ECS Golden Board Z77H2-AX Z77 Motherboard Review
BIOS Features
ECS included their latest version of a customized AMI-developed UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) style BIOS. The UEFI BIOS offers full keyboard and mouse support while using the BIOS pages. By default, the user sees the Basic Mode screen when entering the BIOS with the Advanced mode screens accessible via the Advanced button at the right side of the screen.
Having never used or seen ECS' implementation of a UEFI BIOS, I was mostly impressed with what I saw. The BIOS worked well with both keyboard and mouse input in most cases. However, the mouse input seemed slightly laggy with latency apparent at times when moving the mouse or clicking areas within the BIOS interface. Also, some of the menu links were very particular about where to click to open the linked screen. You had to click towards the left or upper left side of the link for the click to register. This behavior was seen with both menu links and buttons inside verification windows from within the BIOS. I was also disappointed by the fact that no in-BIOS flash update ability was integrated into the design.
PC Perspective Upcoming Events
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50 Cent; your motherboard has arrived.
Seriously though, if ECS wants to go for the high-end motherboard market blinging it out in gold is not the way to go.
You really need to see it live to get the full effect. I tend to like the read and black theme that ASUS ROG boards normal sport, but I would seriously consider putting this one in my system if the o/c performance was better...
The black & gold is too over the top, should go down well with the chaps on the sub continent though.
I could be wrong but as far as I know there is no such thing as a SATA 6 cable. All generation cables are the same.
The SATA 6G cable terminology seems to be more of a corporate marketing-speak term, since you are correct that any SATA cable is capable of handling a SATA III drive/signal. What I've noticed with the manfacturer-labeled "SATA III" cables is that those cables seem to be a bit thicker and more substantial than the SATA II labeled cables.
The gold thing is silly and impractical. Proper colour coding of every port individually is saner.
As for "eSATA ports", I fail to see why. This is an interface that crashes boxes under almost any OS and is utterly obsoleted by USB3 and Thunderbolt by now.
I would much rather have seen a second gigabit RJ45.
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