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Z87 Hits The High End: Four Sub-£250 Motherboards

Z87 Hits The High End: Four Sub-£250 Motherboards
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Situated barely below the priciest premium boards, which typically exceed £250, high-end Z87 Express-based motherboards offer enthusiasts almost everything they could want except for three-way SLI support. We put four of these platforms to the test.

We’re almost amazed every time Intel unveils another revamped core architecture, when its best-performing technology ends up packaged for mainstream desktop, mobile, and server customers. The company's ability to simultaneously touch so many segments with one launch makes its strategy pretty tough to knock. But it also means that fans of the latest and greatest (particularly on the desktop) top out at four cores, while enthusiasts eager to gobble up the most complex processors have to wait for the enterprise-derived Extreme parts to catch up. Because a lot of the games we play stop scaling around four cores, that's usually fine for most folks.

Also fine (most of the time) is an integrated PCI Express 3.0 controller, which enjoys very low latency. The biggest bummer for gamers is that Intel's mainstream platforms only expose 16 lanes. With the Haswell generation, you can connect as many as three cards to the CPU-based PCIe, but the requisite lane division isn't particularly attractive. That capability probably appeals most on high-end office PCs or entry-level workstations.

Sixteen lanes sound like a big bottleneck for systems packing multiple graphics cards, but there's more to the story. Since each card in a multi-GPU array uses the same data, a PCIe bridge able to map 16 lanes to three or four x16 slots works well. But that component is costly, and its expense divides the premium Z87 Express motherboard market into two segments: boards that support three-way SLI and those armed with almost everything except three-way SLI. Since most of us are happy with one or two super-fast cards fed by an equally potent processor, we're staying under that $300 barrier today, focusing on the premium features we can get without worrying about a PCIe bridge and putting more of our efforts into overclocking. 

LGA 1150 ATX Motherboard Features
 ASRock Z87
OC Formula
Asus Maximus
VI Formula
Gigabyte
Z87X-UD5H
MSI Z87
MPower Max
PCB Revision1.031.021.01.3
ChipsetIntel Z87 ExpressIntel Z87 ExpressIntel Z87 ExpressIntel Z87 Express
Voltage Regulator12 PhasesEight Phases16 Phases20 Phases
BIOSP1.80 (08/23/2013)0804 (08/19/2013)F7 (08/02/2013)V1.3 (08/23/2013)
100.0 MHz BCLK99.97 (-0.03%)100.00 (-0.00%)99.77 (-0.23%)100.01 (+0.01%)
I/O Panel Connectors
P/S21None11
USB 3.08666
USB 2.024None2
Network1121
CLR_CMOS ButtonYesYesNoneYes
Digital Audio OutOpticalOpticalOpticalOptical
Digital Audio InNoneNoneNoneNone
Analog Audio5666
Video OutHDMIHDMI, DisplayPortDVI-I, Dual HDMI, DisplayPortDual HDMI, DisplayPort
Other DevicesHDMI-In (Pass-through)ROG Connect, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth ModuleNoneWi-Fi/Bluetooth Module
Internal Interfaces
PCIe 3.0 x163 (x16/x0/x0, x8/x8/x0, x8/x4/x4)3 (x16/x0/x0, x8/x8/x0, x8/x4/x4)3 (x16/x0/x0, x8/x8/x0, x8/x4/x4)3 (x16/x0/x0, x8/x8/x0, x8/x4/x4)
PCIe 2.0 x161 (x4 transfers)NoneNoneNone
PCIe 2.0 x12 Full, 1 Mini334
USB 3.02 (4-ports) +1 Port1 (2-ports)2 (4-ports)2 (4-ports)
USB 2.02 (4-ports)2 (4-ports)2 (4-ports)2 (4-ports)
SATA 6Gb/s1010108 (1 shared w/mSATA)
4-Pin Fan2875
3-Pin Fan6 (1-occupied)NoneNoneNone
FP-Audio1111
S/PDIF I/ONoneOutput OnlyOutput And InputNone
Internal ButtonsPower, Reset, CLR_CMOS, Rapid OCPower, Reset, DirectKey, MemOKPower, Reset, CLR_CMOSPower, Reset, OC Genie, Go To BIOS
Internal SwitchBIOS Selector, PCIe Disable, Slow Mode, LN2 ModeFast BootBIOS mode, BIOS selectorBIOS Selector
Diagnostics PanelVerboseNumericNumericNumeric
Other DevicesVoltage Probes, Serial, mini PCIeOC Panel Header, NGFFDual IEEE-1394, PCI, TPMmSATA (Shared w/SATA)
Mass Storage Controllers
Chipset SATA6 x SATA 6Gb/s6 x SATA 6Gb/s6 x SATA 6Gb/s6 x SATA 6Gb/s
Chipset RAID Modes0, 1, 5, 100, 1, 5, 100, 1, 5, 100, 1, 5, 10
Add-In SATA2 x ASM1061 PCIe
4 x SATA 6Gb/s
2 x ASM1061 PCIe
4 x SATA 6Gb/s
88SE9230 PCIe
4 x SATA 6Gb/s
ASM1061 PCIe
2 x SATA 6Gb/s
USB 3.0EJ188H PCIe (4-ports)
ASM1074 Hub (4-ports)
ASM1074 Hub (4-ports)2 x D720210 Hub (8-ports)D720202 PCIe (2-ports)
ASM1074 Hub (4-ports)
Networking
Primary LANWGI217V PHYWGI217V PHYWGI217V PHYKiller E2205 PCIe
Secondary LANNoneNoneWGI210AT PCIeNone
Wi-FiNoneBCM4352 PCIe
2x2 802.11ac Dual-Band
Up To 867 Mb/s
None
Intel 2230 PCIe
2x2 802.11n Single-Band
Up To 300 Mb/s
BluetoothNoneVia 802.11ac ComboNoneVia 802.11n Combo
Audio
HD Audio CodecALC1150ALC1150ALC898ALC1150
DDL/DTS ConnectDTS ConnectDTS ConnectNoneNone
WarrantyFive YearsThree YearsThree YearsThree Years
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  • 2 Hide
    brimur , 2 October 2013 16:47
    I always wonder about these MB benchmarks. For as long as I can remember they are always so similar with differences being negligable. Its really just comes down to the features you want on your board and the layout of the board.