Gigabyte Z77-HD4 Review
by Ian Cutress on May 19, 2013 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gigabyte
- Z77
Many thanks to...
We must thank the following companies for kindly providing hardware for our test bed:
Thank you to OCZ for providing us with 1250W Gold Power Supplies.
Thank you to G.Skill for providing us with the memory kits.
Thank you to ASUS for providing us with the AMD GPUs and some IO Testing kit.
Thank you to ECS for providing us with the NVIDIA GPUs.
Thank you to Corsair for providing us with the Corsair H80i CLC.
Thank you to Rosewill for providing us with the 500W Platinum Power Supply for mITX testing, BlackHawk Ultra, and 1600W Hercules PSU for extreme dual CPU + quad GPU testing, and RK-9100 keyboards.
Test Setup
Power Consumption
Power consumption was tested on the system as a whole with a wall meter connected to the OCZ 1250W power supply, while in a dual 7970 GPU configuration. This power supply is Gold rated, and as I am in the UK on a 230-240 V supply, leads to ~75% efficiency > 50W, and 90%+ efficiency at 250W, which is suitable for both idle and multi-GPU loading. This method of power reading allows us to compare the power management of the UEFI and the board to supply components with power under load, and includes typical PSU losses due to efficiency. These are the real world values that consumers may expect from a typical system (minus the monitor) using this motherboard.
While this method for power measurement may not be ideal, and you feel these numbers are not representative due to the high wattage power supply being used (we use the same PSU to remain consistent over a series of reviews, and the fact that some boards on our test bed get tested with three or four high powered GPUs), the important point to take away is the relationship between the numbers. These boards are all under the same conditions, and thus the differences between them should be easy to spot.
For a low cost motherboard with few features, we would expect it to have a lower power consumption than that of a mid-range Z77 motherboard. The truth of the matter is that as a board is more expensive, especially at the high end, component efficiency is a factor in the overall board cost. As a result, the Z77-HD4 does well at idle and CPU load, but breaks over 500 W in Metro2033.
POST Time
Different motherboards have different POST sequences before an operating system is initialized. A lot of this is dependent on the board itself, and POST boot time is determined by the controllers on board (and the sequence of how those extras are organized). As part of our testing, we are now going to look at the POST Boot Time - this is the time from pressing the ON button on the computer to when Windows starts loading. (We discount Windows loading as it is highly variable given Windows specific features.) These results are subject to human error, so please allow +/- 1 second in these results.
With fewer controllers, a cheaper motherboard would be expected to POST quicker than a more indepth motherboard. But it would seem that the cheaper motherboards also have less time spent optimising the POST sequence. As a result, the default boot time with two GPUs is north of 18 seconds. The fact that the second GPU had to be in an x4 slot via the PCH may also be a factor in this.
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kasakka - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
WTF, does this actually have a manual VCore setting when the similarly priced DS3H didn't? Damn Gigabyte and their gazillion different models.kmmatney - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Yeah - that's a bit frusterating. I bought the DS3H knowing it didn't have Vcore setting, as my plan was to overclock as high as I could at stock voltage. However, while I was hoping to get to 4.5 Ghz (as a few other were able to do), mine crapped out at 4.3 Ghz, and I run it at 4.2 to be safe. More than enough performance really, and not a bad overclock from 3.4 Ghz, but I'm curious to see what it could do a VCore adjustment.kasakka - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
I did the same and also ran into similar problems, though mine would boot at 4.5 but crash on benchmarks. I exchanged the board for a UD3H and now running 4.5 stable at lower voltage than what the DS3H would set, the CPU boots at 4.7 but didn't bother working to make it stable at that speed.What annoys me is that Gigabyte doesn't disclose the lack of VCore adjustment anywhere and there are other strange things like how the DS3H uses all-Intel USB ports whereas the UD3H is a combination of VIA and Intel controllers (with the VIA not working unless a driver is installed). I really sometimes wonder what is going thru mobo developers' heads.
Flunk - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
It's nice that you're reviewing more commodity hardware, but this board is already being liquidated by the computer shops in my area. Intel has a new line of chips just around the corner. This review would have been a lot more helpful this time last year.lever_age - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Hopefully it's just an indication of more things to come. But yeah, coverage of the AsRock Pro3/Pro4, MSI G4x, Asus LX/LK, Gigabyte HD/D(S)3, etc. of the world would be nice. And the stuff under that as well. You know, the stuff you put in or recommend to friends, family, etc.Though to nitpick, this /particular/ board wasn't available until relatively late in Z77's reign.
rangerdavid - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
Yeah, $5,600 / year is just about right for someone if they "sit at home, music playing while they 'work' in front of my iMac."Alan G - Monday, May 20, 2013 - link
I'm probably one of the older folks who reads these reviews. I haven't played a computer game (not counting Free Cell) since the Tex Murphy series ended way back when. Clearly one can spend a lot or a little on a build. I just finished a new build for photography and found reviews on this site particularly valuable (I ended up getting a Fractal Designs Arc Midi case in part because of the good overview). I needed a build that would run quiet (computer sits about 18 inches away from me) and would perform. Interestingly, my main software Adobe Lightroom really doesn't require a GPU and would run satisfactorily just using the Ivy Bridge on board graphics; Photoshop is a different matter and some operations do take advantage of a good GPU. Many reviewers of GPUs may not be aware of this and tend to focus only on the gaming community.Motherboards such as this one do have a place in builds for specialty purposes when price might be a key point. I can build a killer photo editing PC for under $700 and not sacrifice any performance. Adding some bells and whistles is nice but not necessary.
jabber - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
Indeed, I have a lot of customers that really don't care about day glow slots and surround sound but they want a serious spec machine for heavy tasks.nathanddrews - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gSQg1i_q2gcrashtech - Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - link
The internet cafe comment seems out of place in an article with global readership.