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GIGABYTE Z270X Gaming 7 LGA 1151 Motherboard Review @ [H]
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I have no idea what that even means.
Not really. They aren't normally that far apart in our testing. The biggest difference normally comes down to CPU utilization. The Killer NIC is often worse than the Intel controllers.
this is what I am talking about
Power, Heat, And Efficiency
The strange power and heat numbers initially revealed in a different Gigabyte motherboard have now been exposed as a fixed-voltage, fixed-frequency setting that only occurred on the older motherboard after updating its firmware to support this processor.
Further testing revealed that while setting the CPU vCore to “Normal” rather than “Auto” mode still left the 1.30V core setting locked, setting the “Dynamic vCore” level to anything other than default re-enabled the CPU’s normal voltage behavior. Anyone who knows firmware well enough to do this will be rewarded with an energy and heat drop commensurate to the stock core voltage, plus or minus their custom setting. Oddly, pressing the ECO button then returned the oddball fixed-voltage behavior, along with the above power and thermal penalties.
Power, Heat, And Efficiency
The strange power and heat numbers initially revealed in a different Gigabyte motherboard have now been exposed as a fixed-voltage, fixed-frequency setting that only occurred on the older motherboard after updating its firmware to support this processor.
Further testing revealed that while setting the CPU vCore to “Normal” rather than “Auto” mode still left the 1.30V core setting locked, setting the “Dynamic vCore” level to anything other than default re-enabled the CPU’s normal voltage behavior. Anyone who knows firmware well enough to do this will be rewarded with an energy and heat drop commensurate to the stock core voltage, plus or minus their custom setting. Oddly, pressing the ECO button then returned the oddball fixed-voltage behavior, along with the above power and thermal penalties.
I will be running Windows 10 on this system so would you go for the cheaper board (£60 difference) if you didn't need the intel NIC for anything special such as the things you mentioned? I'd rather get the cheaper and better looking board to save that much money if the NIC quality isn't an issue. I don't need the extra features of the Gaming 7 over the K5.
If you don't need the Intel NIC the K5 is fine.
I don't know. I haven't reviewed the K5.
Sorry I wasn't clear. I meant the board you reviewed. The gaming 7.
I did not experience any stability issues with the Z270X Gaming 7. If I had experienced stability issues, I would have mentioned it in the review.
I would be surprised to see any difference between the two platforms in this area. We'll find out eventually when we get our hands on AM4 / Ryzen.
SomeGuy133
2[H]4U
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i thought i saw you guys do a review of samsung NVME
if you got 750 NVMe slot vs u.2 in PCH that would work
pendragon1
Extremely [H]
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buildzoid vrm break-down
I'm not the storage guy. We don't actually share equipment or space. I have my own test equipment separate from what the other guys have.
SomeGuy133
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....do you not talk and communicate? The other guy can't mail you one?
......that seems silly.
I get the equipment i need to do my testing when I ask for it. I do not need that specific drive. I do not need even that specific drive to do that particular test and get meaningful data out of it.
SomeGuy133
2[H]4U
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so does that mean you can test to see if there is a latency difference that affects performance?
I would. M.2 drives are getting cheaper and faster all the time. If you are building a new system and can afford it, I think you'll be pleased with the result.
myaccountbroke
n00b
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I ended up ordering this board, primarily based on your review. I hope it works out, thank you!
Careful of the SoundCore 3D. I bought this board as well since the reviews were promising but ran into the same issue as a lot of other folks with this audio on older hardware:
Doesn't happen all the time.. maybe once a week, but sure as hell is annoying when you have a new build that doesn't work 'smooth'.
pendragon1
Extremely [H]
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dude youre using a modified asio driver so you cant blame this on the board.
DejaWiz
Fully [H]
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pendragon1
Extremely [H]
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probably not but then he cant do what hes trying to force the system to do. better question would be has he followed MS's suggestions for getting THEIR universal asio drivers to work...
The youtube video wasn't mine.. just an example of what I experience. That video is from like 2015 and from google searching around has affected z170 MBs with soundcore 3d chips since. My z270 is like a month old... I'm using the latest drivers from Gigabytes website. So no.. not 'forcing' the system to do anything.
To be honest, I haven't spent a whole lot of time on it.. my system is pretty base.. no special drivers, no overclock, no special hardware other than maybe the ram which is the new g.skill ddr4 3600 cl16 tritan z rgb modules.
pendragon1
Extremely [H]
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well when you don't make it clear that that's not YOUR vid....
so what exactly is YOUR issue then? have you tried the creative driver instead of the Gb one. I know the board just came out but they never keep the drivers up to date like the component makers do.
Like I said, I haven't spent much time on this, but the issue is pretty much identical to the issue posted on YouTube as well as what everyone commenting about it say about the issue. The sound randomly goes nuts and requires you to disable/re-enable the device to go back to normal. I'm sure there is a setting or more appropriate driver which may prevent this issue, but I'm just commenting that with this board with that particular sound chip using the latest Gigabyte drivers from their site with default settings, it potentially can have issues. That said, I generally only sleep my system and this issue I have seen maybe 3-4 times over the course of the month since I built it. But, I also don't use the system that much.. maybe 2-3 hours total per week.
Anyways, take that for what it's worth.. I'm not trying to say the board is bad.. just telling folks to be cautious about SoundCore 3D on this board as I have this exact board and have experienced issues with it's audio.
Your experience with this board must be different than mine. Did you change any of the default settings for the audio device? Any BIOS settings? How long have you been running this board and how long do you keep the system up at a time? Hoping it's just something I didn't do from the default but I would imagine would REALLY help anyone else looking to buying this board.. especially if they are looking at it for the SoundCore 3D chip.
Super long thread about the issue here:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1593375/...orted-sounds-post-here-if-you-have-this-issue
Lots of people seem to have the issue with Gigabyte MBs using soundblaster chips and Gigabyte support folks are also on the thread. They've asked many of the users to send in their boards, but they have been unable to reproduce the issue, so they are now asking folks if they would be willing to send their full systems in. At one point it seemed like it might have been related to a conflict with Nvidia HD audio drivers, but doesn't seem to be the case as AMD users also have the same issue. Also, kind of a hard issue to reproduce on demand.. you can go sometimes 3+ weeks without seeing the issue, then all of a sudden it will occur again.
Pretty sure not everyone is affected by this, but seems to be rampant enough to be of concern especially if you were looking at this board in particular for it's soundcore 3d chip.
I built a new system with this board back in January. In the first 2 months, I had the sound issue once. Then it started happening every 2 weeks or so and then every other day. Needless to say, the board is out of my system and going back to Gigabyte. Just great, the main reason I picked the board over the Asus ROG Maximus IX Hero was for the SB core.
shspvr
Gawd
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Best stay far a away from Creative SB Core3D build on the motherboard as Creative Lab has been going down hill right after the X-Fi
Those have worked pretty well for me during the reviews. While I can understand where you are coming from, I have yet to have a bad experience with the Creative ZXRi or Recon 3Di built into the GIGABYTE boards.
shspvr
Gawd
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But Dan you barely use them for what few weeks at most during the reviews and get toss a side
Don't get me wrong I love Creative Labs stuff which I been using scene late 80's but ever scene MS drop hardware DirectSound Hardware-Acceleration they have gone down hill after that in my book
But there always hope now that VR and Audio need make a come back give it a more realistic sound
I don't dispute that. I get a max of two weeks off and on with each board. I also don't get to run a bunch of games or audio applications on them. Still, in the time I've used them I haven't had any issue with those controllers.
revenant
[H]F Squad Captain
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Chiming in a little late here but I have used the Recon 3Di on my old gigabyte z170x gaming 7 and now the ZxRi on my new gigabyte z270x gaming 8 and both have performed flawlessly. The ZxRi actually sounds shockingly good playing music via analog outs to PreSonus monitors.