Review: Biostar TZ77XE4 T Overclocker
Published by Marc Büchel on 03.04.12Page:
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| The TZ77XE4 T-Overclocker generally is an interesting board. In combination with a down-draft CPU cooler this motherboard will be cooled very efficiently. This will, as a consequence, extend the components lifespan. With the "Thermal Radar" the TZ77XE4 T-Overclocker offers good possibilities to control the temperatures and airflow in your case. Using the corresponding software one can control the fans connected to the board and therefore realize highly efficient cooling. | - Design | - Only 3 fan header | |
| Layout | + | - | |
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Generally the ASUS TZ77XE4 T-Overclocker s layout is well thought. Once more very practical are the angled SATA connectors. There are also practical power/reset buttons onboard as well as a debug LED. Unfortunately the last expansion slots is a full size PCI Express port, which means that if you choose to install a dual slots graphics card at this place you're going to cover the connectors at the bottom edge of the board. On the other hand there are two slots between the PCIe-x16 slots which means that an SLI or CrossFire setup will get a perfect environment when it comes to cooling. |
- Angled SATA connectors - Two slots between first two PCIe-x16 slots - Power/Reset/Clr-CMOS Button | ||
| Performance | + | - | |
| With the TZ77XE4, Biostar definitely succeeded in building a motherboard with a good overall performance level. Compared to the other Z77 boards we've had for testing so far, it really can keep up with them. If we take a closer look at the performance difference between Z77 and Z68, we see that in certain benchmarks Z77 lacks behind - like wPrime, Resident Evil 5 and 3D Mark Vantage CPU - and in others it is well ahead - SiSoft Sandra and Super Pi. But generally you get a little bit more performance from the Z77 than the Z68. | - SiSoft Sandra - Super Pi |
- wPrime - Resident Evil 5 - 3D Mark Vantage CPU |
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| BIOS / Overclocking | + | - | |
| Also in the overclocking part the TZ77XE4 was a convincing product. Therefore it's been childrens play to reach the clock wall of our test CPU. Furthermore the UEFI BIOS is easy to use and one can quickly find the settings needed. There are BIOSes from other manufacturers which are nicer to look at, but that's it. | - Well structured BIOS - UEFI-BIOS | ||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you already want to buy a motherboard for Intels upcoming CPUs, then TZ77XE4 T-Overclocker surely isn't a bad choice. The only thing we really don't like is, that there are only three fan headers. | -
High-End - Gaming - Overclocking |
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| Rating | |||
| We give the Biostar TZ77XE4 T-Overclocker good four out of five stars. | |||
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Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch Copy edited and translated: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch c.ney@ocaholic.ch
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