The Intel LGA1150 Haswell Owners Thread & Survey (H.O.T.S)

[MacClipper]

Putting Intel's upcoming Core i7-4771 through its paces - VR-Zone

As far as we can tell, the only difference between the 4771 and the 4770 is the speed of the reference clock. The 4770 is clocked at 3.4 GHz, while the 4770 comes in at 3.5Ghz. Earlier this summer, rumor had it that the 4771 would come with a new graphics core but in the end this wasn’t the case.

 

[ChandlerBing]

Putting Intel's upcoming Core i7-4771 through its paces - VR-Zone.

As far as we can tell, the only difference between the 4771 and the 4770 is the speed of the reference clock. The 4770 is clocked at 3.4 GHz, while the 4770 comes in at 3.5Ghz.

I looked at the link too. Is there a typo error? The 4771 should be stock clocked at 3.5Ghz?

 

[MacClipper]

Obvious typo, obviously.

Probably typed in a hurry.

 

[fireduke86]

Hey Mac, if I may, your thoughts on the Haswell Xeon E3, specifically the 1240v3?

 

[MacClipper]

No hands on experience, better to ask the Xeon lovers instead.

ARK | Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1240 v3 (8M Cache, 3.40 GHz)
Says it is a locked chip but it comes with all the goodies they took out of the K chips like VT-d, TSX to punish the o'cers...

 

[MacClipper]

...
xvid4PSP

After doing lots & lots of video transcoding over the past week, >10 in xvid4PSP alone (transcoding sessions from 62 to 72) - seems this mobo is just simply rock stable even with 2 x 8GB Vengeance Pro at DDR3-2400!

Beautiful

 

[MacClipper]

4 x 8GB ie. 32GB Running At DDR3-2666 on Z87 OC Formula!
Incoming...

 

[MacClipper]

Simply aka ECS Z87 Gank Machine!

The ECS Intel Z87 series Z87H3-A2X Extreme Golden (Gank Machine) Gaming Motherboard
Unquestionably strong candidate indeed.

Probably in very serious contention for some Guinness World Records for... the longest given model name and/or multiple aliases in a supporting role ever tagged on a current production mobo.

Official Websites
l337gaming.com
ECS Web Site > Z87H3-A2X EXTREME (V1.0)

Unboxing
Amazingly informative and beautiful glossy packaging, one of the nicest I have seen in a Z87 model.

Samples Of Printed Info Closeups

To be contd...

 

[MacClipper]

Bundle

Front

Back

I/O

Heatsinks

LOTES CPU Socket
Too smooth a butt though

...

 

[MacClipper]

All Onboard Now

Credentials & Button Beeper (getting rare these days!)

Voltage Measuring Points

SATA3 Ports x 7

Button Galore

LED Overkill!

Action Stations!

With nicely matched shades of electric red...

...

 

[MacClipper]

Lingerie (Or Thongs), No Bloomers Please!

At the current state of affairs, this mobo is rather reminiscent of meeting a well dressed pretty lady (ooh, nice packaging) who impresses you with her good figure (wow, nice hardware) only to reveal she is wearing grandma's bloomers underneath instead of lingerie (gosh, last century's interface).

Once you can get past the obsolete looking interface, you find that everything works great actually cos the action is really fast and furious. Still you just wish that ECS could have worked that bit harder in making the overall experience a lot more consistent and enjoyable.

Yes, the mobo's using UEFI but you could be fooled cos it looks a lil' too much like old BIOS and lacking in UEFI modern conveniences like screen capture and flash update utilites. Fortunately, you can forget all about it once you have dialed in the overclock settings you want, save it into the CMOS profile and get right to the real action.

So let's get to some testing next....


Ambient - local air non-A/C

Test Setup

★ ECS Z87H3-A2X | i5-4670K | 16GB Corsair DDR3-2400 | NiCu HK 3.0-GTX360 | MSI HD7790 | TT Smart 630W ★



LinX AVX
Taster portions to roughly gauge GFlops, using Adaptive Vcore so not doing long runs

HyperPi 32M

AIDA64

Cinebench 11

WinRAR

7 Zip

x264 FHD Bench

Impressions

• Beautiful Splash Screen of the ECS l337 Gaming icon
• Fast POST and boot into Windows
• Dual GLAN with teaming function
• Well featured with onboard Bluetooth, Wireless, mSATA and ALC1150 Audio
• Bling bling overkill - total of 7 onboard buttons with LEDs either in red or blue, 1 red 3-digit Debug Code LED and yellow spot status LEDs
• Good size heatsinks with heatpipe, actively cooled by a small red LED fan hidden under the heat shield
• Overclocks well with good performance
• No problem with running 4 x 8GB@DDR3-2666
• Comprehensive software bundle including Lucidlogix Virtu MVP ver. 1 & 2
• Good overall experience but badly needs nicer new underclothes/UEFI!


Hope you have enjoyed the sharing, thanks for reading.

 

[MacClipper]

xvid4PSP
Real world stress tester with AVX

 

[MacClipper]

Found a web review with screenshots of the ECS UEFI here
ECS Z87H3-A2X Extreme Golden (Gank Machine) Motherboard Review | Pure Overclock

They gave it a favourable 4 out of 5 stars in their total score so they probably liked it quite a bit.

 

[MacClipper]

Another web review with nice photos and a good score of 7.9
ECS Gank Machine Z87H3-A2X Review - tbreak

 

[MacClipper]

4 x 4GB ValueRAM Overclocking

xvid4PSP

No problem, overclocks VR RAM from DDR3-1333@1866 well enough on all 4 slots.

 

[Stratix]

just got myself some i7 haswell and the MSI G45 board. havent fixed yet, and probably wont be doing it tonight thou.

amazing that asus boards are so much more expensive but aren't giving anything more.

 

[royfrosty]

just got myself some i7 haswell and the MSI G45 board. havent fixed yet, and probably wont be doing it tonight thou.

amazing that asus boards are so much more expensive but aren't giving anything more.

Enjoy your hoot~

 

[MacClipper]

The ROG label premium is really kinda amazing esp. locally...

 

[MacClipper]

Running Fully Loaded 32GB@DDR3-2666 XMP

 

[angy]

MacClipper,

Your reviews are very impressive. You obviously take the time and effort to check out the pros and cons.

I am in the market to buy a micro haswell mobo. What would you recommend for

a. best value for money?
b. if money not the issue

haswell mobo.

thanks