ECS Z77H2-AX motherboard review

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Final words and conclusion

 

Final words and conclusion

There's no denying it, the ECS Z77H2-AX is a very impressive motherboard with some great looks. The design is daring, as very likely you will probably either love or hate the gold themed design. I personally like the design very much, but one of my mates walked in the other day and his reaction to the motherboard was nearly allergic :)

Regardless what you might think of the overall looks, ECS did a splendid job from a hardware point of view. The board simply is LOADED with features. You get to have everything that Z77 offers and then ECS started adding more and more like an extra PLX chip for even more PCIe lanes, integrated Bluetooth, integrated WIFI, a Diagnostic / Status LED, onboard reset and power buttons properly positioned, three PCIe X16 slots for a multi-GPU adventure, voltage monitoring points and well the list goes on and on.

So what you get is a very versatile motherboard with some enthusiast options, but also remember the Z77 features like native USB 3.0 support, SATA3 ports PCIe Gen 3 PCIe express lanes.

Though not the fastest the overall performance non-overclocked seems to fall in the same baseline as all other Z77 motherboards we tested, with an offset here and there of course. But you can easily tweak that out.

ECS z77h2-ax PREVIEW

Throughout the review we have shown you that the motherboard can run a 3770K processor at 4.6 GHz fairly easy as well. It takes a few minutes to setup in the BIOS, but really after that you are good to go. We forfeited a little at 4600 MHz as we wanted more acceptable temperatures before sending a fried processor back to Intel :)

Any negatives ...?  yes, as always the BIOS is a confusing flurry of variables with ECS. Nothing is really logical when you want to go a for a little advanced tweaking, the functions within the BIOS often are named different compared to the competition. For example, the maximum TDP for the processor can be altered, but on the BIOS this is called: "IA Core Current Max (1/8 Amp)" with the variable 1680 staring at you right in the face. Now I can do some math, and 1680/8 is 210, we assume the TDP limited wattage is 210 Watt. But honestly we're not even sure. Now try overclocking with such confusing variables. Time after time the BIOS is where ECS does not succeed. So again my recommendation to ECS is, LOOK at the other manufacturers like MSI Gigabyte, ASUS .. they are all doing it right. and sure, I won't deny either that where ECS was two years ago is doing much better on the BIOS front. It's just not enough.

Again I do have to say though that Ivy bridge processors run hotter when overclocked opposed to Sandy Bridge, reaching 4.6~ 5.0 GHz is relatively easy to accomplish with the motherboard however you'll find yourself needing juice in the 1.375~1.425 Volts range of the processor. As such be prepared for serious processor heat, proper liquid cooling definitely deserves a recommendation alright. On regular air cooling, I'd say you'd end up at roughly 4.5 GHz.

guru3d-recommended_150px.jpgOverall we feel the ECS Z77H2-AX is a very solid offering. BIOS aside it was one of the most complete products we tested. It's stable and works out well. The additional PLX chip, SATA ports and features like WIFI are impressive. The biggest problem with this motherboard however is actually finding one in the stores. At the time of writing we have no pricing and retail availability information at hand. So for the true overclocking enthusiast we'd recommend a motherboard with a more compelling BIOS. However in every other aspect we can wholeheartedly recommended the ECS Z77H2-AX motherboard, as it is so very complete and extraordinarily bling.

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