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
Metro2033
Our first analysis is with the perennial reviewers’ favorite, Metro2033. It occurs in a lot of reviews for a couple of reasons – it has a very easy to use benchmark GUI that anyone can use, and it is often very GPU limited, at least in single GPU mode. Metro2033 is a strenuous DX11 benchmark that can challenge most systems that try to run it at any high-end settings. Developed by 4A Games and released in March 2010, we use the inbuilt DirectX 11 Frontline benchmark to test the hardware at 1440p with full graphical settings. Results are given as the average frame rate from a second batch of 4 runs, as Metro has a tendency to inflate the scores for the first batch by up to 5%.
| Metro 2033 | 1 GPU | 2 GPU | 3 GPU |
| AMD | |||
| NVIDIA |
In our 3-way AMD test, it is clear that when the x1 mode is selected on the ASUS Z87-Pro, performance scaling goes out the window. For Metro there is a slight advantage having x8/x4/x4 over x8/x8 + x4.
Dirt 3
Dirt 3 is a rallying video game and the third in the Dirt series of the Colin McRae Rally series, developed and published by Codemasters. Dirt 3 also falls under the list of ‘games with a handy benchmark mode’. In previous testing, Dirt 3 has always seemed to love cores, memory, GPUs, PCIe lane bandwidth, everything. The small issue with Dirt 3 is that depending on the benchmark mode tested, the benchmark launcher is not indicative of game play per se, citing numbers higher than actually observed. Despite this, the benchmark mode also includes an element of uncertainty, by actually driving a race, rather than a predetermined sequence of events such as Metro 2033. This in essence should make the benchmark more variable, but we take repeated in order to smooth this out. Using the benchmark mode, Dirt 3 is run at 1440p with Ultra graphical settings. Results are reported as the average frame rate across four runs.
| Dirt 3 | 1 GPU | 2 GPU | 3 GPU |
| AMD | |||
| NVIDIA |
If I was a Dirt gamer, clearly having the most PCIe lanes supplied by the CPU is going to win out the day, putting the MSI and ASRock ahead of the others.
Civilization V
A game that has plagued my testing over the past twelve months is Civilization V. Being on the older 12.3 Catalyst drivers were somewhat of a nightmare, giving no scaling, and as a result I dropped it from my test suite after only a couple of reviews. With the later drivers used for this review, the situation has improved but only slightly, as you will see below. Civilization V seems to run into a scaling bottleneck very early on, and any additional GPU allocation only causes worse performance.
Our Civilization V testing uses Ryan’s GPU benchmark test all wrapped up in a neat batch file. We report the average frame rate of a 5 minute test.
| Civilization V | 1 GPU | 2 GPU | 3 GPU |
| AMD | |||
| NVIDIA |
For whatever reason the ASRock motherboard is not too fond of Civilization V, taking a hit on dual AMD and also dual NVIDIA.
Sleeping Dogs
While not necessarily a game on everybody’s lips, Sleeping Dogs is a strenuous game with a pretty hardcore benchmark that scales well with additional GPU power due to its SSAA implementation. The team over at Adrenaline.com.br is supreme for making an easy to use benchmark GUI, allowing a numpty like me to charge ahead with a set of four 1440p runs with maximum graphical settings.
| Sleeping Dogs | 1 GPU | 2 GPU | 3 GPU |
| AMD | |||
| NVIDIA |
Sleeping Dogs is very much static between motherboards and CPUs, except at three-way AMD where the difference between a third slot at x4 or x1 is around 12.5%.
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Rob94hawk - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
The MSI Gaming board would not do 2560x1440 off the DVI-D port.Aikouka - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
One thing to note is that ASRock does have a version of the Extreme6 that does NOT have 802.11ac built in. I think it's about $20 cheaper.I thought about going with the Extreme6 when I built a Haswell machine, but I figured that some of those features would go unused. Unused chips that aren't disabled still need to be initialized during POST, so I get an increased POST time and spend more money. :P I went with the Extreme4, and honestly... I wish that I hadn't. The UEFI BIOS on my system is so flaky that it randomly hard locks a few seconds after the GUI appears. I don't know if it's a bad board, a bad batch, or an issue with that model, because I'm not the only one with that issue. I've seen other reports on the Anandtech forums and a quick Google search turns up results on other forums and in the Newegg reviews. I'm assuming that the Extreme6 did not have this problem?
DanNeely - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Check your BIOS; you should be able to disable unused controllers to boost post time. This shortened my i7-920/930 post times from ~30s to ~20s.Aikouka - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Oh, I know. I just figured that it wasn't worth spending more on a board just to disable the unused controllers. Although, then I ran into the Extreme4's BIOS problem, and I wish I would have spent a little more! =PJames5mith - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Since when is $200 a "reasonable price bracket"? In my mind $50-$100 = budget. $100-$160 = mainstream. $160+ is enthusiast pricing. It is not reasonable at all.WeaselITB - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
$200 is a reasonable price bracket for the enthusiast chipset family that they're reviewing. If you're looking for lower price, check out the lower families, such as H87 for the mainstream segment.MrSpadge - Friday, June 28, 2013 - link
A solid Zx7 board without any BS used to be around 100€ (-> 100$ without VAT for you). Now that parts of the voltage supply have transitioned into the CPU the boards should not become any more expensive.I may be enthusiastic about tweaking my PC for efficiency and value, but I'm certainly not enthusiastic about paying big bucks for my toys.
crimson117 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Ian, this line/paragraph sounds a bit too much like it was lifted from marketing materials: "Whenever a user considers purchasing an ASUS motherboard they know that it is built to perform and has a great feature set"IanCutress - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Haha I can assure you those are my words, although it does sound generic given that I was meant to be referring to the board in the review. Perhaps a bit subjective for a review, but I had a good experience with the board and that filtered through. Changed it a little...-Ian
snakyjake - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
I've had an ASUS mother board for years, and the EZ-Update never downloaded updates from the Internet. It never was able to connect with any of the update servers. I always had to go to the Asus website and download the updates, and then update the BIOS from disk.I do wish the ASUS software was all integrated, and not separate programs on my system tray.