Five Z87 Motherboards Under $220, Reviewed

[Onus]

I've always thought White and Gold looked a lot better for a high-tech product than Black and Red, but maybe that's because I'm a Georgia Tech alumnus, and Black and Red are the colors of that farmboy school in the northern part of the state.

 

[Stevemeister]

I run an older QX6850 with a permanent 20% overclock (watercooled) and was holding off upgrading until Haswell was released. Given that the performance benefits of Haswell compared with Ivy seem to be minimal when it comes to gaming would I be simply better off buying a 3770K rather than a 4770K given that the prices on the older technology are some 10-20% lower than the newer stuff and the overclocking on Ivy may be better. All things considered what is best from a performance/dollar perspective taking into account overclocking. I would love to see an evaluation of this - it may actually show that the older technology is better!

 

[InvalidError]

would I be simply better off buying a 3770K rather than a 4770K given that the prices on the older technology are some 10-20% lower than the newer stuff and the overclocking on Ivy may be better.

IB may overclock a little better but you need to clock it ~300MHz faster than Haswell to beat Haswell's IPC improvements so in the end, you are almost choosing between four quarters and a dollar.

However, Haswell has AVX2 instructions and an IGP that is a fair bit faster than HD4000 for iGPGPU purposes if more software embraces OpenCL/DirectCompute for heavy-lifting.

The only thing I really don't like about desktop Haswell is how much more power it uses under load (10-30W depending on sample and motherboard) due to cascaded VRMs (MoBo + on-chip) and FIVR's somewhat low efficiency - only 82% based on Intel's whitepaper.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

We tested six motherboards that claimed to be ready for your overclocking efforts, and included the five survivors in today’s review.

What's that about? It doesn't seem like a typo. What was the sixth board - I couldn't find any actual explanations. Did it fry? Should we be worried?

 

[Crashman]

We tested six motherboards that claimed to be ready for your overclocking efforts, and included the five survivors in today’s review.

What's that about? It doesn't seem like a typo. What was the sixth board - I couldn't find any actual explanations. Did it fry? Should we be worried?

Probably. At least you know it wasn't any of the brands that participated, since the article was limited to one sample per brand

 

[Someone Somewhere]

EVGA, Zotac, or Biostar are the only others I can think of; probably the latter.

Are you going to give us an explanation, or is it a "covered by NDA" type issue? Or are you waiting for a new one?

 

[Crashman]

EVGA, Zotac, or Biostar are the only others I can think of; probably the latter.

Are you going to give us an explanation, or is it a "covered by NDA" type issue? Or are you waiting for a new one?

Or it could be someone you'd never think of 😛 Anyway, a new sample is on the way.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Intel, Foxconn, Sapphire, DFI, Microsoft (just because), Corsair (who knows), Supermicro, Jetway, Tyan, and then probably a couple more.

Admittedly I got a couple of those from lists of current boards, but if they aren't in there it's someone new. Or even if they are.

 

[Steveymoo]

I'm still using an overclocked i5-760. Apart from an increase in energy efficiency, I see no point in getting a new CPU for my next upgrade. Although I'd like someone to prove me wrong. Will the new generation reduce micro stutter or input lag, if I buy an i5-4570k at 3.2ghz, compared to my i5-760 OC'd to 3.6ghz?

 

[frenzyvanrafi]

When sub $190 motherboard reviewed? I want to build new rig with Haswell because my Wolfdale bottlenecking my gaming experience!
But should I delay buy Haswell component next few week? Because the Z87 has USB flaw when sleeping

 

[Someone Somewhere]

Very minor flaw - read up the thread. Pointless to base a decision on that.

Get a cheap H87/B85 MB if you don't intend to OC or CF/SLI, and at a guess something like a GA-Z87X-D3H if you do.

 

[frenzyvanrafi]

Very minor flaw - read up the thread. Pointless to base a decision on that.

Get a cheap H87/B85 MB if you don't intend to OC or CF/SLI, and at a guess something like a GA-Z87X-D3H if you do.

Z87X-D3H are my favorite spot, but let's wait the review....

 

[vmem]

When sub $190 motherboard reviewed? I want to build new rig with Haswell because my Wolfdale bottlenecking my gaming experience!
But should I delay buy Haswell component next few week? Because the Z87 has USB flaw when sleeping

I forget where I read this, but intel intends to have a very minor revision to the chipset done by July. there won't be any distinguishing features as far as I know, but basically by the end of Junly or August the vast majority of boards on the market shoudn't have the USB 3.0 issue.

 

[InvalidError]

by the end of Junly or August the vast majority of boards on the market shoudn't have the USB 3.0 issue.

Intel could also track device state information on standby/resume from their driver to identify potentially stalled devices and stealthily reset the port they are plugged into to bring them back on if still attached without the user/OS noticing - spares the user the trouble or removing and re-inserting the device.

 

[Guest]

Thank you Thomas Soderstrom for including the DTS CONNECT information in there!

 

[frenzyvanrafi]

When sub $190 motherboard reviewed? I want to build new rig with Haswell because my Wolfdale bottlenecking my gaming experience!
But should I delay buy Haswell component next few week? Because the Z87 has USB flaw when sleeping

I forget where I read this, but intel intends to have a very minor revision to the chipset done by July. there won't be any distinguishing features as far as I know, but basically by the end of Junly or August the vast majority of boards on the market shoudn't have the USB 3.0 issue.

But I am actually never using sleep state because I am regret it when power outage happen, I use hibernate instead. I am frequently unplug the USB device when my system goes hibernate, turned off, or standby when I go out. Is it no problem for me to buy initial Haswell mobo?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

It's not a problem anyway - it's very rare. Believe hibernate is affected too, though I'm not sure.

 

[hixbot]

Shouldn't socket 1150 prices be a bit cheaper due to the on-die VRM?

 

[Crashman]

Shouldn't socket 1150 prices be a bit cheaper due to the on-die VRM?

Well, let's see what the article says:

Rather than split its input voltage across multiple rails externally, Intel's LGA 1150 uses a single input voltage and splits it via an internal voltage regulator. That would apparently allow motherboard manufacturers to simplify their PWM designs, but the firms still use a similar number of power phases to assure voltage stability across quickly-shifting loads.

The hardware is still there, it's just spitting out one voltage instead of two.

 

[InvalidError]

The hardware is still there, it's just spitting out one voltage instead of two.

It is also spitting out about half as much current and does not need so support a wide VID range or fast core voltages changes to accommodate SpeedStep.

This should make the VRM much easier to design and allow more efficient implementations.

 

[sna]

Hello,
Can you guys please test 6 SSD in Raid 0 on these mobos ? this is the only Advantage of upgrading to a Haswell over ivy/sandy bridge.

Check InvalidError's valid answer, this is also mentioned in the article. 6-way RAID 0 might be useful for HDD's (I'd go RAID 10), but SSD's will simply overwhelm the DMI.

But most users (even in the enthusiast market) don't do that anyway. There are very few "storage enthusiasts" in the general "performance enthusiast" market. And for most of us, having more than two SATA 6Gb/s ports simply means our storage drives won't use up the SATA 6Gb/s port needed for our system drive.

I'd still like to see our storage guy add this controller to his next big article

Thanks for the reply . The main advantage here is the TRIM support in Intel chipset. Stand alone SAS Raid cards do not give you TRIM . and they start at 200$ price point for entry level .

being able to Raid 0 6xSSD for cheap using lets say 6X64G SSD or 6x128G SSD in raid 0 is something no one can ignore ... it is the same price , why would I buy for example one 256 SSD while I can raid 4x64 in raid 0 ? and so on ...

I want to try out 6x128G Samsung 840 pro in Raid 0 ...

as for fail Rate , I dont really care , the Data will be backed up on the Mechanical Hard drive if they are important .

 

[sna]

Can you guys please test 6 SSD in Raid 0 on these mobos ? this is the only Advantage of upgrading to a Haswell over ivy/sandy bridge.

Since Haswell uses the same DMI2.0 bus between the CPU and chipset, total IO performance is capped to ~2GB/s... the equivalent of 4x USB3 ports or 3x SATA3 or one x4 PCIe 2.0 device.

From what I read, the z77 and z87 chipsets are interchangeable - a motherboard manufacturer could pair z77 with Haswell or z87 with SB/IB if they wanted to. The main thing that prevented Intel from reusing LGA1155 is FIVR.

lol , this is cheating us .. what you are saying that this chipset is fake ... that is , If I connect 4 USB3 SSD drives there will be no bandwidth left for the Sata Drives lol ...

this is not REAL then ... they are "Shared"

 

[InvalidError]

lol , this is cheating us .. what you are saying that this chipset is fake ... that is , If I connect 4 USB3 SSD drives there will be no bandwidth left for the Sata Drives lol ...

The DMI bottleneck is well-known documented. DMI is not intended for IO-intensive server-like tasks and very few desktop PC users will ever notice it through everyday use - almost no desktop users have RAID0/1/5/10 setups and even fewer of them ever need to read/write over 2GB/s. More bandwidth does mean more pins and/or more power so they can't buff it just for the heck of it and to please the 1-3% of people who MIGHT notice.

This may change with the next iteration of SATA and SSDs for it. By that time though, Intel will probably have integrated the IO Hub into the CPU and that should effectively eliminate the bottleneck.

 

[sna]

lol , this is cheating us .. what you are saying that this chipset is fake ... that is , If I connect 4 USB3 SSD drives there will be no bandwidth left for the Sata Drives lol ...

The DMI bottleneck is well-known documented. DMI is not intended for IO-intensive server-like tasks and very few desktop PC users will ever notice it through everyday use - almost no desktop users have RAID0/1/5/10 setups and even fewer of them ever need to read/write over 2GB/s. More bandwidth does mean more pins and/or more power so they can't buff it just for the heck of it and to please the 1-3% of people who MIGHT notice.

This may change with the next iteration of SATA and SSDs for it. By that time though, Intel will probably have integrated the IO Hub into the CPU and that should effectively eliminate the bottleneck.

and why do they take that route anyway , they have PCIe 3.0 now , 4 lanes will give you 4G/s ... and I really dont think missing 4 lanes will be noticed at all .

And you are mistaken , even Notebooks are using Raid 0 in SSD today consuming 1G/s of bandwidth ... add a 2.5 SSD to it thats 1.5G/s

and we are talking about notebooks here ...

The desktop ? I allways used Raid 5 Raptors on my desktops .. I dont know where do you get your info that no one is using raid on their desktops... almost every one I know had Raid5 Raptors 10k rpm drives 10 years ago .. and they were the same price of today 256G SSD so nothing has changed really.

 

[InvalidError]

And you are mistaken , even Notebooks are using Raid 0 in SSD today consuming 1G/s of bandwidth ... add a 2.5 SSD to it thats 1.5G/s

The desktop ? I allways used Raid 5 Raptors on my desktops .. I dont know where do you get your info that no one is using raid on their desktops... almost every one I know had Raid5 Raptors 10k rpm drives 10 years ago

Humm, lol.

Practically no laptops on the market (maybe 1% of models out there) even have the ability to stuff two internal drives and the majority of people do not even know what RAID is.