Hardware Award
GIGABYTE Z87X-OC Force
RRP: $399.99 | Website: www.gigabyte.com
Test Machine
• INTEL Core i7 4770K
• CORSAIR Dominator
Platinum 2x4GB DDR
666MHZ C10
• Corsair Force LS 240GB
• Cooler Master Silent Pro M2
1500W
• Windows 7 64-bit SP1
• Bios Version F8b
L
ast issue we had the
great opportunity of
putting the Z87X-OC
through its paces and finding
it to be the most impressive
GIGABYTE motherboard to
date. Despite having to prove
itself against two other pure
overclocking motherboards,
the Z87X-OC came across
as the champion of
motherboards, which should
be GIGABYTE’s pride and joy. If
you didn’t read that review, you
can find it here.
This issue we were greeted
with the bigger, grander
version of the Z87X-OC. This
board is supposed to be
20 The OverClocker Issue 27 | 2013
the ultimate overclocking
board for the Z87 platform.
It features many things
that you will not find on the
cheaper board including or
primarily 4-way SLI support.
More than that though, the
OC Force provides you with
dual LAN capabilities, WiFi and Bluetooth support,
an additional 4 SATA ports
and superior audio via the
improved ALC898 chip as
opposed to the older ALC892
on the OC board.
The form factor has also
changed for the OC Force to
that of the E-ATX standard as
the board is 2cm longer. You’ll
be hard pressed to notice
that as the board is literarily
packed with components.
What you may find peculiar
though is that despite costing
twice as much, in the context
of overclocking, this board
has fewer OC buttons than
the Z87X-OC. The OC Force
is missing the mem-safe,
settings lock, clear battery
and direct to BIOS buttons.
None of these buttons are
a necessity of course, but
consider that if you are
going to be overclocking and
tweaking memory. There are
going to be plenty of times
when you can’t POST the
system because of overly
aggressive timings or invalid
settings. Sorting through this
on the Z87X-OC as a result will
be much quicker than it is on
the OC-Force.
To offset the absence of
all these features though,
GIGABYTE has, as mentioned
previously, added 4-way SLI
supp