Gigabyte Z87X-OC Review

 

Introduction

If ever you need a demonstration of our commitment to provide you regular fresh content and to push the boundaries we bring you our review of the Gigabyte Z87X-OC. Why such commitment you ask? With such searing temperatures and most people laying in the park or doing everything they can to keep cool it seems the perfect opportunity to lock ourselves indoors and test an overclocking motherboard. We all know how well high ambient temperatures and overclocking go together.

The Gigabyte overclocking range first broke cover with the X58 chipset. We found it to be an extraordinary performer whether we were running on just air-cooling or we had our mad scientist hat on with a barrel of dry ice. The gorgeous black and orange colour scheme reappeared on the Z77 UP7. One of the finer motherboards from the last generation with a wealth of features and great performance.

Now the black and orange has been dusted off once more to bring us the Gigabyte Z87X-OC. The combination of the fullsome Haswell feature set alongside the overclocking tweaks you would expect from a ‘board bearing such a simple title should give us some decent performance. However, we know that the Maximus VI Extreme flattered to deceive so we hope that history doesn’t repeat. At least the Z87X-OC is around half the price, so expectations are naturally a little lower.

Technical Specifications

The specifications of Z87 motherboards at anything other than the base price point are all fairly similar, and the Z87X-OC is no exception. However, it does have a few features not normally seen, such as the positioning of the internal USB ports, and the Gear buttons, more of which later.