Five Z97 Express Motherboards, $160 To $220, Reviewed

Results: Audio and Video Encoding

Gigabyte also places first in our Apple iTunes workload with the shortest completion time, even though this is a single-core task (and thus already encourages processors with Turbo Boost to run as fast as possible). A look at CPU-Z showed that while most of its competitors bounced frequently between 4.3 and 4.4 GHz, the Z97X-UD5H stayed up more often.

The Z97X-UD5H’s Turbo Boost "enhancement" comes into play more in a well-threaded test like HandBrake, which should allow the CPU to spin down to the frequency corresponding to four cores under load. Instead, Gigabyte imposes its own policy on the -4790K, taking it upon itself to overclock the chip, regardless of whether you want that to happen.