Motherboard Reviews
Biostar Hi-Fi Z97Z7 Motherboard: The Importance of Looking Good
« UEFI Overview and Overclocking | System Benchmarks(CPU, Memory, Compression, Multimedia) »
Test System and Testing Procedures
| Processor | Intel Core i7-4770K (Retail) |
| CPU Cooler |
Phanteks TC14-PE with Noctua NT-H1 thermal compound |
| Power Supply |
BeQuiet Dark Power Pro 10 750W 80 Plus Gold |
| Memory | Patriot Viper 3 “Black Mamba” 2x8GB DDR3 2100 MHz CL11 |
| Storage | OCZ Agility 4 256GB SSD (OS), OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD (test drive), Vantec NexStar (USB 3.0 enclosure). |
| Graphics | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 WindForce OC |
| Drivers | Z97AF509 BIOS, Intel Chipset Driver 10.0.3, NVIDIA 335.23 WHQL drivers. |
| Motherboard(s) | Biostar Hi-Fi Z97Z7 (Z97BF912), Biostar Hi-Fi Z97WE (Z97AF509), ASUS Z97-A (0804), Gigabyte Z97-D3H (F7 BIOS) |
| Router | Cisco E3200 stock firmware with 2x 6ft Cat5E cables for network testing |
| Operating System | Windows 7 x64 Ultimate SP-1 with latest patches and updates |
Latest working BIOS, updates and drivers were used at the time of the review. Each test was conducted at least three times for accuracy. UEFI defaults are loaded for stock settings and XMP profile is loaded. Overclock results are for showing standardized 4.5GHz result with 1.28Vcore manual override on the exact same i7-4770K. If the Z97 motherboard being reviewed is incapable of running that overclock stable, it is considered unworthy of minimum requirements for overclocking in this platform. If the motherboard does not load the XMP profile values correctly for the overclock testing, values will be manually set to keep it standard across the board.
System Benchmarks
- wPrime 32M
- Aida64 Engineer 4.30.2900
- CineBench R15
- PCMark 8 v2.0.228
- WinRAR 5.01
- Handbrake 0.9.9
- x264 FHD 1.0.1
Subsystem Testing
- CrystalDisk Mark for SATA and USB tests
- DPC Latency
- Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.4.0
- Passmark Performance Test 8.0 – Network Speed Graph
- JPerf 2.0.2
- LAN Speed Test 3.4
Gaming Benchmarks
- 3DMark11 v1.0.132 – Performance Preset
- 3DMark (Firestrike test) v1.2.362 – Default Preset
- Unigine Heaven 4.0 – Built-in Benchmark, Low preset DX11 on 640×480
- Tomb Raider – Built-in Benchmark, Low preset on 800×600
- Bioshock Infinite – Built-in Benchmark, Low Preset on 640×480
- Sleeping Dogs – Built-in Benchmark, Low Preset on 640×480
