ECS Golden Board Z77H2-AX Z77 Motherboard Review
Testing Configuration and Benchmarks Used
To verify that the motherboard works as advertised, the board was run through our standard benchmark suite. In most cases, the results are presented for the motherboard under review as well as a different similar-class motherboard for performance comparison purposes. The benchmark tests used should give you a good understanding of the board’s capabilities for both office and gaming use so that you, the reader, can make a more informed purchasing decision.
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Test System Setup |
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CPU |
Intel Core i5-3570K (3.4GHz, 34 x 100MHz Base Clock) |
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Motherboards |
ECS Z77H2-AX ASUS P8Z77 WS |
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Memory |
G.SKILL 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 modules (1600MHz, 11-11-11-30-1T) |
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Hard Drive |
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA III HD |
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Sound Card |
Onboard sound |
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Video Card |
AMD Radeon HD 5870 1GB |
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CPU Cooling |
Corsair Nautilus 500 Swiftech MCR320-QP Radiator Swiftech Apogee HD water block |
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Video Drivers |
AMD ATI Catalyst 12.8 |
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Power Supply |
Corsair 650w |
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Operating System |
Windows 7 Ultimate x64 |
The 64-bit Windows 7 based test bench used for LGA1155 board testing includes an Intel Core i5-3570K CPU, 8GB of DDR3-2133 memory, an AMD Radeon 5870 1GB video card, and a Western Digital Black 1TB SATA hard drive. Using the selected components gives us the ability to demonstrate the motherboard’s capabilities rather than that of the components themselves.
Benchmark Tests used for evaluation:
- SoftPerfect Research NetWorx Speed Test
- ATTO Disk Benchmark v2.47
- LinX Intel Linpack Benchmark v0.6.4
- SiSoft Sandra 2012
- Handbrake video transcoder v0.9.8
- FutureMark PCMark 7 Basic
- Batman: Arkham City
- Hard Reset
- FutureMark 3DMark 11 Basic
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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