Testing methodology
Comparison Motherboard Configurations |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ASUS Z97 Pro Gamer |
ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming |
MSI Z170A Gaming M7 |
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| MSRP | £105 |
£118 |
£180 |
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| BIOS | 0501 |
0231 |
151 |
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| Chipset Revision | Intel Z97 Express |
Intel Z170 Express |
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| CPU | Intel Core i7-4790K |
Intel Core i7-6700K |
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| Memory | Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB DDR3 (2 x 8GB) |
G.Skill RipJaws V 8GB DDR4 (2 x 4GB) |
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| Memory Timings | 9-10-9-27-2T @ 1,866MHz |
15-15-15-36-2T @ 2,133MHz |
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| Discrete Graphics | EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (347.09 drivers) |
EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (353.62 drivers) |
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| System Drive | AMD OCZ Radeon R7 SSD (240GB) |
Corsair Force LX (512GB) |
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| Test Drives | Corsair Neutron GTX (240GB) and Plextor M6E M.2 (256GB) |
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| Chassis | Lian Li PC-T60 test bench |
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| Power Supply | Corsair AX760i |
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| Operating System | Windows 8.1 (64-bit) |
Windows 10 (64-bit) |
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CPU Benchmarks |
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| 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 | ||||||||||
| Handbrake | Free-to-use video encoder that stresses all CPU cores (64-bit), 4K clip to 720p MP4. | ||||||||||
Gaming Benchmarks |
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| 3DMark | Firestrike, 1,920x1,080 | ||||||||||
| Bioshock Infinite | DX11, 1,920x1,080, ultra preset | ||||||||||
| Total War: Rome II | DX11, 1,920x1,080, extreme preset | ||||||||||
Memory Benchmarks |
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| AIDA64 Engineer | A comprehensive test of memory copy, latency, read and write performance | ||||||||||
Storage Benchmarks |
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| CrystalDiskMark | Three runs of the sequential read and write preset on M.2, SATA and USB drives. | ||||||||||
Audio Benchmarks |
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| LatencyMon | A Windows 8.x and 10 compatible DPC latency tester | ||||||||||
| Rightmark Audio Analyser | Audio software that analyses a line-in line-out loop | ||||||||||
Miscellaneous Benchmarks |
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| Power Consumption | Desktop idle and total system load using AIDA64 stress test | ||||||||||
Notes
The Corsair Neutron GTX is used to test SATA and USB performance, and for USB performance the drive is placed within a USB 3.0 docking station. The Plextor M6E is used to test M.2 performance if a motherboard has an M.2 port.