GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-OC

Well.

Here we are a few weeks to a month into Haswell and a lot can be said about this “new” platform.
By me saying a lot, I mean what we see on Hwbot is not what us average users are going to see in terms of benchmarks.
I held off buying a chip for awhile and the question would be asked, Why did you hold off XtremeCuztoms?
Well to be totally honest, aside from the memory overclocks on air that I’ve been seeing I wasn’t all that Impressed with the new platform. Watching the new motherboards coming to the market and seeing what was offered I was blown away with some of the new features that these company’s were offering.
But daily average overclocks were sub-par to me.

With something new coming out, I’d expect to see forums flooded with posts of members 4770k’s doing 5.0Ghz + on a nice custom water loop.
I mean, there are a few posts of decent clocks on a CLC setup or custom water cooling solution but it seems these posts are few and far between.
Aside from the lack of the “wow” factor of seeing what is posted in the forums I parted ways with a great 3770K to grab a mediocre Haswell and join the crowd on a new platform. Will my chip be great, Will it be subpar? Let’s just say I’ll still be enjoying my stock 2600K and Z68X-UD4 for now.

So let’s get onto the good stuff with this amazing motherboard and it’s amazing price point.

What the Z87X-OC is based on is tried and true Overclocking. The monikor “OC” has been used since the inception of the X58-OC which set the bar for other OC branded motherboards. Where this board fits in line with the current lineup makes it a killer deal of a board, but not to everyone due to some of it’s features.
This board and it’s bigger brother the Z87X-OC Force aren’t really designed to bring in the gamers or the 24/7 everyday users, these boards are designed and marketed to a smaller crowd of folks. While I can say there are many gamers that enjoy pushing their systems to it’s limits from time to time, these guys and gals aren’t going to benefit from items like the OC Touch or OC Brace Kit. But what I think Gigabyte did here with this Z87X-OC was gear it towards beginners, gamers and serious overclockers alike due to it’s price point. I mean, you don’t really need to go drop $400.00 on An overclocking motherboard because you got all that you need here in this nice package.. Unless you need 4 way SLI, Then you’re going to have to drop some additional cash..

I’ll save you all from the boring review of Haswell and the processors as I’m sure there are a lot of reviews out there on the processors at this point. We are going to dig into the board and it’s features.

To read the full review please see this link:
www.overclock.net/t/1405687/gigabyte-ga-z87x-oc-review-info