As usual, we will compare the speeds of the
mainboards in two different modes: during nominal mode and during CPU and
memory overclocking. The first mode is very interesting because it shows how well
the boards work in their default settings. There is a fact that most users do
not tweak their system, they simply select the optimal BIOS settings and do
nothing else. That is why we carried out a round of tests that almost does not
interfere with any of the default settings of the mainboard. For comparison
purposes, we also include the results of the motherboards that were considered
earlier:
·
ASRock Fatal1ty Z77 Professional
·
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 and ASRock Z77 Extreme6
·
ASRock Z77 Extreme9
·
ASRock Z77 OC Formula
·
Asus Maximus Formula V
·
Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe
·
Asus P8Z77-V LX
·
Asus P8Z77-V Premium
·
Asus SaberTooth Z77
·
Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3
·
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H and GA-Z77X-UD5H-WB WIFI
·
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP4 TH TH and Gigabyte
GA-Z77X-UP5
·
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP7
·
Intel DZ77BH-55K
·
Intel DZ77GA-70K and Intel DZ77RE-75K
·
MSI Z77 Mpower
·
MSI Z77A-GD65.
The results on
the chart are placed in descending order. The results of the ECS Z77H2-A2X
(v1.0) mainboard are marked with a darker color for your convenience.
Nominal
mode
We used Cinebench 11.5. All experiments
were performed five times and the average result of the five has been shown in
the performance charts.
CPU
test with Cinebench 11.5
We have used the Fritz Chess Benchmark
utility for a long time and it proves to be very illustrative. It creates repeated
results, its performance is the scale totally dependent on the number of calculation
flows.
Fritz
Chess Benchmark
A small video in x264 HD Benchmark 4.0 is
encoded in two passes and then the entire process is repeated four times. The
average results of the second pass are displayed on the following diagram:
x264
HD Benchmark 4.0
We measured the performance in Adobe
Photoshop using our own benchmark made from Retouch Artists Photoshop Speed
Test that has been creatively modified. It includes editing typically four
10-megapixel images taken from a digital photo camera.
Adobe
Photoshop CS5
In the archiving test, a 1 GB file is
compressed using LZMA2 algorithms, while other compression settings remain at
defaults.
7-zip,
9.2
Like in the data compression tests, the
faster 16 million of Pi digits are calculated, the better it will be. This is
the only benchmark where the number of processor cores doesn’t really matter,
because it creates a single-threaded load.
SuperPi
16M
As we do not overclock graphics in our
mainboard reviews, the next diagram shows only CPU tests from the 3DMark11 –
Physics Score. This score is achieved in a special physics test that imitates
the behavior of a complex gaming system when working with numerous objects:
Physical
score – 3DMark11
We use FC2 Benchmark Tool to go over Ranch
Small map ten times at 1920x1080 resolution with high image quality settings in
DirectX 10.
FarCry,
1920x1080 HQ
Resident Evil 5 also gives a performance
test. Its peculiarity is that it can be able to take advantage of multi-core processor
architecture. The test was done in DirectX10 at 1920x1080 resolution with high
image-quality settings. The average of the five test scores was taken for
further analysis:
Resident
Evil 5, 1920x1080 HQ, AAx8
Batman: Arkham City game also reacts
eagerly to any changes in the CPU clock frequency, but it uses DirectX 11. We
ran the game’s integrated benchmark five times with high image quality settings
and then took the average of the five scores for the diagrams.
Batman:
AC, 1920x1080 HQ, FXAA
We saw a great illustration of the fact
that related mainboards working under the same testing conditions manifest more
or less similar performance. This is also true for ECS Z77H2-A2X (v1.0)
although it is often the slowest of those comparable models. The difference is to
the minimum, but it still exists.
Overclocked mode
In the process of overclocking the
processor and the memory, different mainboards got different results, so we
summarized them in the table below for your convenience:
Information
about the overclocked mode
CPU
test, Cinbench 11.5
Fritz
Chess Benchmark
X24
HD Benchmark 4.0
Adobe
Photoshop CS5
7-zip,
9.20
Super
Pi 16M
Physics
score, 3D Mark11
FarCry,
1920x1080 HQ
Resident
Evil 5, 1920x1080 HQ AAx8
Batman:
1920x1080 HQ, FXAA
We did not see any severe changes in the
overall picture during the tests in overclocked mode. In all these tasks, this
board could not compete with the leaders and only did well in gaming tests.
