In our first Intel Z270 motherboard review we take a look at the new AORUS Z270X-Gaming 7 from GIGABYTE. Is this board a good match for the new Intel Core i7-7700K?
Product on Review: AORUS Z270X-Gaming 7
Manufacturer & Sponsor: GIGABYTE
Street Price: £200 GBP / $250 USD
AORUS is a name which is strongly associated with gaming laptops and although the brand has operated as a separate entity, some may be surprised to discover that AORUS has in fact been a subsidiary of GIGABYTE for many years. But, a reconfiguration has taken place and AORUS will now represent the very best that GIGABYTE has to offer and therefore, all products will bear a premium feature-set. So, what does this have to do with motherboards? Well, AORUS-branded motherboards are debuting on the new Intel Z270 chipset and today, we’ll be exploring the delights of the all-new Gaming 7.
In our hands today is the AORUS Z270X-Gaming 7 an Intel Z270 motherboard which seeks to provide gamers and enthusiasts with a high-end feature-set including cutting-edge options such as Thunderbolt 3, dual-M.2 slots, Creative Sound Core3D and much more.
Join us as we explore this new offering and see how it matches up to a number of other Z270 motherboards.
About GIGABYTE
Founded in 1986, GIGABYTE is committed to providing top-notch solutions that “upgrade your life”. We are regarded as a pioneer in innovation with groundbreaking excitements such as Ultra Durable™ — a revolutionary technology that redefines the industry, WINDFORCE™ — exclusive heat dissipation design that builds for extreme performance, G1™ Gaming series—the perfect solutions for gamers and enthusiasts, P series — a powerful gaming laptop less than an inch thick, and BRIX series—a versatile mini-PC in the palm of your hand. GIGABYTE has continuously brought unique new ways of digital world and created marvelous products that empower you with meaningful and charming experiences.
Technical Specifications
Below are the technical specifications concerning the AORUS Z270X Gaming 7:
CPU
• Supports 7th Gen Intel® Core™ i3/i5/i7 processors, and Intel® Pentium® and Celeron® processors for Socket LGA1151
Chipset
• Intel® Z270 Chipset
Main Memory
• 4 x DDR4 memory slots, support up to 64GB
– Supports DDR4 Up to 4000MHz
• Dual channel memory architecture
• Supports ECC, un-buffered memory
– ECC UDIMM memory (non-ECC mode)
• Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
Slots
• 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (support x16/x0/x4 or x8/x8/x4 modes)
• 3 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots
Onboard Graphics
• 1 x HDMI™ port, support a maximum resolution of 4096×2160@24Hz, 2560×1600@60Hz
• 1 x Displayport, support a maximum resolution of 4096×2160@24Hz, 2560×1600@60Hz
Multi-GPU
• Supports 3-Way AMD® CrossFire™ Technology
• Supports 3-Way NVIDIA® SLI™ Technology
Storage
• Intel® Z270 Chipset
• 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports
• 1 x U.2 port
• 2 x M.2 slot (Supports Intel Optane Memory – 7th Gen Processor required)
RAID
• Intel® Z270 Chipset
– Supports RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 5 and RAID 10 for SATA storage devices
Audio
• Creative SoundCore 3D with SBX Pro Studio Audio Suite
– 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio
– Supports S/PDIF output
LAN
• 1 x Intel® I219-V Gigabit LAN controller
• 1 x Killer E2500 Gigabit LAN controller
Back Panel I/O Ports
– 1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse port
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports
– 1 x Displayport
– 1 x HDMI
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 ports
– 2 x Gigabit LAN (Killer E2500 + Intel i219V)
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2
– 1 x Audio ports
Dimension
• 12 in. x 9.6 in. (30.5 cm x 24.4 cm)
• ATX Form Factor
• Supports 7th Gen Intel® Core™ i3/i5/i7 processors, and Intel® Pentium® and Celeron® processors for Socket LGA1151
Chipset
• Intel® Z270 Chipset
Main Memory
• 4 x DDR4 memory slots, support up to 64GB
– Supports DDR4 Up to 4000MHz
• Dual channel memory architecture
• Supports ECC, un-buffered memory
– ECC UDIMM memory (non-ECC mode)
• Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
Slots
• 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (support x16/x0/x4 or x8/x8/x4 modes)
• 3 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots
Onboard Graphics
• 1 x HDMI™ port, support a maximum resolution of 4096×2160@24Hz, 2560×1600@60Hz
• 1 x Displayport, support a maximum resolution of 4096×2160@24Hz, 2560×1600@60Hz
Multi-GPU
• Supports 3-Way AMD® CrossFire™ Technology
• Supports 3-Way NVIDIA® SLI™ Technology
Storage
• Intel® Z270 Chipset
• 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports
• 1 x U.2 port
• 2 x M.2 slot (Supports Intel Optane Memory – 7th Gen Processor required)
RAID
• Intel® Z270 Chipset
– Supports RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 5 and RAID 10 for SATA storage devices
Audio
• Creative SoundCore 3D with SBX Pro Studio Audio Suite
– 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio
– Supports S/PDIF output
LAN
• 1 x Intel® I219-V Gigabit LAN controller
• 1 x Killer E2500 Gigabit LAN controller
Back Panel I/O Ports
– 1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse port
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports
– 1 x Displayport
– 1 x HDMI
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 ports
– 2 x Gigabit LAN (Killer E2500 + Intel i219V)
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2
– 1 x Audio ports
Dimension
• 12 in. x 9.6 in. (30.5 cm x 24.4 cm)
• ATX Form Factor
Unboxing & Closer Look
For this review we’ve produced a video which reveals the packaging, bundle and a close, detailed overview of the motherboard. Please check out the video below for a comprehensive look at the feature-set:
Test Setup & Overclocking
Test Setup
CPU Intel Core i7-7700K
Cooling Corsair H100i GTX
Motherboard GIGABYTE AORUS Z270X-Gaming 7
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz
Graphics GIGABYTE GTX 1080 G1 Gaming
Storage Corsair Force LX 512GB
PSU Corsair HX1050 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU
Cooling Corsair H100i GTX
Motherboard GIGABYTE AORUS Z270X-Gaming 7
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000MHz
Graphics GIGABYTE GTX 1080 G1 Gaming
Storage Corsair Force LX 512GB
PSU Corsair HX1050 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU
Monitor AOC U2879VF
Capture Device Epiphan AV.iO 4K
Benchmarks
Cinebench R15 – CPU/OpenGL Score
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA – CPU & Memory benchmarks
POV-RAY – CPU benchmarks
TrueCrypt – CPU benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks & Memory
PCMark 8 – Home Suite & Photoshop
3DMark FireStrike – 3D Benchmark
Games – Civilization IV & Total War: WARHAMMER
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA – CPU & Memory benchmarks
POV-RAY – CPU benchmarks
TrueCrypt – CPU benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks & Memory
PCMark 8 – Home Suite & Photoshop
3DMark FireStrike – 3D Benchmark
Games – Civilization IV & Total War: WARHAMMER
Other Software
Temperature Analysis: Real Temp
Stress Testing Software: AIDA64 Stability Test
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Stress Testing Software: AIDA64 Stability Test
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Overclocking
Like previous generations, the Intel Core i7-7700K (Kabylake) is unlocked and also has flexible attributes in terms of the BCLK and ratio/multiplier. This makes the job of overclocking much easier.
Our current milestone is 4.9GHz with the Intel Core i7-7700K – this milestone has actually been set by this very motherboard. For 4.9GHz, we were able to use just 1.38v.
Benchmarks: Power Consumption
It’s interesting to note the power consumption across all motherboards. Although they are using the Z270 chipset, energy results can fluctuate between manufacturers due to the features and specifications that are integrated. First of all, for the idle tests the system is cold booted into Windows and no additional applications are executed – the watts are noted on the external energy monitor we use and then the system is loaded with 3DMark FireStrike – watts are again monitored for the duration of the test and the highest rated wattage result is then noted down. Below are the results of this energy test.
Benchmarks: Cinebench R15
CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Iron Man 3, Oblivion, Life of Pi or Prometheus and many more.
Benchmarks: X264 HD
Simply put, this test measures how fast your machine can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality x264 video clip. What’s x264, you ask? It’s more or less the next-generation Xvid/DivX codec. I think it’s ideal for a benchmark because the application (x264.exe) reports fairly accurate compression results (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encoding process, and it uses multi-core processors very efficiently.
Benchmarks: SiSoftware SANDRA
SANDRA isn’t always a benchmark that is included in hardware reviews but we believe it shouldn’t be ignored. SANDRA provides a vigorous package that tests your system in a rather large array of benchmarks. There are many aspects of benchmark that can be executed. We will be considering – CPU and memory tests.
Benchmarks: POV-RAY
Persistence of Vision Raytracer’s PovRay is a free and open source 3D animator application with versions for computers with different operating systems.
This product allows users to build their custom 3D worlds with excellent quality despite their computer’s hardware. It has adjustable options for levels of radiance, refraction, and reflection. Calculation time may vary depending on the computer model, but PovRay can adapt to many computer builds, and is supported by the open source community.
fullimage=35348]
This product allows users to build their custom 3D worlds with excellent quality despite their computer’s hardware. It has adjustable options for levels of radiance, refraction, and reflection. Calculation time may vary depending on the computer model, but PovRay can adapt to many computer builds, and is supported by the open source community.
Benchmarks: TrueCrypt
TrueCrypt is a discontinued source-available freeware utility used for on-the-fly encryption (OTFE). It can create a virtual encrypted disk within a file or encrypt a partition or (under Microsoft Windows except Windows 8 with GPT) the entire storage device (pre-boot authentication).
Benchmarks: AIDA64
AIDA64 Product PageThis simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic “Queens problem” on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example — with HyperThreading disabled — the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.
Benchmarks: PCMark 8
PCMark 8 combines performance benchmarking with battery life measurement and includes tests based on popular Adobe and Microsoft applications. Whether you are looking for long battery life, or maximum power, PCMark 8 will help you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance for your needs. It’s the complete PC performance benchmark for home and business.
Benchmarks: PCMark 8 Photoshop
The PCMark 8 Applications benchmark measures system performance using popular applications from the Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office. You can choose which tests to run based on the applications installed on your system. Each test automatically steps through a series of actions such as opening, editing and saving a file. The results are used to calculate the PCMark 8 Applications scores for the system.
Benchmarks: 3DMark
3DMark FireStrike Product PageFire Strike is our new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today. Fire Strike will only be available in the Windows editions of 3DMark initially.
Benchmarks: Civilization IV & Total War: WARHAMMER
It’s important for us to perform a number of game benchmarks as well as the synthetic tests because gamers will want to know if there are any significant benefits. So here we have two recent gaming titles which are heavily CPU-based. For this test we remove the graphics card and rely on the integrated graphics from the Core i7-7700K.
Conclusion
The Z270X-Gaming 7 is the first motherboard to feature in our coverage of the new Intel Z270 chipset and GIGABYTE has used this platform to out their new AORUS branded solutions. What we’ve been presented with here in the Gaming 7 is a fantastic and GIGABYTE has set a high-standard for others to meet.
The first and obvious point to make is the visual appearance on this motherboard which is simply stunning. A matt black PCB with white/silver/black heatsinks adorn this motherboard and will provide a pleasant canvas for the rest of the system components. Those wanting to add in a splash of colour with RGB lighting are not without options – GIGABYTE has kitted Gaming 7 out with a plethora of LEDs which are all adjustable via RGB Fusion software. If you haven’t checked out our video demonstration of this, be sure to check out our video review.
Across Gaming 7 there is strong emphasis on high-performance with support for both U.2 and M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4 storage standards. Some brands are making a step away from U.2, so it’s good to see such a port present on the Gaming 7. Adding to the high-performance attributes, GIGABYTE are also backing Thunderbolt 3 via USB 3.1 type-C – this taps into up to 40GB/s transfer rates and has the ability to support monitor displays at 4K resolution as well as enabling the option to daisy chain up to six devices.
After putting Gaming 7 through our benchmark suite we can confirm a solid performer. Up against rival Intel Z270 motherboards, this AORUS offering delivers consistent results in a range of different scenarios. Further to this, we were able to achieve the best overclock we’ve had thus far with the new Intel Kaby Lake – Intel Core i7-7700K – taking the chip to 4.9GHz. All the ingredients are there for those with a passion for overclocking, whether we’re considering the Turbo-B Clock tuning IC, 12-phase digital power design or the extensive options within the UEFI BIOS, a thirst for tweaking system performance will be satisfied.
The AORUS Z270X-Gaming 7 will be priced in the region of £200 GBP and $250 USD. At this cost, we’re looking at a mid-range Intel Z270 motherboard and the Gaming 7 certainly offers a substantial feature-set which comes backed by a generous 3 years warranty and 1 year XSplit Premium license – not bad at all!
The AORUS Z270X-Gaming 7 is poised to represent one of GIGABYTE’s premium motherboard solutions and it certainly delivers on this. Gaming 7 sets the standard for others to follow, boasting a feature-rich platform and stunning aesthetics.
VIDEO REVIEW
Pros
+ Stunning visual appearance
+ Lots of options for RGB lighting
+ Excellent performance
+ Steel reinforced slots
+ Can handle 4000MHz DDR4
+ Thunderbolt 3 ready
+ Includes High-Bandwidth SLI bridge
+ Dual-Gigabit LAN
+ Features dual-M.2 and U.2
+ Strong audio solution via Creative Sound Core3D
+ Includes 1 Year premium XSplit license
Cons
– None!
+ Stunning visual appearance
+ Lots of options for RGB lighting
+ Excellent performance
+ Steel reinforced slots
+ Can handle 4000MHz DDR4
+ Thunderbolt 3 ready
+ Includes High-Bandwidth SLI bridge
+ Dual-Gigabit LAN
+ Features dual-M.2 and U.2
+ Strong audio solution via Creative Sound Core3D
+ Includes 1 Year premium XSplit license
Cons
– None!
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
