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
Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H Conclusion
As the first Z87 motherboard to arrive through my door, I was not entirely sure what I should be expecting. I had been briefed on the merits of Haswell and Z87, but by and large we were going to see the next evolution of the platform mainly from the point of Flex IO and another CPU cadence step.
I asked Gigabyte for a motherboard in the $200 +/- 10% range, and they kindly provided the Z87X-UD3H. At first glance the motherboard looks unassuming, unlike some of the others tested in this review. With this price point being a fulcrum point between the enthusiast models and the more budget conscious, it is important to step off on the right foot, and I am glad to say Gigabyte are moving in the right direction.
In a nutshell, we have a base Z87 motherboard in a PCIe 3.0 x8/x8 + PCIe 2.0 x4 configuration, featuring eight SATA 6 Gbps (six Intel, two from controller), two eSATA 6 Gbps ports, a total of ten (4+6) USB 3.0 ports, an Intel NIC, Realtek ALC898 audio, and a full gamut of video outputs. Also on board we have a TPM, a COM port, a PCI slot, voltage read points, power/reset/Clear_CMOS buttons and a two digit debug.
The BIOS and Software have been updated for Z87, and are certainly in the right direction of where Gigabyte needs to be going in terms of modernization. As with any new chipset release there are a few issues to iron out, which will hopefully be the focus for the internal design teams for the next few weeks at least. Nonetheless overclocking performance was quite good, with our automatic options giving good stability in the mid 80C range and manual overclocks giving a more than comfortable 4.6 GHz at reasonable voltage.
Performance from the Z87X-UD3H was helped along by the motherboard automatically applying MultiCore Turbo during our normal benchmark suite, matching the other motherboards within statistical variation. I was quite pleased to see the Gigabyte pull less than 500W during our dual-GPU power test. One initial downside of our performance testing came from a rather unsteady DPC Latency which was jumping around even at idle, but this was the result of the pre-release BIOS. Updating to at least BIOS F5 from the GIgabyte website gives a more stable value similar to the other boards in this review.
The main critical point facing the UD3H in this review is from the competition. Every other motherboard in this review has a functionality ace up its sleeve – the MSI has a Killer NIC, the ASRock has 802.11ac, and the ASUS has DIP4 (Dual Intelligent Processors) alongside an awesome hardware/software combination. All three other boards also come with an upgraded Realtek ALC1150 audio codec compared to the ALC898 on the Gigabyte. On the counter argument, the UD3H is cheaper than the rest ($170/180 vs. $190+), and it depends on how relevant those extra features become and if they are worth spending the extra $10-$50.
From our pre-launch testing, the Gigabyte is a nice board to play with, and would satisfy almost every user looking for an ATX motherboard with some extra functionality over the standard Z87 chipset. The only downside is where the competition stand of pricing, and whether the UD3H really needed a ‘knockout feature’ of its own. For Z77 at this $180 price point the Z77X-UD5H was a polished product, and while chipset prices have increased since Z77 to Z87, a good shot around this price point is required. Gigabyte also has the Z87X-OC motherboard at around $200, which should be an interesting comparison.
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clyman - Tuesday, November 26, 2013 - link
In my personal experience and from ASUS tech support, the safest way to update bios is by first downloading it. This mobo has an excellent update program in bios that only looks at local drives, not online. I found it quite simple at each bios update.silenceisgolden - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Great job Ian, really looking forward to the super high end motherboard review as well! I'm curious though, did you use the VGA port at all in any of these reviews, and also when was the last time you used a VGA port?IanCutress - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
My Korean 1440p panels are all via DVI-D. But the VGA comes in use when you have to use a DVI-I to VGA converter for DVI-I cables. Otherwise you need a DVI-D cable.JeBarr - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Great review Ian. I very much appreciate your taking the time to explain the PCIe slot assignment and repeating the less-than-x8-no-good-for-SLI truth that needs to spread far and wide.What I took away from this review when analysing my own usage patterns and component choices is that each of the boards in this review would be better suited to the mATX form factor. There is no point in purchasing these mid-high end boards for multi-GPU, multi-display configs. There are only a handful of full size z87 boards that in my opinion earn their full-size status.
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
If it has fully integrated voltage regulators then why in blazes does it still need $20 worth of components buried beneath $3 heatsinks surrounding the cpu socket? Yeah, that's what I thought....DanNeely - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
What FIVR means to Intel isn't quite what you think it means. What's on package is the collection of VRs needed to provide power to all the separate sections of the CPU and to vary them as the chip clocks itself up and down. The motherboard itself still needs to do the heavy lifting to convert the 12V from the PSU to the voltage used by the DRAM and to a single input voltage the that CPU converts to the other levels it uses internally (IIRC this is the full load core voltage).I believe the reason why those regulators can be squeezed into the package while the ones still on the mobo are much larger is that the uncore/cache have relatively low power levels and the lower core voltages are only used at low CPU loads and thus don't need to push nearly as high of a peak current level.
WeaselITB - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
Wonderful review, Ian. Any chance of a Z87 vs Z77 vs ... comparison chart? It seems like functionalities of the processor are highly publicized, and the individual motherboard reviews chart the differences between chipset models within that family, but I don't recall seeing a comparison between chipset families. I know the chipset seems to be taking a smaller and smaller role these days, but it would still be helpful to exactly see the differences between generations.Thanks!
Kougar - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
It doesn't work with my 30" U3011 monitor either, yet another forum user with the same monitor didn't have any problem. Only difference was he used a Radeon and I use a GTX 480.
Creig - Thursday, June 27, 2013 - link
I only had time so far to skim this article, so I apologize if this question was already answered in the body. Is there any way to find out when each board starts shipping with the C2 stepping of the Z87 chipset? As some people are already aware, the C1 stepping has been shown to have issues with certain USB 3.0 controllers disconnecting when the computer awakes from sleep mode. The C2 stepping is apparently already shipping to manufacturers, but it would be handy to know a way to ensure that a person who orders a board in the near future receives the updated chipset.blackie333 - Friday, June 28, 2013 - link
I'm not sure that C2 stepping shipping already started, according to public available plan from May only samples have been sent to manufacturers. Mass production of C2 should start on 1st of July and manufacturers should start receiving them from the 30th of July. Boards based on C2 stepping should be available for end users from middle August.But you maybe have some more actual/insider information.