.264 BD HDMV |
| Productivity | |
| ABBYY FineReader | Version 10.0.102.95: Read PDF save to Doc, Source: Political Economy (J. Broadhurst 1842) 111 Pages |
| Adobe Acrobat X | Version 10.0.0.396: Print PDF from 115 Page PowerPoint, 128-bit RC4 Encryption |
| Autodesk 3ds Max 2012 | Version 14.0 x64: Space Flyby Mentalray, 248 Frames, 1440x1080 |
| Blender | Version: 2.64a, Cycles Engine, Syntax blender -b thg.blend -f 1, 1920x1080, 8x Anti-Aliasing, Render THG.blend frame 1 |
| Visual Studio 2010 | Version 10.0, Compile Google Chrome, Scripted |
| File Compression | |
| WinZip | Version 17.0 Pro: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to ZIP, command line switches "-a -ez -p -r" |
| WinRAR | Version 4.2: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to RAR, command line switches "winrar a -r -m3" |
| 7-Zip | Version 9.28: THG-Workload (1.3 GB) to .7z, command line switches "a -t7z -r -m0=LZMA2 -mx=5" |
| Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings | |
| 3DMark 11 | Version: 1.0.1.0, Benchmark Only |
| PCMark 7 | Version: 1.0.4 x64, System, Productivity, Hard Disk Drive benchmarks |
| SiSoftware Sandra | Version Version 2013.01.19.11, CPU Test = CPU Arithmetic / Cryptography, Memory Test = Bandwidth Benchmark |
- Haswell: Is Now The Best Time To Build?
- ASRock Z87 Extreme6
- Z87 Extreme6 Firmware
- Z87 Extreme6 Tuning Software
- Z87 Extreme6 Applications
- Asus Z87-Pro
- Z87-Pro Firmware
- Z87-Pro Tuning Software
- Z87-Pro Applications
- ECS Z87H3-A2X Extreme
- Z87H3-A2X Extreme Firmware
- Z87H3-A2X Extreme Tuning Software
- Z87H3-A2X Extreme Applications
- Gigabyte Z87X-UD4H
- Z87X-UD4H Firmware
- Z87X-UD4H Tuning Software
- Z87X-UD4H Applications
- MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming
- Z87-GD65 Gaming Firmware
- Z87-GD65 Gaming Tuning Software
- Z87-GD65 Gaming Applications
- Test Settings And Benchmarks
- Results: 3DMark And PCMark
- Results: SiSoftware Sandra
- Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Results: Adobe Creative Suite
- Results: Productivity
- Results: File Compression
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Overclocking
- Picking Our First Z87-Based Winner
Could we see some MBs around the $130-$140 mark? They're the interesting ones IMO, and would toast most of these in terms of value.
Could we see some MBs around the $130-$140 mark? They're the interesting ones IMO, and would toast most of these in terms of value.
Yes, the CPU comes from Intel. Almost certainly it was cherry-picked. But this is why we didn't rely on these CPUs for our launch coverage--it makes a lot more sense to go to a source with hundreds of boxed processors on the bench to get a real sense for what Haswell will do in the wild. At least for this round-up, the variable changing is the motherboard. So, we derive as much meaning as possible with a review sample that hits 4.7 GHz on one board and 4.5 GHz on another.
OTOH, the launch coverage said that was at 1.2V, while this is 1.3V, so I guess a few hundred MHz extra is reasonable.
Lot more variation than on IB's review: http://media.bestofmicro.com/X/O/335580/original/image019.png
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-4770k-haswell-review,3521-9.html
If you have one of the affected drives and can't be bothered to reconnect it when it goes offline, wait a couple weeks and buy a board from the new batch.
The differences between boards in today's review are overclocking, power consumption, and onboard features. None of those things will change with the new PCH batch, and firmware updates should improve both batches equally.
Can you guys please test 6 SSD in Raid 0 on these mobos ? this is the only Advantage of upgrading to a Haswell over ivy/sandy bridge.
Can you guys please test 6 SSD in Raid 0 on these mobos ? this is the only Advantage of upgrading to a Haswell over ivy/sandy bridge.
Haswell does have another pair of USB3.0 ports... I agree though, it's kind of disappointing.
Edit: ASRock has a 3 year warranty as I see now. Still happy with my choice when looking around the interwebz and seeing how people seem to really like the MSI board.
now only 2 things left to do:
1. wait a few months to wait for the C2-revision to proliforate so that I don't have weird USB3.0 annoyance
2. wait for a review on the high-end: z87 delux, sniper, M-power max, ROG extreme etc. just to see whether it's worth the price difference (at least to me )
UPDATE:
well, was hoping for slightly more out of MSI's gaming board, but it seems it can't fully satisfy the overclocker in me. still a damn nice board though. all in all it looks like once again ASUS and ASrock come out as the top players for this range. looking forward to seeing if a ROG Extreme is what I ultimately need/want
Since Haswell uses the same DMI2.0 bus between the CPU and chipset, total IO performance is capped to ~2GB/s... the equivalent of 4x USB3 ports or 3x SATA3 or one x4 PCIe 2.0 device.
From what I read, the z77 and z87 chipsets are interchangeable - a motherboard manufacturer could pair z77 with Haswell or z87 with SB/IB if they wanted to. The main thing that prevented Intel from reusing LGA1155 is FIVR.
This is simply not true. Desktop Richland has not yet launched. Desktop Richland drops into FM2, just like Trinity. So, when it does launch, we can revisit the FM2 market to see if there's a reason for another round-up. In the meantime here's a round-up of motherboards that'll support Richland: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/socket-fm2-motherboard-review,3337.html. Hope you enjoy!
Chris
Can you guys please test 6 SSD in Raid 0 on these mobos ? this is the only Advantage of upgrading to a Haswell over ivy/sandy bridge.
But most users (even in the enthusiast market) don't do that anyway. There are very few "storage enthusiasts" in the general "performance enthusiast" market. And for most of us, having more than two SATA 6Gb/s ports simply means our storage drives won't use up the SATA 6Gb/s port needed for our system drive.
I'd still like to see our storage guy add this controller to his next big article
It seems to me Asus teased something about a driver that would visually identify the location of sound sources on screen with [one of] their Z87 boards. Can you shed any light on this?
This is simply not true. Desktop Richland has not yet launched. Desktop Richland drops into FM2, just like Trinity. So, when it does launch, we can revisit the FM2 market to see if there's a reason for another round-up. In the meantime here's a round-up of motherboards that'll support Richland: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/socket-fm2-motherboard-review,3337.html. Hope you enjoy!
Chris
I don't know who dropped the ball but the launch of Richland was today. It is available for sale on multiple retail sites including Newegg, Aria, and Microcenter.
I didn't answer this earlier because I'm not a CPU editor. But since you're going on about bias, listen up: This was a motherboard review. Your comment has nothing to do with the topic, unless you can show me a new chipset upon which I can justify a roundup. Otherwise, the motherboard roundup you're requesting was published 8 months ago...http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/socket-fm2-motherboard-review,3337.html
Now, if we can find a group of guys with a high interest in an FM2 update, that would create a market for the new motherboard article. Does anyone else want to chime in with their opinions on an FM2 update?