Review: Gigabyte GA-Z87-D3HP

by Tarinder Sandhu on 3 June 2013, 10:00

Tags: Gigabyte (TPE:2376)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qabwwj

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Test Methodology

Comparison Motherboard Configurations

CPU Intel AMD
Core i7-4770K
Core i7-3770K
A10-5800K
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z87-D3HP
Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H
Gigabyte F2-A85X-UP4
BIOS
F4
F14
F4
Chipset Driver
Intel Inf 9.4.0.101 and IMEI 9
AMD 13.6
DDR3 Memory
G.Skill 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Memory Timings
11-11-11-30-2T @ 2,133MHz
Integrated Graphics
HD 4600
HD 4000
HD 7660D
Discrete Graphics
Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB (ForceWare 320.18)
Disk Drive
Samsung 840 Pro 250GB
Optical Drive
Sony AD-7263S
Chassis
Corsair Graphite 600T
Power Supply
Corsair AX750
Operating System
Windows 8 64-bit

CPU-centric Benchmarks

HEXUS PiFast
Our number-crunching benchmark stresses a single core by calculating Pi to 10m places
CineBench Using Cinebench's multi-CPU render, this cross-platform benchmark stresses all cores
PCMark 7
An all-encompassing test to evaluate system performance

Discrete GPU Benchmarks

3DMark DX11, Fire Strike benchmark
BioShock Infinite DX11, 1,920x1,080 ultra quality
DiRT Showdown DX11, 1,920x1,080 ultra quality

Storage Benchmarks

SATA AS SSD sequential read and write tests
USB 3.0 AS SSD sequential read and write tests

Miscellaneous Benchmarks

Boot to Windows 8 Time taken from a cold boot to usable Windows desktop
Power Consumption While idling and when running CineBench and DiRT Showdown on the IGP

Testing notes

It's difficult to compare the absolute performance of a motherboard based on a brand-new chipset because we have no real comparison data to go with. Yet it still makes sense to see what kind of numbers the D3HP posts when using the best chip of a particular generation. Thus we've also included a Gigabyte Z77 motherboard with an Intel Core i7-3770K and Gigabyte FM2 with the current range-topping A10-5800K CPU.

Comparing the best of each family also lets you know if it's worth upgrading your computer to the Intel fourth generation Core and Z87 chipset combination. We've tested the trio of boards on Windows 8 64-bit.

All chips use integrated graphics but we'll focus on gaming results with the just-announced GeForce GTX 780 in the main PCIe x16 slot of the respective boards.