ASUS ROG expand their STRIX lineup of motherboards with the release of the new Intel Z270 chipset. Today we explore the delights of the new Z270F Gaming.
Product on Review: ROG STRIX Z270F Gaming
Manufacturer & Sponsor: ASUS
Street Price: £188.79 GBP @ CCL Computers / $200 USD
Today marks the release of Intel’s new Z270 chipset along with their 7th Generation Core i7 Processors; codenamed Kaby Lake. Timed with this launch, a fresh lineup of motherboards have arrived bearing the STRIX moniker and under the Republic of Gamers branding. We saw our first STRIX motherboard as part of the X99 refresh and ROG has decided to build on this success, using today’s platform as a golden opportunity.
In the spotlight today is the STRIX Z270F Gaming – a capable Intel Z270 motherboard which carries with it some trademark ROG features. As with other ASUS motherboards, our STRIX offering also arrives with Aura lighting options which allows users to not only sync up other Aura-based products but kit their computer chassis out with some eye-catching LED strips!
About ASUS
This visionary approach is the reason ASUS is able to bring high-quality innovation and design to all, and the reason for its widespread acclaim. ASUS products won 4,256 international awards and accolades in 2013 – that’s over 11 a day, every day. ASUS has consistently achieved significant year-on-year growth in terms of consumer notebook units shipped too, and closed 2011 on a high with revenues hitting US$11.9 billion.
Technical Specifications
Below are the technical specifications concerning the STRIX Z270F Gaming:
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 3866MHz
• 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 (Modes: 16, 8, 4)
• 4 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
• 1 x DVI-I, support a maximum resolution of 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
• 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
• SupremeFX (Realtek ALC 1220)
– 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio
– Supports S/PDIF output
LAN
• 1 x Intel® I219-V Gigabit LAN controller
Back Panel I/O Ports
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type A and Type C
– 1 x DVI port
– 1 x Displayport
– 1 x HDMI port
– 1 x PS2 keyboard/mouse
– 4 x USB 3 ports
– 1 x Gigabit LAN (Intel i219V)
– 1 x Audio ports with optical out
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 3866MHz
• 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 (Modes: 16, 8, 4)
• 4 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
• 1 x DVI-I, support a maximum resolution of 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
• 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
• SupremeFX (Realtek ALC 1220)
– 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio
– Supports S/PDIF output
LAN
• 1 x Intel® I219-V Gigabit LAN controller
Back Panel I/O Ports
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type A and Type C
– 1 x DVI port
– 1 x Displayport
– 1 x HDMI port
– 1 x PS2 keyboard/mouse
– 4 x USB 3 ports
– 1 x Gigabit LAN (Intel i219V)
– 1 x Audio ports with optical out
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 ASUS ROG STRIX Z270F Gaming
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 ASUS ROG STRIX Z270F Gaming
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 – our STRIX Z270F Gaming managed to achieve this overclock and even succeeded in delivering the result with a low voltage of just 1.31v. This remains one of the best results we’ve had so far and is testament to the Digi+ power delivery system and overclocking options (LLC) in the UEFI BIOS.
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.
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 Page
This 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 Page
Fire 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
ASUS ROG’s team used the Intel X99 refresh to unveil the first STRIX-branded motherboard and it was only a matter of time before we witnessed more products bearing the STRIX moniker. With the arrival of Intel’s new Z270 chispet, ROG has seized this opportunity and today we’ve experienced first-hand the delights of the Z270F Gaming.
The Z270F is without a shadow of a doubt one of the most eye-catching designs we’ve ever handled. From an aesthetics point of view, it doesn’t get any better than this; the matt PCB with interlacing and gunmetal heatsinks and laser etched finishing oozes the style and finesse to which ROG has always been associated with. The visual appearance of components is especially important nowadays with users constructing their own theme and Z270F is quite a neutral canvas, so it’s likely to coordinate well with other hardware.
Although this motherboard features just a single LED strip on the rear IO cover, there are two Aura RGB headers positioned at the top and bottom of the board for those wanting to kit their system out with LED strips. Since our STRIX motherboard also uses Aura lighting, if you have another ASUS-branded device with Aura lighting such as a graphics card, then you’ll be able to sync it with the software and control the lighting from the motherboard too.
As far as performance goes, our STRIX Z270F Gaming tackled all of the benchmarks very well, in a range of different tests we found this ROG board to be a strong performer and we even managed to push the Intel Core i7-7700K to the 4.9GHz milestone – achieving this result with the lowest required CPU voltage. ASUS’ Digi+ power delivery and comprehensive UEFI BIOS make the task of overclocking an absolute breeze and without any problems.
The STRIX Z270F Gaming packs in some interesting features, audio being one of its strong points. However, we are surprised to see U.2 omitted from both this STRIX boards and the rest of the ROG lineup (even the flagship solutions). The Z270F could have also benefitted from having more USB ports on the backpanel, once your keyboard and mouse have been connected you’re left with just three USB 3/3.1 type A ports.
The Intel Z270 chipset lacks any revolutionary features and therefore brands are quite limited to what they can include on their boards. This therefore places more emphasis on thinking outside of the box, perhaps pushing motherboard partners to bring something innovative to the table. To that end, our Z270F supplies us with some 3D mounts which allows the user to install three-dimensional objects produced from a 3D printer. Demand for such a feature is undetermined, but we predict that this may be more favoured by those who are fully indulged in case modding and customisation.
Arriving with a price-tag of £175 GBP @ CCL Computers and $200 USD, we believe the Z270F to be a good value for money option for enthusiasts or gamers moving over to the Intel Z270 chipset. This motherboard offers a great selection of features and included items within the bundle as well as being backed by a generous 3 years warranty.
The STRIX Z270F Gaming is a visual masterpiece which bears a strong lineup of features and is able to deliver excellent out of the box performance as well as helping overclockers squeeze the very most out of their Core i7-7700K.
VIDEO REVIEW
Pros
+ Visual masterpiece
+ Features two Aura RGB headers
+ Excellent performance
+ Enhanced steel reinforced PCI Express
+ Features dual-M.2
+ Excellent audio solution
+ Features 3D mounts
Cons
– Lacks U.2
– Too few USB ports on backpanel
+ Visual masterpiece
+ Features two Aura RGB headers
+ Excellent performance
+ Enhanced steel reinforced PCI Express
+ Features dual-M.2
+ Excellent audio solution
+ Features 3D mounts
Cons
– Lacks U.2
– Too few USB ports on backpanel
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
