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GAMING BENCHMARKS
3D MARK11 FIRESTRIKE EXTREME
3DMark 11’s Fire Strike Extreme is one of the most intensive graphical benchmarks available. It is reserved for testing ultra high-end gaming machines with multiple graphics cards or overclocked CPUs. While, we don’t have the former, we’ll be testing the latter with a 4.6GHz overclock on our Intel Core i5 4960K
We got just around what we expected, with very respectable numbers for a highly overclocked CPU.
CRYSIS 3
As we see here the minimum FPS gets a huge jump from this overclock from 53 to 68. While the rest of the numbers stay relatively the same this the most important part of the test.
TOMB RAIDER (2013)
The overclocked version has a slightly higher average FPS, aside from that not much to speak of here.
SHADOW OF MORDOR
As we see here the game seems to not care about clock speed whatsoever. This one seems like a wash ladies and gentlemen.
REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS
Let us begin by saying that the best motherboard we once ever had was a Gigabyte 990FXA UD3 for an older AMD system, a board which was a dream to overclock, ran butter smooth with a variety of different hardware for its lifespan, and was overclocked the entire time. Not once did we have an issue POSTing for the 3 years we had it. It did not feel like the wear and tear got to it whatsoever.
To say we had lofty expectations for this motherboard would be an understatement. While this board might only be an 8+2 Power design, we feel like 12 phase power designs aren’t much better on this platform considering the overclocking hurdles that is Haswell’s mainstream architecture. It does have very heavy heatsinks in the important places and the attention to detail definitely shows!
We do wish there were more SATA ports, although comparable motherboards are only equipped with 4 SATA ports at this price. A debug LED and a Clear CMOS button would have been wonderful as most boards currently have these. We will take the tradeoff knowing that the testing that has been done will ensure that this is a reliable motherboard.
With all that said the Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H Black Edition showed its strength in overclocking, reliability and its slick design. We strongly recommend it and it lives up to the high expectations we had for it. We proudly give it our Silver Seal award!
Check Out Gigabyte Motherboard Pricing On Amazon!
Review Overview
Design
Features
Overclocking
Performance
Warranty
Rock Solid Motherboard!
The Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H Black Edition is built like a tank and runs like a thoroughbred! If you are looking for a motherboard that won't let you down, no need to look any further!
I would argue against your claims that Gigabytes do “rock solid motherboards”.I’ve had 2 die on me in the last month plus the 3rd one doesn’t work properly.
Bought a Z-97- HD3. Couldn’t get post and only got black screen with GTX 780 card. Older 580 card was OK though. GTX 780 works fine on spare PC by the way.
Gigabytes customer support is an absolute joke. No help at all , they just refuse to answer questions and shunt you about.
Buy anything from Gigabyte at your own risk. I’d give ’em 2 stars for the quality of their products and half a star for their customer service.
Sorry to hear about your misfortunes with Gigabyte products.
When we refer to something as “rock solid” or “reliable” we of course can really only speak for the experiences we’ve had ourselves, and perhaps at best the general consensus of those who’ve purchased their products in the past.
Unfortunately we can’t judge the product based on anecdotal evidence from any one customer, as that would be unfair to the company, and our viewers. That being said, we will of course raise your concerns with customer service with Gigabyte in the future.