Intel Z87 Motherboard Review with Haswell: Gigabyte, MSI, ASRock and ASUS
by Ian Cutress on June 27, 2013 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- MSI
- Gigabyte
- ASRock
- Asus
- Haswell
- Z87
- Shark Bay
- Lynx Point
ASUS Z87-Pro BIOS
As ASUS likes to put a fine polish on everything that gets released to the public, the BIOS is no exception. Since the inception of graphical interfaces for consumer motherboard BIOSes, ASUS has been keen to give the user as much functionality as they need without going overboard with garish visuals, as well as catering for users who are new to the BIOS. The Z77 platform BIOS from ASUS was well received, giving users a large number of options for configuration in a textual format – the Z87 implementation is another iteration along similar lines with a few new surprises.
Firstly when we enter the BIOS, we get our ‘EZ Mode’ (‘easy’, rather than ee-zed) similar to the last generation but with a few minor updates. Firstly the font is changed to a pixelated form of common fixed-length word processing fonts:
On this front screen we get detail on the motherboard in use, the BIOS version, the CPU installed, the speed of the CPU, the total memory installed, the CPU information (temperature/voltage), the DIMM slot recognition and fan speeds. An addition to this screen is that we can apply XMP without going into Advanced mode with a small drop down in the DRAM Information section. The fans too can be adjusted with their own drop downs:
For users that want to access Advanced Mode but a specific menu, the Shortcut (F3) option at the bottom defaults to the following:
When entering the BIOS Advanced Mode, we get put into the Main tab to begin with:
Several options are new to the BIOS that are worth pointing out. On the right hand side we have two new options – Quick Note and Last Modified. By choosing Quick Note, a user can leave notes in a notepad type window for future reference.
Last Modified does what it says on the tin – it tells the user what options have been changed in the BIOS since the system was booted. For example it shows the following options when I select XMP from default:
Another feature shown on the Main screen is on the right hand side and in yellow, labeled ‘F4: Add to Shortcut and My Favorites’. This is pointing to the tab on the top left of the BIOS, called ‘My Favorites’.
My Favorites allows users to select any option in the BIOS they want and place it in this menu. As shown in the screenshot above, I have copied a few of my typical overclock options to My Favorites. This is of invaluable help to overclockers who use the BIOS frequently – it allows these users to place the options they used most frequently (CPU Ratio, CPU Voltage, Memory sub-timings) into a single menu rather than shuffle around several menus at once. It solves the issue of ‘what is the right way to show your options’, as almost all the different motherboard manufacturers have their own way. Also in terms of customization, users can place their own overall tabbed menu options into the shortcut menu.
The main series of options are all found in AI Tweaker, the home for overclocking options.
One of the many positives about the ASUS BIOS is the information provided with options in the top right corner. For most of the options it provides an explanation of what the option does - if it comes with Auto/Manual selections these are described as well. As for AI Tweaker itself, our options are split into CPU+DRAM, voltages and more voltages. Advanced options for DRAM subtimings and power control are in sub menus off this main list:
Unfortunately we do not get the GPU options similar to Z77 ROG boards which show which GPUs are in the motherboard at POST.
In the Advanced menu are the controller options and additional CPU/power state adjustment options.
In the Onboard Devices options above show the available controller options, but one option should be pointed out – the ‘PCI Express X16_3 slot (black) bandwidth’ is set to automatic by default, which means this slot is put at x1. In order to make the final slot run at x4, this option must be adjusted, but in turning the slot to x4 we lose options such as the ASM1061 storage controller, reducing our SATA count effectively by two. This is because some of the PCIe lanes from the PCH are on switches to work with one or the other – not both. I would perhaps have preferred the PCIe x1 slots to be disabled when the x4 is enabled, but that is more my personal usage scenario, whereas ASUS has to cater for the majority of their end users as polled.
BIOS fan controls are found under the Monitor tab menu:
Ideally users will head to the OS for more extensive fan controls, but ASUS offers the basics here – an RPM lower-bound limit with silent/standard/turbo fan profiles.
Elsewhere in the BIOS we have boot options for fast booting, boot order, boot override, and also utilities such as EZ Flash and ASUS’ OC Profiling.
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ShieTar - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Is there a special reason not to test the POST times and DPC latency of the Gigabyte Board? Its power consumption is quiet impressive, and whatever design measures have been used to achieve it do not seem to negatively affect the overall performance. So it would be interesting to complete the picture with the two measurements which are missing.IanCutress - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
DPC Latency on the Gigabyte during testing was jumping around a fair bit, hitting 800+, though that is more likely due to the early BIOS revision. I need to run the POST test (as the results are strangely missing from my database) as well as the DPC test on a newer BIOS. Since I started testing almost every manufacturer has released newer BIOSes (as is always the way coming up to a launch) and I really have to lay the hammer down as testing a whole new BIOS takes a good 30 hours or so start to finish, so when I'm locked in that's it. That in a way does give an unfair advantage to the board I test last, but there's not a lot else I can do. I am still getting emails of BIOS updates for these boards as of yesterday.Ian
tribbles - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Am I wrong in thinking that Gigabyte hasn't been doing well in the DPC Latency Test since Z77? If so, that's kind of surprising, since Gigabyte seems to be a "go-to" brand for digital audio workstation builders.IanCutress - Wednesday, July 10, 2013 - link
I retested the UD3H on the F5 (public) BIOS, and it scored 164. The two next boards I have in for review got 160 and 157, which points fingers to the DPC on Haswell being 150+ regardless of motherboard. This might be a fundamental issue.Timur Born - Saturday, July 27, 2013 - link
Run Prime95 (or turn off CPU power features) while measuring DPC latencies to see how much CPU power saving features affect DPCs.jhonabundance - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
great share http://asus.comjhonabundance - Thursday, August 28, 2014 - link
this is the best share http://asus.comRick83 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Maybe a bad choice to use two different ways of graphing the Rightmark results.Being consistent with regard to cutting off the irrelevant bit of the graph makes it a much easier read.
Now it appears at first glance as though the Gigabyte board is much better in THD+N, simply because the differences were so minuscule in the dynamic range bit.
On another note: Shouldn't it be more interesting to use a standardized input instead of the input of the board? In the current protocol a good output could be handicapped by a bad input, and conversely. For most users the output is much more important than the input, so it might be better to test it independently? I would recommend using a USB soundcard as an easy means of doing this test on the same machine, without changing the setup protocol too much.
And finally - I seem to remember Rightmark results for earlier reviews - it would be interesting to have those (or maybe a reference soundcard?) as comparison in the same graph. After all, for DPC you maintain a large cross-platform table as well.
Nice thorough initial review, those nitpicks withstanding.
IanCutress - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Unfortunately I can't adjust the engine to represent from 0 for negative values, I don't have access to the low level options. I forwarded it on as an issue.I'd love to use a standardized input with RMAA. I guess it would be good to get a sound card with an input that supercedes the output of the motherboard and put it through that way, and hopefully there won't be a driver conflict along the line. I'll see what I can do to get in the hardware for that, although many soundcards are designed more for output and the input dynamic range/distortion might be the limiting factor as is the case on motherboards. Something like the Xonar Essence STX has a 118 dBA input with -113 dBA THD+N which might be a good starting point.
Our RMAA testing for Z87 has changed a little from Z77 to make it more of an efficiency test rather than an out-the-box test as audio is such a varied playing field. RMAA is very sensitive to certain windows settings and volumes for example such that with the right combination it was very easy to show A>B or B>A depending on how the OS felt it should be set up. The new testing regimen for RMAA should iron out those issues but the results are not exactly comparable to Z77 for that reason. There are so many wrong ways to set up RMAA it can be difficult (and a learning experience) to get it right.
Ian
popej - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Nice to see you are planning steps in right direction. Using reference card for measurements is a proper solution. Be aware, that separate card add complications to the test, for example you will have to take care about ground loops and signal level matching. Professional card with balanced input could help a lot.