We conducted our general benchmarks with a brand new Core i7-4790. But overclocking tests require switching back to our faithful Core i7-4770K. Using that processor, 4.60 GHz is the ragged edge of stability at 1.25 V, and any greater voltage causes it to throttle under full load. It’s not clocked higher when it’s throttled.

Most of the motherboards in today’s round-up successfully reach the full measure of our processor’s overclocking capability. Gigabyte comes up a little short, but that could seriously be the difference of a few millivolts that might not impact other builders with different overclocking needs.

Conversely, the Z79X Gaming 5 reached the highest base clock frequency when using the 100 MHz strap. That’s the only ratio available on multiplier-locked processors, so this might be important to anyone running the new Core i7-4790.

ECS wasn’t the company that ran into memory trouble after receiving an award from us, yet its L337 Gaming is the trailing brand in our memory overclocking test. The Z97-A was happy with our DDR3-2800 XMP settings, but wouldn’t let us overclock. And the Z97 Gaming 5 roughly matches the Z97 Extreme4 depending on the number of modules installed.
- Gaming Raises The Mainstream
- ASRock Z97 Extreme4
- Z97 Extreme4 Software
- Z97 Extreme4 Firmware
- Asus Z97-A
- Z97-A Software
- Z97-A Firmware
- Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5
- Z97X-Gaming 5 Software
- Z97X-Gaming 5 Firmware
- L337 Gaming Z97-Machine
- Z97-Machine Software
- Z97-Machine Firmware
- MSI Z97 Gaming 5
- Z97 Gaming 5 Software
- Z97 Gaming 5 Firmware
- Test Hardware And Benchmark Configurations
- Results: 3DMark And PCMark
- Results: SiSoftware Sandra
- Results: 3D Games
- Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Results: Adobe Creative Suite
- Results: Productivity
- Results: File Compression
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Overclocking
- Picking A Value Leader
What I found lacking is the reviewing of those features like software (audio, fan control etc.), VRM quality, "other stuff".
Now what is this "other stuff" really? Which motherboard has the best "other stuff"? I didn't get it from the review.
Apart from the very simple introduction to the software and hardware, I can't really make what's better between Gigabyte and MSI, the one's I'm interested in. MSI has better UEFI, I understood but how is the software? How many VRM phases and their quality? Is MSI's audio suite better than GB's?
These are what make the products apart in the same price range but finding the value leader with good explanations for why was not possible from this article despite it's title.