Review: Biostar TZ77XE4 T Overclocker - Ivy Bridge

Published by Marc Büchel on 09.05.12
Page:
« 1 ... 16 17 18 (19)

Conclusion

Allgemein   + -
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   + -

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   + -
A quick look at our overall rankings shows that the Biostar board is on the second to last spot in our comparison tables. Regarding 2D performance we find it in the center span of our comparison tabels. Basically you can see that Biostar would really have to optimize performance of this board to reach the same level like the big brand in the business. In quite a few 3D benches this board managed a poor last or second to last spot. Shifting the focus to power consumption shows that it's also ranks in the center span.   - SiSoft Sandra
- Super Pi
- wPrime
- Resident Evil 5
- 3D Mark Vantage CPU 
       
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.   - Not well structured BIOS - UEFI-BIOS  
       
Recommendation   + -
Recommending the Biostar TZ77XE T-Overclocker is quite difficult. Basically it isn't a bad motherboard and the only thing we really didn't like is the fact that there are just three fan header. If there wasn't the poor 3D performance we would have liked this board. But this way we think it's an alternative for people who want to try something different.      
       
Rating
We give the Biostar TZ77XE4 T-Overclocker sufficient three out of five stars.



Page 1 - Introduction Page 11 - SiSoft Sandra 1
Page 2 - Specifications / Delivery Page 12 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 3 - Layout Page 13 - UC Bench
Page 4 - Connectors and I/O Page 14 - Super Pi 1M / 32M
Page 5 - BIOS Page 15 - wPrime 1024M Multi Core
Page 6 - Test setup Page 16 - Games
Page 7 - 3D Mark 11 Page 17 - Power Consumption
Page 8 - 3D Mark Vantage Page 18 - Performance Rating
Page 9 - 3D Mark 2001 SE Page 19 - Conclusion
Page 10 - PC Mark 7  


Discuss this article in the forums

Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch Copy edited and translated: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch c.ney@ocaholic.ch




Navigate through the articles
Previous article Review: ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe - mini ITX Madness! Review Next article
comments powered by Disqus

Review: Biostar TZ77XE4 T Overclocker - Ivy Bridge - Motherboards > Intel > Z77 - Reviews - ocaholic