At first we would like to thank BIOSTAR for offering their GAMING Z97X motherboard for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

About BIOSTAR:

 

“In 1980, the IT industry was growing at a phenomenal rate. With wide experience in buying and selling electronic parts as well as researching on future demands for mainboards and add-on cards , the founder of BIOSTAR GROUP, established BIOSTAR MICROTECH INTERNATIONAL CORP in 1986.

 

In the early years, BIOSTAR concentrated on the manufacture of mainboards built for XT form factor. To maintain steady business growth, BIOSTAR managed to keep a large portion of its capital and manpower invested on the design and development of new products, which at the same time has enabled it to stay competitive in the rapid evolution of the computer industry.

 

BIOSTAR has enriched its competence in the design and manufacture of products such as add-on cards, multi-media and system products to develop the market and meet the demands of customers for more integrated solutions. In order to expand its capacity to meet customer demand globally, BIOSTAR was the first to establish a manufacturing facility in China in 1990. In 1998, its sales revenues exceeded US$130 million and it ranked 227th among the top 1000 enterprises in Taiwan. Furthermore, BIOSTAR obtained an ISO 9001 certification in 1999 and became a publicly listed company in the same year. BIOSTAR’s future has limitless possibilities.”

 

Intel Z97 chipset

 

The Intel® Z97 Express Chipset is a single-chipset design to support socket 1150 Intel® 4th generation Intel® Core™ processor-based platform. Provides excellent performance and increased bandwidth and stability. Intel® Z97 Express Chipset can also enable iGPU function, letting users enjoy the latest Intel® integrated graphic performance.The PC platform features improved adaptive performance that adds speed when you need it.When combined with advanced system responsiveness, the platform delivers the ultimate PC experience.

 

Intel LGA 1150 4th Generation Intel Core™ Processor support

 

The 4th generation Intel® Core™ processors are based on 4th generation Intel® Core™ processor architecture, with the latest 22nm process to maximize the processor platform. Based on the new LGA 1150 socket, 4th generation Intel® Core™ processors with graphics with DX11.1 & OCL1.2 cores , the overall performance will meet your demand.

 

Audio+

 

Hi-Fi 3D

 

Hi-Fi 3D Technology enables high definition multi-dimensional sound where it matters the most with height, width and depth in front of the listener. It's based on the physics of reproduced sound and the basic human perception of sound. The high resolution sound reproduction stands above existing sound enhancements or virtualization technologies.

 

Blu-ray Audio

 

Upgrading your Audio performance in the easiest way is choosing BIOSTAR ultimate Motherboard. It does support Blu-ray audio DRM (compatible driver/software) and provide the higher audio output of 24 bit/ 192KHz than the 16 bit/ 48KHz from the normal MB. You will experience the high quality sound effect with pure Blu-Ray Audio.

 

XLouder

 

XLouder button offers players a quicker way to enable the "XLouder" function, it increases the volume from "microphone", allowing players to have a quicker control over the microphone while enjoying the games.

 

Super Hi-Fi Audio Connectors

 

30uF “Golden” plated audio connectors provide superb signal conductivity, less oxidation, and best possible studio-grade headgears.

 

Hi-Fi AMP 3D

 

With the built-in new generation 3D amplifier, Biostar Hi-Fi 3D motherboard can drive major high-end headphones with over 100dB loads and up to 600ohm impedance. It allows you enjoy a fuller range of dynamic sound with crisper details and less distortion when you are using any headphones.

 

Smart Ear 3D

 

Smart Ear 3D provides true reproduction of virtual 3D space using any headphones! It delivers the true 3D sounds for music, movies and also games. It's fantastically, especially if you've never experienced this kind of acoustic phenomenon before.

 

Hi-Fi Pre AMP

 

Hi-Fi 3D Technology is built-in power amplifier to boost the speaker volume. It will increase double volume level with high-quality HD audio output. Hi-Fi 3D Technology not only improves on the headphone but also enhances your speakers' sound volume.

Hi-Fi preamp can boost the line level audio signals from analog and digital sources to levels that a power amplifier can detect and boost again to successfully power up the loadspeaker.

 

3D Sound Fields

 

The six types of 3D Sound Fields are including Hi-Fi Theater, Hi-Fi Hall, Hi-Fi Game spots, Hi-Fi Studio, Hi-Fi Conference and Hi-Fi Bistro for your different applications. Biostar Hi-Fi 3D technology involves the virtual placement of sound sources anywhere in 3 dimensional spaces, including behind, above or below.

 

Hi-V Caps

 

Hi-V Caps is "Metalized Polypropylene Film Capacitor" for each audio channel circuit. The customized audio capacitors deliver low noise, low distortion and wide bandwidth to achieve the highest sound resolution and sound expansion.

 

Hi-Fi Power

 

Audio power is an important factor in audio quality. Most AV equipment isolates the power supply for each analog and digital signal to gather high-quality sound reproduction. Equipped with BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Power technology, it will utilize audio components with independent power design for a significant reduction in electronic noise and superb sound quality.

 

Hi-Fi Ground

 

BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Ground ( Golden Line ) is noise-blocking multi-layer PCB design to isolates analog audio signals from digital sources. Unique PCB layout is ideal for exceptional clarity and high fidelity sound.

 

Hi-Fi Sound

 

BIOSTAR Hi-Fi series motherboards have a sampling rate of 192kHz/24-bit which delivers a high quality audio through an analog connection to your home theater system, multi-channel speakers and high-end headphone. You can enjoy real Blu-ray grade high-definition sound that you’ve never experienced before.

 

Video+

 

Next generation super high resolution images

 

The new 4K2K resolution enables high-definition image display with four times the resolution of full HD ,4K2K display is faithfully express bright, highly detailed content that fills the entire screen with lifelike images. Connectivity with PCs via a single HDMI cable for displaying 4K2K data.

 

HDMI 3D Visual

 

The HDMI 3D Visual provides a level of interoperability for devices designed to deliver 3D content over the HDMI connection. The latest HDMI Specification adds key enhancements to support the market requirements for bringing broadcast 3D content into the home featuring key enhancements for 3D applications including the addition of mandatory 3D formats for broadcast content.

 

DVI

 

DVI is better than VGA for LCD displays since it is digital while VGA is analog. For LCD displays, the picture is digitized pixel per pixel. Through DVI, the panel gets data for each pixel, so the picture generated in the Graphics device matches the pixels on the panel itself.

 

DisplayPort

 

DisplayPort is a digital display interface developed by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). The interface is primarily used to connect a video source to a display device such as a computer monitor, though it can also be used to carry audio.

 

DX11.1

 

Direct3D 11.1 enables Direct3D 10 APIs and Direct3D 11 APIs to use one underlying rendering device. And it allows developers to achieve a high speed, fully conformant software rasterizer.

 

ATI CrossFire X™ Technology

 

ATI CrossFireX™ is the ultimate multi-GPU performance gaming platform. With game-dominating power, ATI CrossFireX technology enables two or more discrete graphics processors to work together to improve system performance. It supports up to four ATI Radeon™ HD graphics cards, making it the most scalable gaming platform ever!

 

Speed+

 

Killer E2200 LAN

 

BIOSTAR Gaming series motherboard adopts Killer E2200 LAN, a dedicated LAN chip for gaming network; it is designed to provide the highest performance for online games. Killer E2200 with Advanced Stream Detect feature can automatically detect the game traffic flow and other network traffic to ensure it’s quality of instant messaging, allowing players always in control of the network hardware and enjoy the thrill of games without delay.

 

USB 3.1

 

USB 3.1 is a new standard known as SuperSpeed +, in order to highlight the improvement from USB3.0 (SuperSpeed) transmission speed. The new standard doubles data transfer rate from 5Gbps to 10Gbps. It is also backward compatible with existing USB3.0 connectors and all the USB 2.0 devices.

 

PCIe M.2

 

The extremely data transfer rate can be up to 1000MB/s (PCIe x2) and also compatible with SATA interface M.2, up to 6Gb/s. It is specifically designed for higher performance SSD.

 

Dual GbE LAN

 

The primary advantage is the doubling of bandwidth which allows the network bandwidth of 1G to become that of 2G, and with two high-speed gigabit networks plus zero packet delay that provides super high data transmission efficiency. Another major advantage is "Load Balancing", it allows users to attach both network adapters to a single network. It will therefore support the aggregation "teaming" function by merging the two connections to support multiple aggregation modes. In addition, two Gigabit Ethernet lightning protection circuits reducing the probability of damage from lightning or other power surge. So if one connection is disabled the other connection will automatically kick in.

 

SmartSpeedLAN

 

SmartSpeedLAN is a free software application which monitors and manages your PC's network behavior. With user-friendly GUI, it allows you to select and prioritize different types of network traffic, including gaming, media streaming, communications or web surfing.You can also set any specific applications, choosing to prioritize or block accordingly. SmartSpeedLAN can feature automatic management options that use adaptive networking intelligence to ensure that you are getting the best online experience possible.

 

Charger Booster

 

Charger booster is the best and efficient charger solution for apple devices such as iPad, iPhone. Basically, Charger booster Technology is able to boost the charging time to be more efficiency and faster once any apple goods connecting to our Motherboard. With charger booster technology, you are able to charge your apple devices up to 42 % faster.

 

SATA Express

 

The SATA Express supports both SATA and PCIe storage solutions and maximum data transfer speed up to 10Gb/s.

 

XMP

 

Press XMP key to automatically adjust XMP MEMORY to the best performance and enjoying the extreme pleasure of the stability and speed.

 

PCI-E Gen 3.0

 

PCI-E 3.0 is the next evolution of the ubiquitous and general-purpose PCI Express I/O standard. At 8GT/s bit rate, the interconnect performance bandwidth is doubled over PCI-E 2.0, while preserving compatibility with software and mechanical interfaces.

 

SATAIII 6Gbps

 

SATAIII 6Gbps provides a higher bandwidth to retrieve and transfer HD media. With this super speed data transfer, SATAIII allows an incredible data boost which is 2x faster than the SATA 3G.

 

USB 3.0

 

Experience Fastest data transfers at 5 Gbps with USB 3.0--the new latest connectivity standard. Built to connect easily with next-generation components and peripherals, USB 3.0 transfers data 10X faster and backward compatible with previous USB 2.0 components.

 

T-Overclocker

 

T-overclocker presents a simple Windows-based system performance enhancement and utility management. It features several powerful yet easy to use tools such as overclocking for system performance enhancement, CPU and memory special enhancement, a smart-fan control for managing fan speed control of both CPU cooling fan, north-bridge chipset cooling fan, PC health for monitoring system status, and pre-set OC modes for easy OC.

 

Durable+

 

Super Durable Ferrite Choke

 

Super Durable Ferrite Choke brings the benefits of higher current capacity, lower energy loss and better power stability.

 

Super Durable Solid Caps

 

The best quality solid state capacitors with ultra low ESR design, the Super Durable Solid Caps doubles the lifespan.

 

Moistureproof PCB

 

The popularity of PC usage and working environment is getting deteriorating and moist(rural, coastal, etc.). The PCB will be oxidizing easily by damp or absorbed moisture, and ionic migration or CAF (Conductive Anodic Filament) will be generated. Moisture-proof PCB meets high density and high reliability requirements for moisture proof.

 

Low RdsOn P-Pak MOS

 

Low resistance design can significantly reduce the current out of energy loss.

Low temperature, small size, excellent thermal conductivity.

 

12 Phase Power Design

 

8+4 phase VRM design with high quality power components such as low IR Direct FET MOSFETs for lower temperatures, Ferrite core chokes with lower hysteresis loss, and high quality Japanese-made solid capacitors all add up to ensure longer system life and lower power loss.

 

Super Conductive Heatsink Design

 

Massive heatsink design provides super fast heat dissipation, high stability and reliability for extreme performance.

 

100% Solid Caps

 

With armor-plated Biostar Technology, all capacitors are placed with 100% solid capacitors that have a lasting life cycle, durability and stability for crucial components.

 

Protection+

 

Super Anti-Surge Protection

 

BIOSTAR exclusive Anti-Surge design provides the best protection of board and extends the product life. Having the latest model of "Transient Voltage Suppressor" on- board can effectively protect the board circuit, reducing the shocks caused by ESD as well as other damages arising from overvoltage transients to enhance system durability.

 

ESD Protection

 

ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) is the major factor to destroy PC by electrical overstress(EOS) condition, ESD occurred by PC users when touch any devices connect to PC, which may result in damage to motherboard or parts .ESD protection is designed to protect the motherboard and equipment from damage by EOS

 

USB Polyswitch

 

On board dedicated power fuse to help prevent USB port failure. It prevents USB Port overcurrent and safegurand your system and device lifespan.

 

BIOS Virus Protection

 

When enabled, the BIOS will protect the boot sector and partition table by halting the system and flashing a warning message whether there's an attempt to write to these areas.

 

OC / OV / OH Protection

 

All BIOSTAR special circuit design detects overvoltage conditions and prevents voltage surges from spreading in real time. It also actively cuts off the overvoltage supply to protect your system. Over current protection, avoid motherboard from damage when doing overclock or an unusual current import. Over heat protection, avoid motherboard & CPU from burning when exceeding the temperature limitation.

 

High Quality ESD

 

BIOSTAR Hi-Fi series motherboards provide high quality ESD (Electro-Static Discharge) solution for its front I/O panel. This function prevents static electricity and reduces the damage to the motherboards when you are plugging or unplugging your headphone.

 

DIY+

 

GAMING COMMANDER

 

External GAMING COMMANDER BOX features an independent USB DAC, dedicated MIC_IN and Line-out jacks, Buttons for volume adjustments, Diagnose LED for CPU/ DDR/ VGA temperature indicator, and exclusive XLouder button for quick MIC boost. GAMING COMMANDER software is a user friendly interface with equalizer function which allows users to make his own voice effects while enjoying the games.

 

UEFI BIOS

 

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a brand new framework that provides a revolutionary interface. It is a modern clear and easy-to-use graphical user interface. The UEFI comes with a colorful easy-understand icons leads users into the setup layer directly.

 

Header Zone

 

Users can easily assemble their own computer, a simple-swap data discs and other accessories.

 

BIO-Remote 2

 

BIO-Remote2 Technology is featuring users a better Home Theater environment. Users who own either Android mobile or Apple goods are able to access and control your PC remotely; At this moment, you’re smart device became a intelligent and functional remote controller; more than that, BIO-Remote2 also includes both function of mouse pad and power point presentation mode. more...

 

Rapid Switch 2

 

Engineered by BIOSTAR, the exquisite onboard switches allow you to easily shut down and restart your system.

 

Super Rapid Debug 3

 

Super Rapid Debug 3 posts critical POST code information on a vivid digital LED display.

 

Super Durable Box Header

 

Super Durable Box Header provides solid, secure and durable connections between motherboard and peripheral cables.

 

LN2 Switch

 

With LN2 mode activated the BIOSTAR motherboard is optimization to remedy the cold boot bug during POST at an extremely low temperature and help the system boot successfully.

 

We have received recently another Z97 motherboard from BIOSTAR in our test lab, but this time their high-end Gaming Z97X series; the box comes with a revised box-art in order to get in line with the current design trends:

 

 

 

 

Logos of some of the supported technologies are listed on the top cover:

 

 

 

On the back side of the box we will receive an explanation of the motherboard interfaces, the 5.25’’ (Gaming Commander), but also some of the board main features are explained in more detail:

 

 

 

After lifting the top cover we will be able to spot the bundle along with the Z97X Gaming motherboard:

 

 

 

Let’s take a closer look! The leaflet we have seen before is meant to aid with the Gaming Commander installation; we will also receive the I/O Shield, one User’s Manual, a special card, mounting screws for the Gaming Commander but also a set of SATA cables, wrapped together with Velcro:

 

 

 

The manual will list the motherboard specifications along with detailed instructions for installation:

 

 

 

The small card we were talking about is in fact a custom-designed USB Flash Drive which holds the necessary drivers and manual which saves us a lot of time during system setup and an Internet connection is no longer necessary for downloading the drivers in the first stage:

 

 

 

 

The 5.25’’ box is the bonus addition to the Gaming motherboard:

 

 

 

Three connectors must be plugged into the motherboard header for full functionality: one custom made for the Gaming Panel, one USB 2.0 and one for Frontal Audio; by occupying the F_AUDIO header, the case audio headers will no longer be used:

 

 

 

The Gaming Commander is linked to an application and drivers will be installed for it too; we’ve got diagnostic LEDs on the left side, Volume Up/Down buttons, XLouder feature On/Off button, one Mute button, the Line-Out and MIC-IN jacks, one MIX On/Off button but also a large CPU temperature indicator which changes color depending on the current status:

 

 

 

The cables come out of the back but we have found them to be a little bit shorter than we would have liked:

 

 

 

The Z97X Gaming motherboard has a nice, revised styling compared to their previous Hi-Fi Z97WE we have reviewed previously. The Gaming Armor design implies extra plastic shrouds located in various areas of the product:

 

 

 

In the CPU VRM area we have 12 power phases, which are cooled by separate black aluminum heatsinks; these can be observed if looking carefully under the plastic armor:

 

 

 

 

As expansion, we will find 3x PCI-E x16 3.0 slots but also 3x PCI-E x1 2.0 slots; the PCI-E x16 slots support CrossfireX:

 

 

 

Near the CMOS battery we will also find the Killer E2201 Gigabit LAN controller:

 

 

 

The audio hardware is also protected by the plastic shroud; for this interface we will find one Realtek ALC898 8-channel audio CODEC:

 

 

 

On the bottom area of the PCB we get to see the F_Audio header, one Gaming_Panel header, the SPDIF_OUT2 header, two USB 2.0 headers, the J1 and JCMOS jumpers, two SYS_FAN headers, one Frontal Panel header, the XMP button but also one Clear CMOS button:

 

 

 

The nearby ASMedia ASM1184e is a PCI-Express packet switch:

 

 

 

 

We also have here the ITE IT8622E chip for monitoring fan speeds, temperatures and voltages:

 

 

 

A Winbond BIOS chip can be also found under the Z97 chipset heatsink:

 

 

 

Speaking of the heatsink, we can see again the Gaming logo and design present here too:

 

 

 

The board is equipped with a total of 6 SATA3 connectors (two of them being controlled by an ASM1061 controller with AHCI support), but also one SATA Express Connector which supports 1x SATA Express 10Gb/s devices or 2x SATA 3 6Gb/s); nearby we have one frontal USB 3.0 header:

 

 

 

This is not all! Under the central BIOSTAR plastic shroud we also have one M.2 expansion slot available:

 

 

 

Moving on, we will get to see the Super Rapid Debug 3 display, which is also able to display the CPU temperature after boot-up and the 24-pin ATX power connector:

 

 

 

The Reset and Power switches are available on the top right corner of the PCB; the Reset switch LED also doubles up as a HDD activity indicator:

 

 

 

The memory channels are defined by different colors of the slots:

 

 

 

Three additional fan headers are available near the CPU socket; two of them are located between the memory slots and the VRM and one is placed between the left side of the VRM and the I/O connectors:

 

 

 

The 8-pin ATX power header is to be found again in the top left area of the PCB:

 

 

On the rear I/O we will find rich connectivity options:

 

-1x PS/2 keyboard port

-2x USB 3.1 port

-4x USB 3.0 port

-2x HDMI connector

-1x DisplayPort connector

-1x DVI connector

-2x RJ45 port

-5x Audio Connector

-1x S/PDIF Out port

 

 

Here is also a view on the back side of the PCB:

 

 

The Z97X Gaming motherboard UEFI interface has been redesigned when compared to the Z97WE and it is now easier to understand and a lot of unnecessary options have been removed. The main menu sections are available on the bottom area, while on the left BIOSTAR has placed the sensor readings for the CPU current speed and voltage, the memory current frequency and voltage, the CPU fan speeds but also the current CPU temperature. The Main section shows us BIOS information, along with the board code name, total installed memory, system language and here we can also adjust the date and time:

 

 

The Advanced sub-menu comes with various sub-sections:

 

 

From the PCI Subsystem Settings area we can modify the PCI Latency Timer setting and other PCI Express Device Register settings:

 

 

The ACPI Settings menu will allow us to work with the usual power management options:

 

 

Next we have the Trusted Computing settings menu:

 

 

The CPU Settings and Information menu will allow us to set the number of concurrent active cores, but also enable or disable some of its features:

 

 

The SATA Configuration menu will allow us to work with the interfaces (including the ASM1061 controller):

 

 

The Intel Rapid Start Technology menu has a section of its own:

 

 

The USB configuration menu allows us to work with some related options, including hardware delays and timeouts, mass storage device options and so on:

 

 

The fan headers can be also customized by using the Smart FAN functionality:

 

 

Inside the Super IO Configuration menu, we will also find the GAMING_Panel Configuration sub-section:

 

 

Here we can enable or disable it, or change some of the available settings:

 

 

The HW Monitor menu allows us to set the system ShutDown Temperature if necessary, but also we can see all monitoring stats:

 

 

Intel Smart Connect Technology also has a menu of its own:

 

 

Same we can say about the Network Stack Configuration menu:

 

 

Next, we will navigate to the Chipset menu, which welcomes us with the PCH-IO Configuration and SA Configuration sub-sections:

 

 

The PCH-IO area will allow us to enable or disable the network interfaces, audio but also enable or disable the EuP feature:

 

 

The SA Configuration sub-section will allow us configure VT-d, choose primary display initialization, disable or enable CPU internal graphics and choose functionality modes for each slot:

 

 

The Boot menu is pretty standard, with the option to disable start-up full screen logo display, BIOS flash protection, boot option filter and many more:

 

 

From the Security menu we will be able to set an administrator or user password; also from here we will be able to enable or disable the Secure Boot menu:

 

 

Overclocking/system tuning options are all placed inside the O.N.E. menu, which also has multiple sub-sections:

 

 

The CPU Configuration menu allows us change the default CPU multiplier, change the CPU Core current values, modify the power limits but also change the bus frequency:

 

 

The DRAM Configuration menu allows us to stay on Automatic configuration, switch on Manual or choose one of the predefined profiles:

 

 

The Voltages Configuration sub-menu must be treated with care after we are well-aware of the limitations in order not to damage our hardware:

 

 

From the BIOSTAR Memory Insight menu we can read more details regarding the supported memory timings for each slot:

 

 

The Save&Exit menu is also equipped with several save slots which come in pretty handy:

 

 

Test Setup

 

CPU: Intel I5 4690K Retail

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14

Motherboard: BIOSTAR GAMING Z97X

RAM: GeIL Black Dragon 2x4GB DDR2133 (@1600)

Video: HIS 280X

Power Supply: Cooler Master 850W

SSD: OCZ Vector 150

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840

 

With the last Z97X motherboard we have tested, we have also switched to a newer processor, the Devils Canyon Intel Core i5 4690K; with it, we were able to overclock at noticeable higher levels than our old 4670K variant, succeeding to obtain 4.7GHz fully stable, with a voltage of 1.275 set in UEFI:

 

 

Validation

 

 

For stability testing, we have used the Prime95 utility, Blend mode:

 

 

We have then fired up AIDA64 utility, for revealing even more information regarding the motherboard, the CPU IMC and the Z97 chipset:

 

Motherboard

 

 

 

Haswell IMC

 

 

Z97 Chipset

 

 

As extra software, we would like to remind of eHot-Line, which helps us submit tickets to the tech team in case something goes wrong with our setup:

 

 

 

The E2201 Killer NIC is accompanied by the Killer Network Manager, besides the drivers which will help us configure our system further:

 

 

 

Next, we could remind of Smart Ear 3D, which helps us reproduce a virtual 3D audio space meant for music, movies or also for games:

 

 

 

The more advanced T-Overclocker application delivers extra information regarding the installed CPU and memory, but also aids overclocking in Windows and is also equipped with an H/W Monitor:

 

 

 

The installed memory details can be found out from the respective tab:

 

 

 

Next, we would remind of the OC Tweaker section, which is split in two sections and allows us to modify important settings like Base Clock, CPU Ratio, Ring Ratio and more:

 

 

 

Voltages need to be adjusted too depending on the selected speed, in order to obtain a fully-stable system:

 

 

 

From the H/W Monitor section, we will be able to read the current values of the voltages:

 

 

 

A separate section is dedicated to fan speeds and temperature readings:

 

 

 

 

The BIOS update utility helps us perform an online update procedure, by downloading automatically the respective file and applying it or we can supply the file ourselves:

 

 

 

The Green Power Utility from BIOSTAR is meant to enhance energy efficiency by disabling extra phases when they are not needed:

 

 

 

The provided Gaming Commander box is accompanied with software, which helps with sound mixing and can also provide an EQ which is fully configurable:

 

 

 

 

If desired, we can always change the boot-up BIOSTAR splash screen with our custom image, by using the supplied utility:

 

 

 

 

Synthetic Benchmarks

 

AIDA64

 

Memory

 

CPU Queen

 

CPU PhotoWorxx

 

CPU Zlib

 

CPU AES

 

CPU Hash

 

FPU VP8

 

FPU Julia

 

FPU Mandel

 

FPU SinJulia

 

Cinebench R11.5

 

Cinebench R15

 

Crystalmark

 

PCMark Vantage

 

PCMark 7

 

PCMark 8

 

SuperPI XS

 

Wprime

 

X264 Benchmark 5.01

 

3DMark 2006

3DMark Vantage

3DMark 11

3DMark 2013

Games

 

Crysis 2

F1 2012

Metro Last Light

 

By using a KingFast E-Drive 2.5'' SATAIII SLC 120GB SSD, we have performed ATTO runs in order to find the performance differences between the motherboards:

 

ECS Z87H3-A3X

Gigabyte G1.Sniper M5

BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z97WE

BIOSTAR GAMING Z97X

In our RMAA test, the board scores very good with its ALC implementation and succeeds to produce better results than the previously tested boards.

ECS GANK Z87H3-A3X 16/44

Gigabyte G1 Sniper M5 16/44

BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z97WE 16/44

BIOSTAR GAMING Z97X 16/44

ECS GANK Z87H3-A3X 24/96

Gigabyte G1 Sniper M5 16/44

BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z97WE 24/96

BIOSTAR GAMING Z97X 24/96

 

BIOSTAR has arrived to the market with their high-end board a little bit later but not without a lot of improvements like a revamped design, a bonus Gaming Commander box, a solid VRM, USB 3.1 capabilities, a redesigned and easier to use UEFI and more. Through the board features we cannot help but to remind of the superior audio implementation, SATA Express and M.2 support (slot which is hidden under the plastic shroud for a stylish appearance) and good overclocking results.

 

The Gaming Commander box is helpful for showing critical CPU temperatures but it should improve a bit on the monitoring side and not concentrate as much on the Karaoke features, which are mostly used in Asian countries. We have also found that the cables which come with the box are a little bit short so the positioning possibilities inside a spare 5.25’’ area are limited.

 

The included overclocking software has retained the same skin as before and we feel like they should have been updated a little at least to include the Gaming Commander theme, as ASROCK si doing with their boards. Speaking of the software and drivers, it is great that BIOSTAR has included the USB Flash drive in the form of a credit card for installing drivers for the first time, in case we do not have Internet access and speeds up things quite a bit; however, after a while the drivers and utilities there will become dated and we will still have to update to the latest versions from the manufacturers’ website.

 

The board can be found online for about 186 Euros which we find to be decent considering the included benefits.

 

BIOSTAR GAMING Z97X Motherboard is Recommended For:

 

 

We would like to thank again to BIOSTAR for making this review possible!