KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
We will be outlining the Gigabyte Aorus Z270X-Gaming 7 motherboard’s performance with the Core i7 7700K CPU and 16GB of 3200MHz G.Skill TridentZ DDR4 memory.
By default, the Gigabyte Aorus Z270X-Gaming 7 motherboard applies a multi-core turbo (MCT) state and forces the 7700K to a constant 4.5GHz when XMP is enabled. Overclocked performance will be outlined later in the review.
Gigabyte's board would push the CPU VCore as high as 1.37V (under Prime 95 load) when forced-turbo is enabled. Even Handbrake video conversion would see 1.32V pushed through the chip. This voltage is far too high as competing vendors are using settings in the 1.2xx range. At 1.37V for 4.5GHz, power is wasted and cooling becomes a challenge for mid-range or lower-end air and AIO coolers.
Z270 Motherboard Test System:
- Processor: Intel Core i7 7700K (4.5GHz Forced Turbo).
- Memory: 16GB (2x8GB) G.Skill TridentZ 3200MHz 14-14-14-34 DDR4 @ 1.35V.
- Graphics Card: Nvidia GTX Titan X Pascal (custom fan curve to eliminate thermal throttling).
- System Drive: 500GB Samsung 840 SATA 6Gbps SSD.
- Games Drive: 960GB SK Hynix SE3010 SATA 6Gbps SSD.
- CPU Cooler: Corsair H110i GT.
- Power Supply: Seasonic Platinum 760W SS-760XP.
- Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (Anniversary Update).
Compared Z270 Motherboards:
- ASRock Fatal1ty Z270 Gaming K6.
- ASUS STRIX Z270F Gaming.
- Gigabyte Aorus Z270X-Gaming 7.
Software:
- Gigabyte Aorus Z270X-Gaming 7 BIOS F4g.
- GeForce 376.19 VGA drivers.
Tests:
- Cinebench R15 – All-core CPU benchmark (CPU)
- HandBrake 0.10.5 – Convert 6.27GB 4K video recording using the Normal Profile setting and MP4 container (CPU)
- SiSoft Sandra 2016 SP1 – Processor Arithmetic Test (CPU) and Memory Bandwidth Test (Memory)
- 7-Zip 16.04 – Built-in 7-Zip benchmark test (CPU & Memory)
- 3DMark Fire Strike v1.1 – Fire Strike (1080p) test (Gaming)
- Ashes of the Singularity – Built-in benchmark tool CPU-Focused test, 1920 x 1080, Extreme quality preset, DX12 version (Gaming)
- Grand Theft Auto V – Built-in benchmark tool, 1920 x 1080, Maximum quality settings, Maximum Advanced Graphics (Gaming)
- Metro: Last Light Redux – Built-in benchmark tool, 1920 x 1080, Very High quality, SSAA, AF 16X, Tessellation: High (Gaming)
- ATTO – M.2, USB 3.1, and SATA 6Gbps transfer rates (Motherboard)
- RightMark Audio Analyzer – Record and playback test using a line-in to line-out loopback with a 3.5mm audio cable (Motherboard)
“The individual audio results should be interpreted with care due to the difference in RightMark Audio Analyzer’s reaction to the Creative-based solution used on Gigabyte’s board versus the Realtek codec of its competitors.”
I don’t understand what that means.
I have this board and while it’s a tremendously beautiful work of art, RGB Fusion doesn’t hold its brightness settings after reboot. Which, can be annoying when the PC is on your desk just to your right and you don’t want those beautiful bright greens to be /too/ bright, so you tone them down to the lowest setting (25%) only to find that you have to do it every single time you boot into Windows 10 Pro x64. I looked to see if there were any obvious files in the RGB Fusion folder that would hold settings for such and if they perhaps were read-only, but the only settings files I found were xml’s for various demo effects, I would assume. I’ve tried setting the main exe’s in the folder to run as administrator and see if that works. No dice. Seems as if Gigabyte might have a little more work left to do with this, and funny enough, their GvLedServices.exe file descriptions weren’t filled out. They were left as “TODO: ” .. “TODO: ” .. “TODO: ” under Properties > Details. I guess that slipped their “to do” list. It shows up as “TODO: ” in Task Manager > Processes, which could potentially confuse someone that isn’t privy to the program not quite being as polished as it should be.
Also, I had an issue where, suddenly, when trying to run the RGB Fusion program, it would load the dialog box, but that’s it, and sit there with blank panels and “Please Wait…” flashing through the RGB spectrum in the middle of the main panel for around 5 minutes before finally loading, then making any changes would take another few minutes or so, but they wouldn’t actually do anything. The power switch at the top no longer turned the LED’s off, either. I had to uninstall the program, reboot, reinstall the program and then run each process from its folder manually to get it to work again. It’s been working since then, even after reboots, but still doesn’t hold the brightness setting.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7bd0e4c346835a42abdf525b89866c38c628c6205a00e90bada27f21db0bbf2f.jpg
Might as well be written in another language and then translated back to English with Google translator.