Introduction and Technical Specifications

We take a detailed look at GIGABYTE’s flagship board in their Haswell product line, the Z87X-OC Force…

Introduction

Courtesy of GIGABYTE

The GIGABYTE Z87X-OC Force is the flagship board in GIGABYTE's LGA1150 line of boards. GIGABYTE used the previous generation flagship board, the Z77X-UP7, as a template and improved the design to take the new build to even greater performance heights. In addition to the fan-cooled and optionally water-cooled heat pipe, the board includes the latest iteration of GIGABYTE's power system, dubbed Ultra Durable 5 Plus. For a flagship board, performance and craftsmanship comes at a premium. For $419.99, the Z87-OC Force is a sound investment.

Courtesy of GIGABYTE

Courtesy of GIGABYTE

GIGABYTE designed the Z87X-OC Force with an impressive 16-phase digital power delivery system, powered by International Rectifier (IR) manufactured PowIRstage™ ICs and PWM controllers. GIGABYTE integrated a plethora of features into the Z87X-OC Force including: 10 SATA 6Gb/s ports; dual Intel GigE NICs; five PCI-Express x16 slots for up to quad-card support; two PCI-Express x1 slots; onboard power, reset, BIOS reset, pre-power (OC Ignition), base clock up/down, CPU ratio up/down, OC Tag, OC Gear, and OC Turbo buttons; dual BIOS, BIOS select, PCIe port, and LN2 switches; 2-digit diagnostic LED display; integrated voltage measurement points; and USB 2.0 and 3.0 port support.

Courtesy of GIGABYTE

Technical Specifications (taken from the GIGABYTE website)

CPU Support

1.Support for Intel® Core™ i7 processors/Intel® Core™ i5 processors/Intel® Core™ i3 processors/Intel® Pentium® processors/ Intel® Celeron® processors in the LGA1150 package
2.L3 cache varies with CPU
(Please refer "CPU Support List" for more information.)

Chipset

1.Intel® Z87 Express Chipset

Memory

1.4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory
* Due to a Windows 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than the size of the physical memory installed.
2.Dual channel memory architecture
3.Support for DDR3 3000(O.C.)/2933(O.C.)/1600/1333 MHz memory modules
4.Support for non-ECC memory modules
5.Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules
(Please refer "Memory Support List" for more information.)

Onboard Graphics

Integrated Graphics Processor:
1.2 x HDMI ports, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096×2160
* Support for HDMI 1.4a version.
2.1 x DisplayPort, supporting a maximum resolution of 3840×2160
* Support for DisplayPort 1.2 version.
3.Maximum shared memory of 1 GB

Audio

1.Realtek® ALC898 codec
2.High Definition Audio
3.2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
4.Support for S/PDIF In
5.Support for S/PDIF Out

LAN

1.2 x Intel® GbE LAN chips (10/100/1000 Mbit)
2.Support for Teaming

Wireless Communication module

1.Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, supporting 2.4/5 GHz Dual-Band
2.Bluetooth 4.0, 3.0+HS, 2.1+EDR

Expansion Slots

1.3 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1~3)
* For optimum performance, if only one expansion card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16_2 slot.

2.2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1~2)
* The PCIEX8_1 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16_1 slot and the PCIEX8_2 slot with PCIEX16_3. The PCIEX16_1/PCIEX16_3 slot will operate at up to x8 mode when the PCIEX8_1/PCIEX8_2 is populated.
(The PCIEX16 and PCIEX8 slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)
* The PCIEX16_2 slot will become unavailable when an expansion card is installed in the orange PCI Express x16 slot.

3.2 x PCI Express x1 slots
(The PCI Express x1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)

Multi-Graphics Technology

1.Support for 4-Way/3-Way/2-Way AMD CrossFire™/NVIDIA® SLI™ technology

Storage Interface

Chipset:
1.6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0~5) supporting up to 6 SATA 6Gb/s devices
2.Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10

Marvell® 88SE9230 chip:
1.4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3 6~9) supporting up to 4 SATA 6Gb/s devices
2.Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 10

USB Chipset

Chipset:
1.Up to 2 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (available through the internal USB header)
2.Up to 6 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB headers)

Chipset + 2 Renesas® uPD720210 USB 3.0 Hubs:
1.Up to 8 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (6 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)

Internal I/O Connectors

1.1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
2.1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
3.1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector
4.1 x PCIe power connector
5.10 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
6.1 x CPU fan header
7.1 x water cooling fan header (CPU_OPT)
8.7 x system fan headers
9.2 x heatsink fan connectors
10.1 x front panel header
11.1 x front panel audio header
12.1 x S/PDIF Out header
13.1 x S/PDIF In header
14.2 x USB 3.0/2.0 headers
15.2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
16.1 x serial port header
17.1 x Clear CMOS jumper
18.1 x power button
19.1 x reset button
20.1 x Clear CMOS button
21.1 x Gear button
22.1 x OC Turbo button
23.1 x OC Tag button
24.1 x OC Trigger switch
25.1 x OC Ignition button
26.1 x OC PCIe switch
27.1 x CPU BCLK Down button
28.1 x CPU BCLK Up button
29.1 x CPU Ratio Down button
30.1 x CPU Ratio Up button
31.1 x onboard voltage measurement module
32.2 x BIOS switches

Back Panel Connectors

1.1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
2.1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
3.2 x HDMI ports
4.1 x DisplayPort
5.6 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
6.2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
7.2 x RJ-45 ports
8.6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)

I/O Controller

1.iTE I/O Controller Chip

H/W Monitor

1.System voltage detection
2.CPU/System/Chipset temperature detection
3.CPU/CPU OPT/System fan speed detection
4.CPU/System overheating warning
5.CPU/CPU OPT/System fan fail warning
6.CPU/CPU OPT/System fan speed control
* Whether the fan speed control function is supported will depend on the cooler you install.

BIOS

1.2 x 128 Mbit flash
2.Use of licensed AMI EFI BIOS
3.Support for DualBIOS™
4.PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.6, ACPI 2.0

Unique Features

1.Support for Q-Flash
2.Support for Xpress Install
3.Support for APP Center
* Available applications in APP Center may differ by motherboard model. Supported functions of each application may also differ depending on motherboard specifications.
  • @BIOS
  • EasyTune
  • EZ Setup
  • ON/OFF Charge2
  • USB Blocker

Bundle Software

1.Norton® Internet Security (OEM version)
2.Intel® Rapid Start Technology
3.Intel® Smart Connect Technology
4.Intel® Smart Response Technology
5.cFosSpeed

Operating System

1.Support for Windows 8/7

Form Factor

1.E-ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 26.4cm

 

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