Testing Part One: Stock Clocks
The following bits were used for testing:
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H |
| CPU: | Intel Core i7 3770k |
| RAM: | G.Skill RipjawsX 2133MHz 7-10-7 |
| GPU: | EVGA GTX580 (reference) |
| Storage: | OCZ Vertex 3 240GB MaxIOPS |
| PSU: | OCZ Fatal1ty 1000w |
| Case: | Thermaltake Armor Revo |
| CPU Cooler: | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
The very first thing I did was to load optimized defaults in the BIOS and see if the board would boot. Not only did it boot but I found that Turbo was actually working correctly for a change (usually gigabyte boards are more aggressive than the normal turbo setup).
Here we have CPUz CPU and Memory tabs at the stock settings (with n eight thread load to get the CPU out of power saving mode):
The RAM’s fastest non-XMP profile was correctly loaded as you can see. Next I’ll run a selection of benchmarks to test stock clocks efficiency. After that I’ll do some OCing and repeat the tests.
Maxxmem Memory Benchmark
Maxxmem (labeled MaxxPI in the results window, for reasons known only to the programmers) is a memory benchmark of decent accuracy as long as you aren’t actively trying to fool it. It gives a general idea of memory speed.
This is a bit below average for a Z77 board and this CPU. Maxxmem is best used to compare a system to itself as you change the memory and core speeds however. We’ll see how it does OC’d.
3DMark Vantage
3DMark Vantage is primarily a GPU benchmark, but it has a CPU test the reflects both CPU speed and memory speed as well as motherboard efficiency.
Not bad, I expect a higher memory speed would help a lot though.
Cinebench 11.5
Cinebench is a heavily threaded CPU benchmark, it is the nastiest load used in this review.
7.53 is quite good for a stock clocked quad core CPU. Turbo helps of course.
SuperPi 1m and 32m
Now we have a pair of SuperPi benchmarks, the 1m is mostly CPU speed while in 32m ram speed and efficiency makes a big difference.
Not long ago these results would be the sort of thing that required liquid nitrogen cooling and high end gear. Now it’s stock! Partly in thanks to the UD5H here.
WPrime v1.55
The last of the benchmarks is WPrime v1.55, this is a heavy multithreaded load that cares almost entirely about CPU speed and efficiency.
Again this board does well.
All together this board has run a bit slower across the board compared to the UD3H, however the UD3H was running with a higher ram speed. We’ll see how it compares once both are overclocked.
