Biostar Gaming Z97X (LGA 1150) Motherboard Review

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging Intel's Z97 platform has been around with us for almost a year now, so the marketplace is slightly saturated with motherboards from a huge array of manufacturers. Offering full support for the Haswell Refresh CPU's, it has really brought new performance levels to the consumer market. While still producing the Z97 platform, Intel are soon to release the newest CPU lineup, named Skylake; with that introducing the new LGA 1151 socket motherboards. Today we are going to be looking at a motherboard from Biostar, but first a little history lesson. Did you know Biostar has been around in the computer tech sector for as long as Gigabyte? That's right, 29 years old and I bet some of you didn't even know they existed. They've primarily stuck to OEM motherboards, which get bundled up into pre-built computers for high street retailers. Biostar has a rich history, being the first company to introduce Wi-fi on a motherboard back in 2003, the first manufacturer to offer an AM2 socket motherboard in 2007 and the first to offer a motherboard with USB 3.1 ports; today we will be looking at the board. The motherboard in question is Biostar's gaming motherboard, the Gaming Z97X. With more features than you could shake a stick at, it has more than enough wealth of knowledge built into it and with USB 3.1 as standard; it shouldn't be a slouch either. Key Features Manufacturers nowadays need to find innovative ways to stand out from the crowd, Biostar is no different and bring a nice array of software CPU / System Temperature Monitoring CPU / System Fan Monitoring Smart / Manual CPU / System Fan Control System Voltage Monitoring Smart Ear headphone Utility BIO-Remote2 Biostar MAGIX Multimedia Software Suite Smart Speed LAN For more information on these functions, please visit the Biostar Gaming Z97X product page. Packaging and Accessories A nice style box, simple styling with the Biostar Gaming logo in the bottom right. Enlarged feature of the Killer E2201 networking chip. In the box, we find 4x SATA cables, IO shield, manual, cable strap, screws, a 4GB USB stick/ card with all the drivers and utilities on and also the Gaming Commander. A Closer Look & Layout Analysis Styling is very simple here; following the trend of black covers with a black PCB. I understand the theory behind using different coloured DIMM slots for the different channels, but surely dark grey or maybe even red would be better than brown. A very nice array of connection options on the I/O. Left to right: PS2 combo port, 2x USB 3.0 ports, 1x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI port, 1x DVi port, 1x HDMI port, 1x Killer LAN port, 2x USB 3.1 ports, 1x Intel LAN port, 2x USB 3.0 ports and HD audio jacks. Along the bottom of the board, we see all of the usual headers such as USB 2.0, fan headers and audio. Along with those, we also have a Gaming Commander header for the Commander unit and also an XMP and Clear CMOS buttons; something very useful on a gamer-oriented board. On the far right, we also see a LN2 switch, allowing the motherboard to boot in temperatures as low as Coming back up the side, we have a small array of SATA ports, along with 1 SATA express and a USB 3.0 header. Look at all the options, 6 USB ports (4 USB 3.0), DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI in and HDMI out, ethernet, wireless adapter plugs and a full array of HD audio jacks. Around the CPU socket, is a very uncluttered 12 phase power setup with very simple heatsinks on the Mosfets. The chipset heatsink is hidden under the Gaming logo shroud. Concealed under the shroud, you can find the M.2 port. I particularly like this feature as it protects the M.2 card from any possible damage from installing a PCIe device incorrectly; potentially being forced onto the card and snapping it. The Test System and Test Software Before we delve into any testing we would like to take this opportunity to review our test system. Test System Motherboard: varies by review CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K processor GPU: Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X graphics card RAM: Cruicial Ballistix 16GB 1866MHz dual-channel kit Cooling: Thermaltake Water 3.0 AIO with Gelid GC-Extreme Case: Lian Li T80 Test Bench Storage Drives: Main storage: Crucial M550 512GB, Test Devices: SanDisk Extreme Pro 240GB SSD, Plextor 256GB M6e M.2 SSD and Patriot SuperSonic Magnum 256GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive PSU: Be Quiet Power Zone 1000W Operating System: Windows 8.1 64-bit Networking: ASUS RT-AC68U router Test Software SiSoft Sandra Engineer - available here WPrime - available here Cinebench - available here 3DMark - available here Bioshock Infinite - available here Tomb Raider - available here AIDA 64 Engineer - available here Latencymon - available here Rightmark Audio Analyser - available here LAN Speed Test Lite - available here Passmark - available here BIOS and Overclocking First impressions of the BIOS, it feels like its come straight from 1997. Similar quality to that of Theme hospital on a 1080p screen. There is no easy BIOS option, it seems Biostar has combined an easy BIOS with a typical legacy BIOS. Static on the left you have a simplified hardware monitor; giving you all the useful information that you actually want to know. The overclocking procedure on this board is a little confusing, but very well detailed. Biostar is on the right track with this BIOS and it wouldn't take a lot to make it amazing. Overclocking This motherboard was a little bit confusing when overclocking; it would not achieve a stable 4.8GHz overclock with auto power controls. It required a manual voltage increase to 1.275v; which it held reasonably well throughout the overclocked testing. For those who don't know Haswell and Haswell Refresh overclocking on the LGA 1150 platform is largely limited by the CPU due to the onboard VRM controls. Software Overview So the manufacturer's point of difference is not only the components it uses, but also what it can offer the user during day to day use. Biostar, like others, offer many different programs for you to choose from once set up which can help to make your life a little easier. Usually these programs are useless, offering bloatware or some pretty pointless programs that you wouldn't normally download. Biostar seems to be a little lacking on the graphical side of things, but the programs are there. A great and simple program is BIOScreen. This simple little utility is based on somewhat of a TV screen. The buttons are so simple, but they don't need to do anymore. Left to right, Load image loads the BIOS image, Transform saves the current BIOS, Update BIOS....updates the BIOS, Close and About are self-explanatory. eHot-Line is an extremely quick and simple way of getting in touch with Biostar technical support. Due to this being a Biostar utility, it already has all of the motherboard, CPU and OS information ready. GPU, or Green Power Utility is an instant power-changer. Simple clicks change the power set-up from low power to performance in 4 increments. It works much better on Auto setting. Toverclocker seems to be the most refined part of the utility line-up. It displays all the needed information from the CPU and Memory (RAM). From there you also have an Overclock system, which is rather in-depth for a Windows-based program and a Hardware monitor. CPU Performance Cinebench CINEBENCH is a real-world cross-platform test suite that evaluates your computer's CPU performance. Cinebench R15 is a totally free utility and is available for download here. The Gaming Z97X performs very well here, out-performing the Hi-Fi Z97WE by 12 points in the Multi-test. WPrime wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions. wPrime is a free utility that is available for download here. Again the Biostar board giving very strong scores, being the best performer at stock in this test. SiSoft Sandra The SiSoft Sandra Dhrystone and Whetstone benchmarks are widely used measures of compute power and performance for a wide array of real world usage scenarios. You can find out more details on these tests here or download SiSoft Sandra here. Joint top of the stock scores here with the AsRock ITX board here. GPU Performance 3DMark 3DMark Firestrike is Futuremark's latest creation for testing the GPU performance of high-end gaming PCs using Direct X 11 graphics. You can download a free basic version of 3DMark here. Tomb Raider Tomb Raider is a popular action-adventure video game published by Square Enix based on the Tomb Raider franchise. The game was released in 2013 and as of March 2014 had sold 6 million copies. Bioshock Infinite Bioshock Infinite is a first person shooter developed by Irrational Games that is the third instalment of the Bioshock series. The game is the last to be produced by Irrational Games before they announced their closure in February 2014. The game has sold over 4 million copies since its 2013 release. The bandwidth giving to the PCIe lanes is now so much that the only graphical restriction now is the actual graphics card. Memory Performance For our memory tests we use the built-in memory benchmarks in AIDA64 Engineer and SiSoft Sandra. For more details on each of the benchmarks please see here and here respectively. AIDA64 Engineer SiSoft Sandra Combined Latency Test Some poorer than expected results here and something which I'm sure will be the only negative point of the motherboard. SATA, M.2 and USB Performance To test the storage performance in our motherboard reviews we use AIDA's Disk Benchmark utility built into their AIDA64 Engineer Edition software package and run linear read and write tests. We run each of the benchmark tests on a SATA III, USB 3.0 and M.2 device. For SATA III testing we use a SanDisk Extreme Pro 240GB, for USB 3.0 testing we use the Supersonic Magnum 256 GB USB 3.0 flash drive and for M.2 testing we use Plextor's 256GB M.2 M6e SSD. The drives are always formatted before use. Linear Read Linear Write Very strong performance here with across all three of the test scenarios. Slightly poor M.2 read scores, but well within a reasonable range. Networking Performance For our networking tests we connect the test system up to our Intel Gigabit enabled ASUS Rampage IV Extreme X79 motherboard test system through the ASUS RT-AC68U router and run our tests. We opted for this over a direct point-to-point connection because we wanted to simulate real world performance. For our WiFi tests we do the same except we connect the test system to the ASUS RT-AC68U router via WiFi at a distance of 2 metres from the router. LAN Speed Test Lite LAN Speed Test was designed from the ground up to be a simple but powerful tool for measuring file transfer, hard drive, USB Drive, and Local Area Network (LAN) speeds (wired & wireless). It does this by building a file in memory, then transfers it both ways (without effects of windows file caching) while keeping track of the time. Download the free Lan Speed Test Lite utility from here. The Biostar Gaming Z97X is equipped with dual LAN ports, one controlled by the Killer E2201 and the other by Intel I2I8V. On this motherboard, both score very close together and offer very similar results to the other E2201 and I2I8V scores. Passmark Performance Test 8 The PassMark Advanced Network Test (which is part of PerformanceTest) is designed to test the data transfer rate between two computers both of which must be running PerformanceTest. One of the computers must act as the server and will sit waiting for a connection. The other computer acts as a client. It connects to the server machine and sends data to it for the duration of the test. You can download a trial version of PerformanceTest from here. Ethernet The Passmark tests are offering some very strong and consistent scores here. On average they would be the best scores on the board. Slightly higher CPU usage for the I2I8v, but still lower than the E2201. Audio Performance RightMark Audio Analyser (RMAA) RMAA suite is designed for testing quality of analog and digital paths of any audio device. The results are obtained by playing and recording test signals passed through the tested audio path by means of frequency analysis algorithms. A more common mark is also provided for those unfamiliar with measured technical parameters. Available here. We run the RMAA test using a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable connecting the line out to the line in to test the quality of the motherboard audio codec not any external audio devices. We run the complete playback and recording test at default settings and then get RMAA to interpret the results giving the below outputs. We sync the playback and recording audio devices to the same setting as the test for accurate results. 16 Bit, 44KHz (DVD Quality) 16 Bit, 96KHz (Studio Quality) 24 Bit, 96KHz (Studio Quality) Some very good audio scores here when using RightMark AudioAnalyser. Latencymon Audio Latency Analyser Latencymon is a Windows tool that analyses the capabilities of a computer system to handle real-time data streams properly. It may help to find the cause for interruptions in real-time audio and video streams, also known as drop-outs. Available here. Fully updated with the Realtek ALC898 drivers, the latency is the best I've seen through my testing. Power Consumption Power Consumption To measure power consumption we use a killawatt meter and measure the total system power draw at the wall. We run three different use-case scenarios for 5 minutes and take the average reading. Slightly higher figures here for the Biostar board, but nothing to cry about. Final Thoughts Pricing Sourcing the Biostar Gaming Z97X in both the UK and USA proves hard from reputable retailers. However, the pricing for UK is approximately £140 and USA is around $180. Summary I'm a little bit confused with this board. Biostar is one of the oldest motherboard manufacturers out there, originating back in 1986, yet I bet most would have never heard of the brand in a general tech conversation. It seems that lately they have branched from the OEM manufacturing of cheap and cheerful computers to targeting the enthusiast market with Gaming and Hi-Fi specified motherboards. The component knowledge is there and is proven through my testing and results, but the software side of things is a tad weak. The performance of this board is simply amazing. It has stormed in and given the likes of the Gigabyte Z97N Gaming 5 and UD5H a serious run for its money. Offering strong CPU, GPU and networking performance, it would be hard not to consider this board. The specification of this motherboard is something not to be sniffed at, dual LAN and dual HDMI, this would make for a serious LAN gaming machine; the only other motherboards that offer dual LAN are some serious money, such as the ASUS SABERTOOTH. Along with those features, this motherboard also offers USB 3.1, the brand new format that offers up to 10Gb/s transfer speeds. The bundled software is good, it has all the features you would want; it just isn't that good-looking or fluid. The bundled in Gaming Commander is a nice feature, offering audio jacks, volume controls, diagnostic LED's and CPU temperature indicator into one simple unit. In today's marketplace, the consumer buys with their eyes as well as their wallet; if it looks good, it's very likely to sell. The motherboard does look like it means business, but the software aesthetics are what brings this board down, it feels and looks so cheap and tacky; like my earlier reference to Theme Hospital at 1080p. The BIOS is also something that has a similar problem; the features are there, it just looks dated. Biostar know how to make good-looking software, just look at the Hi-Fi Z97WE and how good that BIOS looked. Now my last gripe is with the graphic card support. It hosts CrossfireX compatibility, but not SLI support; if this is a true gaming motherboard, it should offer both. Biostar have made a cracking product here, I just think they need to spend a bit more time on the software and it would really make this motherboard a serious contender to take on the premium motherboards like the Gigabyte Gaming 7 or ASUS ROG series. This is an award winning product, it can compete with the competition in terms of performance, but it just needs the complete package in terms of software to keep up with rival offerings. Pros Amazing performance High quality audio Excellent networking options: Killer E2201 and Intel I2I8V Hidden and protected M.2 slot USB 3.1 compatibility Cons BIOS and software is a little dated Few resellers, letting the opposition get the sales No SLI support "Made with the gamers at heart, using top quality components to truly bring almost 30 years of knowledge to the enthusiasts" Thank you to Biostar for providing this review sample.