Gigabyte Z97X-SOC (LGA 1150) Sub-Zero Overclocking Review

Software

Gigabyte have their app center software which has a few different apps that you can install with it. These are the Overclocking focused ones so let’s take a look at these and I will try and give you some ideas and recommendations that I found while using them.

The Hardware Monitor is just that – a side panel that has all of the important info in one place. It is a very basic sidebar that you can install. For what it is worth I would strongly recommend not using this, as if you want an app like this you should use HWMonitor which does great and can log data and I myself use it in about every system I test and review. It is much more functional than this.

EasyTune is another of Gigabyte’s apps – with its Smart Quick Boost you can quickly overclock or underclock from within windows. Much as you would in the BIOS with the CPU Upgrade feature. This is a software feature that allows a user to simply overclock or underclock with a mouse click. For this board it really is a hard to justify feature for a board that is meant to cater to overclockers and here you have a feature that shouldn’t be here, it really might have a purpose on the Gaming line but not in the Overclocking centric series. It just seems wrong to find this feature.

The Advanced CPU OC settings will allow you to adjust and keep an eye on frequency and voltage settings that are within BIOS while you are still in Windows. This is actually semi-useful if you have this board installed in a case and can not access the hardware buttons to adjust the BCLK or multiplier. Voltage bumps will need to be done carefully and I would suggest going very slowly since you won’t want to accidentally set a voltage jump that was accidentally way too much and then you lose your prized CPU. Bottom line is to go slow, double check everything before committing to a profile.

Same goes for the Memory settings. You have limited access to these features and if you are going to tune the memory the best way to go about this is directly within BIOS.

If you want your settings to be retained after a reboot be sure to tick the top box in the settings section. Though take care with this setting as issues can arise with enabling some setting to load on reboot and this can really cause some headaches.

There is also a System Information Viewer application that is more advanced than the sidebar version if you do want to keep an eye on things.

It has direct control to the fan speeds, so make sure that those you want to control are plugged into the motherboard’s headers.

You can set up fan profiles or run fixed speeds.This is a really nice feature set for adjusting fans to cope with the different seasons.

Here you can see your system information and values as well as set up alerts for your system if it hits a specified value. This is ideal if you require a bit of extra piece of mind with your system.

In the record section you can log data, this may be ideal for those who will be using this board as a system base. If you are one that burns in their system for stability checking then this log viewer may be the tool you need to narrow down an issue that is plaguing your board.

If you will be overclocking and benchmarking on a bit more of a hardcore level, than this lightweight tweaking tool might just be the best choice for overclocking on the fly in Windows. With this tool you can input values and apply them while you are within windows. It is by far the most useful piece of Windows software for an overclocker using this board.