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Firmware
Like other board makers, EVGA's BIOS hasn’t changed much compared to the last one we looked at (Z690 generation). Once the system POSTs, you’re presented with four options (Setup, Default, Gamer Mode, and EVGA OC Robot) to access different functionality. After entering the Setup portion of the BIOS, where you can tweak settings, you see informative system information on top. There are headings for different sections below, with the rest of the screen taken up by options for each.
For the most part, there isn’t much digging around in the sub-menus to find the most frequently accessed items, but CPU and memory overclocking are in different sections. Gamer Mode slightly boosts the CPU, while the EVGA OC Robot finds a faster clock speed by raising clocks and playing with voltage during stress testing. Overall, thighs here are easy to read and navigate, with more options than most will ever use.
Software
On the software side, EVGA’s Eleet X1 is a multi-functional monitoring and tweaking tool. For example, Eleet can overclock the CPU and Memory and monitor the system voltages, temperatures and fan speeds. Additionally, it offers RGB lighting control and several preset lighting modes, plus the ability to adjust each strip attached to the motherboard headers. The latest version of Eleet X1 (1.0.13.0) is easy to read and helpful. The only thing I feel is missing from the software is fan control.
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. We also updated to F1 22 for our games 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:
| 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.
Benchmark Settings
| 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 |
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