Test Setup
CPU Intel Core i7 4770K (Haswell) 3.50GHz
Cooling Corsair Hydro Series H105
Motherboard ASUS Z97-A
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro 2800MHz CL12 DDR3
Graphics XFX R7970 Black Edition
Storage Corsair Neutron GTX 480GB
PSU Corsair HX1050 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU
Cooling Corsair Hydro Series H105
Motherboard ASUS Z97-A
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro 2800MHz CL12 DDR3
Graphics XFX R7970 Black Edition
Storage Corsair Neutron GTX 480GB
PSU Corsair HX1050 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU
Benchmarks
Cinebench R15 – CPU/OpenGL Score
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA 2014 – CPU & Memory benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks
PCMark 8 – Home Suite
3DMark FireStrike – DX11 3D Benchmark
Games – Tomb Raider, THIEF
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA 2014 – CPU & Memory benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks
PCMark 8 – Home Suite
3DMark FireStrike – DX11 3D Benchmark
Games – Tomb Raider, THIEF
Other Software
Temperature Analysis: Core Temp
Stress Testing Software: LinX
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Stress Testing Software: LinX
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Overclocking
The introduction of Z87 back in 2013 heralded a return to BCLK overclocking, ill-advised during the Sandybridge and Ivybridge era. This type of functionality ensures flexibility for overclockers compared to previous generations were the BCLK was locked to 100MHz and only the ratio could be adjusted. As many of you will know, Haswell CPUs get very hot with little voltage increase therefore the flexibility and headroom for overclocking can be limited. For the Z97 launch we are testing with the Intel Core i7-4770K which from previous, extensive testing has a maximum overclock of 4.6GHz without the use of exotic cooling solutions.
Z97-A managed to achieve that milestone of 4.6GHz and 1.29v was the minimum Core Voltage to accomplish this. For a mainstream motherboard this is a commendable achievement.
