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Firmware, Software and Test System

Firmware

Biostar’s firmware on the Z790 boards, like the others, doesn’t receive a significant facelift outside of some options exclusive to Intelt’s latest CPU platform. There’s an EZ Mode and your more standard advanced mode with the different sections spanning the top. While it has many of the basics, the overclocking options are limited with regard to memory. If you’re into tweaking every little thing to extract every ounce of performance from your sticks, this isn’t the board that will do it. If you’re more of a set-EXPO/XMP-and-forget-it memory person, this isn’t a concern (assuming your memory is on the QVL list). Overall, we like the BIOS, but in terms of appearance and features, it just isn’t up to the level of its competition.

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Biostar Z790 Valkyrie — (Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Software

For software, Biostar has the Aurora suite that combines various functionality in one application. You’ll find audio functionality (volume control - Smart Ear), RGB (Vivid LED DJ), fan control (AI Fan), a hardware monitor, and overclocking functions in the OC/OV section. Everything worked as described. But, overclocking is limited to BCLK adjustment and voltage (no CPU multiplier adjustments). Overall, we like the Aorura application and hope for additional features/functionality to be added in new revisions.

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Test System / Comparison Products

We’ve updated our test system to Windows 11 64-bit OS with all updates applied. We kept the same Asus TUF RTX 3070 video card from our previous testing platforms but updated the driver. Additionally, we updated to F1 22 in our games suite and kept Far Cry 6. We use the latest non-beta motherboard BIOS available to the public unless otherwise noted. The hardware we used is as follows:

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Test System Components
CPU	Intel Core i9-13900K
Memory	Kingston Fury Beast DDR5-6000 CL36 (KF560C36BBEAK2-32)
	GSkill Trident Z DDR5-5600 CL36 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK)
GPU	Asus TUF RTX 3070
Cooling	Coolermaster MasterLiquid PL360 Flux
PSU	EVGA Supernova 850W P6
Software	Windows 11 64-bit (22H2)
Graphics Driver	Nvidia GeForce Driver 522.25
Sound	Integrated HD audio
Network	Integrated Networking (GbE or 2.5 GbE)

EVGA supplied our Supernova 850W P6 power supply (appropriately sized and more efficient than the 1.2KW monster we used previously) for our test systems, and G.Skill sent us a DDR5-5600 (F5-5600U3636C16GX2-TZ5RK) memory kit for testing.

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Motherboard Testbed Components — (Image credit: EVGA)

Benchmark Settings

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Synthetic Benchmarks and Settings
Procyon	Version 2.1.459 64
	Office Suite (Office 365), Video Editing (Premiere Pro 22.6.2.2), Photo Editing (Photoshop 23.5.1, Lightroom Classic 11.5)
3DMark	Version 2.22.7359 64
	Firestrike Extreme and Time Spy Default Presets
Cinebench R23	Version RBBENCHMARK330542
	Open GL Benchmark - Single and Multi-threaded
Blender	Version 3.3.0
	Full benchmark (all 3 tests)
Application Tests and Settings
LAME MP3	Version SSE2_2019
	Mixed 271MB WAV to mp3: Command: -b 160 --nores (160Kb/s)
HandBrake CLI	Version: 1.2.2
	Sintel Open Movie Project: 4.19GB 4K mkv to x264 (light AVX) and x265 (heavy AVX)
Corona 1.4	Version 1.4
	Custom benchmark
7-Zip	Version 21.03-beta
	Integrated benchmark (Command Line)
Game Tests and Settings
Far Cry 6	Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080, HD Textures ON
F1 2022	Ultra Preset - 1920 x 1080, Ultra High (default) Bahrain (Clear/Dry), FPS Counter ON