EDITOR’S CHOICE
AWARD
OC Hero Award
GIGABYTE Z97X SOC-FORCE
RRP: $209.99 | Website: www.gigabyte.com
Test Machine
• INTEL Core i7 4790K
• CORSAIR Dominator
Platinum 2x4GB DDR
2666MHZ C10
• Intel 730 480GB SSD
• Corsair AX1500i PSU
• Windows 7 64-bit SP1
30 The OverClocker Issue 30 | 2014
H
ow does any vendor
improve on an
already impressive
overclocking motherboard?
Make it even better at
overclocking is the answer.
Sounds asinine but it’s true.
The Z87X-OC was a fantastic
board and to improve upon
that was always going to
require something special.
Given that the Z87 and the
Z97 chipset are basically
the same, how would one go
about making a compelling
case for buying a Z97X-SOC
Force when the previous
generation board was so
good?
Well how about improving
memory overclocking
amongst other things?
When we say memory
overclocking we mean,
improve it dramatically. So
much more impressive is
the Z97X-SOC Force at this
that it shuts the door on
every other motherboard
there is on the market.
This was made vividly
clear during the duration of
COMPUTEX 2014, where
this board took the