Mean Macho Machine? The ECS Intel Z97-MACHINE

[MacClipper]

After a few rounds of looking at the web photos of the Z97 motherboards pushed out recently, I think ECS has actually produced a real fine looking model with beautifully restrained aesthetics this round. It is a mainly flat black affair with relatively subtle gold trimmings on the heatsinks and with white lettering on the PCB, very tasteful.

It simply looks so much better than their previous Z87 efforts which imo, were just over the top.

You can check out the official specs on this page
ECS Web Site > Z97-MACHINE (V1.0)



Packaging
With the kind help of the good guys, I managed to get hold of an early sample today as they rolled fresh out of the factory. As before, the retail box packaging is a very attractive glossy affair with high contrast printing

Printed Specs
Uses the Intel I218-V Gigabit Fast Ethernet Controller but strange enough, ECS humbly omits this detail

to be contd...

 

[Yureak]

Mac this board has the ess sabre dac right? Incredible. Top notch audio performance

 

[MacClipper]

Mac this board has the ess sabre dac right? Incredible. Top notch audio performance

Yes, it does.


Also linked here for you since you seem to wanna know rightaway...
Moi humble techblog

 

[devilwahaha]

Wow finally a newer board that still has PS/2 and a decent amount of of USB3/2's, KIV

 

[Yureak]

Oh its only a ess sabre 9010 ):

Disappointing. With the price here they could easily do a 9016

 

[MacClipper]

Oh its only a ess sabre 9010 ):

Disappointing. With the price here they could easily do a 9016

Check out the pricing difference in this single component here, USD5.95 vs USD31.10...
ismosys.com - Audio DAC list

If you expect a USD140 motherboard to sport such a hefty $$$ DAC then you may need to ROGise the pricing and jack it up to USD300+ and euphemise it with some high-faluting ROGue Audio Maximus III DAC or the like.

Think ECS has not reached that kind of crazy premium gouging yet, thankfully.

 

[Yureak]

Check out the pricing difference in this single component here, USD5.95 vs USD31.10...
ismosys.com - Audio DAC list

If you expect a USD140 motherboard to sport such a hefty $$$ DAC then you may need to ROGise the pricing and jack it up to USD300+ and euphemise it with some high-faluting ROGue Audio Maximus III DAC or the like.

Think ECS has not reached that kind of crazy premium gouging yet, thankfully.

Well in the networking world eg. Cisco its not uncommon for enterprises to get 40% off list so figure with these numbers you'd be getting a much different number in the 15 region.

But then again I didnt know it was only 140 USD so well then I guess it makes sense.

But in this case Yi Fen Qian Yi Fen Huo dont expect this audio solution to outshine many or expect the supposed ESS level of refinement

 

[MacClipper]

Yi Fen Qian Yi Fen Huo

One of the basic tenets of the PC world... where PC makers would sometimes sacrifice their first borns for a 5c saving multiplied by a million units (bad caps anyone?), so was very surprised to see the ECS choice costing almost USD6 retail just for the DAC component alone.

Think your DAC choice costing USD31 would more likely end up in some standalone audio component costing as much as this mobo... something along the lines of ROGue Xonic Xabre X DAC (rated Triple X by HarWhereZone!)

 

[MacClipper]

Unboxing & Bundle
A rather lightweight bundle inside

...

 

[Yureak]

One of the basic tenets of the PC world... where PC makers would sometimes sacrifice their first borns for a 5c saving multiplied by a million units (bad caps anyone?), so was very surprised to see the ECS choice costing almost USD6 retail just for the DAC component alone.

Think your DAC choice costing USD31 would more likely end up in some standalone audio component costing as much as this mobo... something along the lines of ROGue Xonic Xabre X DAC (rated Triple X by HarWhereZone!)

Well 140 USD for this quality seems extremely reasonable

I imagined this cost 200 or so initially where a USD31 List (Volume Price probably $15) would definitely make sense

Good review!

 

[MacClipper]

Z97 Machine - The Mobo
Flat black PCB featuring a sparsely equipped bottom of socket

...

 

[tensor]

what happened to the dual-bios functionality.
The media picture features 2x removable sockets for bios.

finally remembered the password. lol

 

[MacClipper]

wow Ig, you really super eagle eye lah... tokong!

I did the photo taking late last night, after the Asrock event so was kinda too blurry-eyed to notice...

The 2nd media photo is the same as my sample and does not show any socketed BIOS but a single soldered chip. For your enjoyment, I have decided to host the full sized shot here so you can zoom in and read the nitty gritty.

HTH

 

[Yureak]

wow Ig, you really super eagle eye lah... tokong!

I did the photo taking late last night, after the Asrock event so was kinda too blurry-eyed to notice...

The 2nd media photo is the same as my sample and does not show any socketed BIOS but a single soldered chip. For your enjoyment, I decided to host the full sized shot here so you can zoom in and read the nitty gritty.

HTH

Mac how are you related to the industry and how do you get all these units sponsored?

 

[MacClipper]

Totally unrelated... fortunately well taken care of, enough to simply enjoy this as a hobby

Guess the PC industry good guys take great pity cos I have mis-spent much of my youth (Zilog Z80/M6502 machine and assembly anyone?) and too much money (even owned an Apple Lisa once) on this hobby over several decades. Probably explains why they put up with my craptastic previews so far.

Think I was probably there right from the very beginnings of personal computing locally. Sad life story hor... maybe the National Archives might be interested too.

 

[Yureak]

Totally unrelated... fortunately well taken care of, enough to simply enjoy this as a hobby

Guess the PC industry good guys take great pity cos I have mis-spent much of my youth (Zilog Z80/M6502 machine and assembly anyone?) and too much money (even owned an Apple Lisa once) on this hobby over several decades. Probably explains why they put up with my craptastic previews so far.

Think I was probably there right from the very beginnings of personal computing locally. Sad life story hor... maybe the National Archives might be interested too.

WOW i think youre as lao jiao as commach

 

[Assault]

always enjoy your previews/reviews so hope you keep doing them!

 

[tensor]

... ... ... guess it a bad habit, components comes first. zzz

thanks for the peektures.
The layout looks lots neater now.
imho, memory power delivery can be improved further.

 

[MacClipper]

WOW i think youre as lao jiao as commach

On behalf of him and myself, thanks for being kind enough to type the "o" and not "n"

always enjoy your previews/reviews so hope you keep doing them!

Glad you found them useful in some way. My interest waxes and wanes like my free time to do these previews.

... ... ... guess it a bad habit, components comes first. zzz

thanks for the peektures.
The layout looks lots neater now.
imho, memory power delivery can be improved further.

But... but they promised up to DDR3-3000 in black and white some more... lol

Overall from what I can see, the Z97 mobos are actually tamed down, component-wise, from the previous Z87 models across almost all the brands. We can only tell what that might do when June's Computex and DC chips come.

 

[MacClipper]

Heatsinks
Looks wise, it's definitely classier than those ostentatiously opulent gold affairs pushed out by some manufacturers

Also note the minimalist 4 x SATA3 ports onboard, there's no potentially confusing bandwidth sharing with the M.2 slot on this mobo.



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