indiscernible while gaming. The
heavy lifting these days is done by
the GPU, the CPU and of course the
DRAM and perhaps in that exact
order.
How the GAMING 7 speaks to each
of these in the reverse order is as
follows. The specifications state that
there’s support for DDR4 4133MT/s,
however I was not able to run any
of the memory I had, regardless
of X.M.P rating or settings past
3866MT/s. The motherboard would
either not POST or you’d lose a
channel in the process. Understand
this isn’t a failure of this specific
motherboard, but simply that
there are few if any of these four
DIMM boards making using of a
daisy chained structure for DRAM
that could reliably operate at that
frequency. The same motherboard,
with two DIMMS using T-topology
would fair a little better and I’ve no
doubt 4000 MT/s would be possible.
Of course, there is a way in which
one could operate DRAM at such a
high frequency, but I’d say the odds
are very slim even though that is
stated as the maximum supported
frequency.
For whom this board is aimed at,
there was no need to state support
for such frequencies and even if it
did. There are no tangible benefits
to this in a gaming context. In the
interest of honesty, I’d say 3,733MT/s
and lower are fair expectations.
Still plenty of performance there
and once again it will make zero
difference to your gaming experience
going from 3733 to 4133 at any
meaningful detail level and screen
resolution.
CPU support is as you’d expect
and there’s nothing surprising here.
This is true for the overclocking
as well. It is hard to get exact
measurements on how well the
board handles voltage control under
varying conditions, but comparing
this model with what I’d consider the
best performance orientated Z370
board I’ve tested (APEX) revealed
that maximum CPU overclocks were
identical. Making direct comparisons
of voltage requirements between
the two boards for say 5GHz isn’t
possible because, as I’ve recently
learned, where you measure voltage
makes a world of difference and the
UEFI/BIOS is not a reliable way in
the least of taking readings. Suffice
to say 5GHz and a validation of
5.2GHz with a de-lidded CPU were
possible so there is literally nothing
to report here or moan about (this is
important because any review that
has an overclocking section that
simply increases the CPU multiplier
and CPU input voltage and reports
the numbers is probably less than
useless). As expected, the Gaming
7 can hang with the best of them
when it comes to AIO/Air cooled
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