Testing Part One: Stock Clocks
The following bits were used to test/abuse this motherboard:
| Motherboard: | Gigabyte Z77X-UP4-TH |
| CPU: | Intel Core i7 3770k |
| RAM: | G.Skill RipjawsX 2133MHz 7-10-7 |
| GPU: | MSI HD4670 GDDR3 |
| Storage: | OCZ Vertex 3 120GB 3.5″ |
| PSU: | Antec HCP-750 |
| Case: | Mobo tray ripped out of an old case. |
| CPU Cooler: | Phanteks PH-TC14PE |
I used the same selection of benchmarks as I did on the Z77X-UD5H, for easy comparisons. Unlike that board, this one defaulted to 1333-9-9-9 ram rather than 1600-9-9-9. Don’t know why.
The UP4 isn’t interested in following Intel’s Turbo specs, even with a four core load we get the 39x multiplier that only a one core load is supposed to go. It’s not a problem by any means, but I have mixed feelings about it.
That’s with a four core load. At idle the clock speed and voltage drops significantly to conserve power.
SuperPi 1M
This is a single thread load, so it’s on even ground with the UD5H. It beats it, though.
SuperPi 32M
32M cares more about memory speed than 1M does, the slower default RAM speed hurt it. Still in the expected range though.
WPrime v1.55
This is a multi-threaded load, it will load the CPU down on all four cores and eight threads.
You can tell the Turbo isn’t working as Intel specs say it should on this board, it’s much faster than the UD5H.
3DMark Vantage CPU Test
It wasn’t that long ago that you needed Liquid Nitrogen cooling and massive overclocking to hit 27k+ on Vantage’s CPU test. Now, we’re doing it at stock clocks. Crazy stuff really.
Cinebench 11.5
Arguably the nastiest of the benchmarks from a CPU load perspective, Cinebench is a good benchmark to look at for motherboards/CPUs.
Being a multi-threaded load, the higher turbo boost for four core operations helped here. Now let’s move on to the interesting part, overclocking!
