ECS Golden Z77H2-AX Review And Benchmarks

Introduction

ECS has been a long time builder of motherboards especially known for their more mainstream options and nice pricing than anything else.  Many OEM style or what many would call low end boards have been what ECS has been known for as for quite awhile there was not a barebones kit I could find that didn’t have a ECS board ready to roll in the bundle.  Things have changed a lot as ECS has been pushing for much higher end products via the Black Edition line and simply overall they are chasing more after the enthusiasts class products.

There is a decent market for Enthusiasts class boards as they are always using the highest end components which in turn end users look at as much more reliable and better fit for their 24/7 or gaming rig. ECS did not just want to push for the enthusiasts and gamers though as they also now want to engage overclocking enthusiasts with enhanced overclockability and boards that now meet their “Gold” standard. This is most assuredly a motherboard for the MOD builder as its Black And Gold good looks make it stand out amongst it peers and from a few custom build I have seen on the NET it does have the aesthetics to make for some bling.

 

ECS Golden Z77H2-AX Basic Features

The ECS Golden Z77H2-AX being a Z77 model supports Dual channel DDR3 at speeds up to 2800MHz. I was quite surprised to see 2800 MHz proudly printed as this tells me they’re not playing around and this board is armed for battle!  Ok that’s enough of the box, now lets see what this board has to offer for your bucks as far as features go, which is really more important than anything else.

Inside the box you get all of the accessories and all of the goodies packed inside.

• IO Shield
• User/Installation manuals
• Installation disc
• IO plastic plugs
• SATA Cables
• 3x SLI Bridges
• Front panel USB 3.0 breakout panel
• Rear panel USB 3.0 adapter bracket
• WiFi antennae wire

 

The ECS golden Z77 like every Z77 offers dual channel memory, and this board is equipped with dual slots for expandability up to 32GB and memory speeds up to 2800MHz.  Of course we do not expect anytime soon to see a 32GB memory kit that will reach that speed and it is more of an either or scenario where you can get up to 32GB at speeds ranging from 1333-2200 or approximately around there or you can get lower density kits up to 2800MHz+ which ECS fully supports up to 2800 with some overclocking needed to get you there.

The Chipset cooler is golden fare adorning the Black Edition crest and logo along with a heatpipe extending to the upper sink.  The upper sink is where things get a little interesting as this is where previous chipsets kept their North Bridge chipset.  But as we know the new Intel offerings now contain the North Bridge chipset functions within the CPU itself leaving only the PCH or what was formally known as the South Bridge chipset.

Under this heatsink you will find a PLX chip designed to multiplex or simply put offer more PCIe lanes for use which allows for even more components or in this case graphics cards.

The SATA port offerings are quite odd when looking at a Z77 offering.  We know that the chipset supports up to 4x SATA 3G and 2x SATA 6G, but in the case of this board ECS chose to employ only 2x of the SATA 3G and 2x of the SATA 6G ports from the PCH.

There are 2 more ports you will notice though which are fed by the ASMedia ASM 1061 controller and they operate at up to SATA 6G spec along with 2x eSATA ports which also operate at up to SATA6G spec from the same ASMedia controller.  Also next to the onboard SATA connectors there is a mPCIe port which supports a mSATA or mPCIe device and even further unique expandability.

The slot configuration is great for the fact that the top primary slot has triple slot spacing between itself and the next full length slot below it.  This is excellent for SLI or crossfire pairs as it allows for adequate spacing to ensure cooling airflow can reach the primary or top card and keep heat down which will also eliminate some unnecessary fan noise.  If looking to run Tri SLI the spacing will keep the top card cool but the 2^nd and 3^rd cards will still be standard dual slot spacing which means they may run a bit warmer. Honestly there is only so much you can expect from a PCB before you start running into extended lengths and fitment issues so being that many users utilize a single or dual card setup at max it seems like a good compromise.  Another note here is that there is an inclusion of dual PCI slots which support pretty much any legacy need but I honestly am having a hard time thinking of how in this day and age I would need anything PCI in my new Z77 system.

The IO layout is quite plentiful with many features and connectivity options built in.

• Bluetooth antennae
• 4x USB 2.0 ports
• 2x eSATAports
• Clear CMOS Button
• VGA port
• HDMI Port
• WiFi Antennae
• 4x USB 3.0 ports
• Gigabit LAN
• Realtek 8 Channel High Definition audio with Optical SPDIF

 

ECS Golden Z77H2-AX Advanced Features

Advanced features is all about what makes the board special and not just another Z77 off the shelf and basically a clone.

The Gold4ever standard is actually a collection of 4 golden standards that ECS has put together for tis gold edition boards.

Gold4ever quality has to do with the gold plating of components or more importantly connections on the boards.  Most importantly things such as Graphics slots, CPU sockets and even DIMM slots all have contacts, which must at all-times, maintain a good contact patch and signal strength through that contact to have a stable and consistent system.  Many times multiple unplugs and replugs of devices can cause connection problems in the slot or socket causing instability or even complete loss of function.  By placing a much more dense gold contact area which in turn means better contact and also many more times you can swap devices without a worry as to connectivity or functionality problems.

Gold4ever stability is the ECS claim that the gold coated components used on the board such as the choked, caps and etc are better suited to deal with harsh environments.  Due to the superior capability to handle oxidation, rusting and moisture concerns it makes these components an ideal solution for the motherboard application and to ensure optimal stability in a live environment.

Gold4ever cooling covers the ability to have much more affective cooling via faster dissipation through the gold coated components and thermal solutions.  This is something I find a little tougher to prove as showing thermal dissipation or how it can be better from one solution to another is simply hard to show but the large nature of the chipset cooling solutions I would not doubt that it stays nice and cool regardless.

Gold4ever royalty is the 4^th and last on the gold 4 ever feature list.  It is in respect to the limited or exclusive nature of the Gold Edition ECS boards and that there is rarity and a feeling of royalty or upper class status to be had by owning these model boards.  I wont argue this one as any limited production product always has a cool factor in my book and in a way having one of only a few can sometimes give you a feeling of an elite status or “one of the few”.

Nonstop is all about the certification and special testing that goes into each elite gold series motherboard.  It is broken down into several parts which I will touch on.

Super Marathon 3x stability – This is in relation specifically to the stability testing which is done on the motherboards before they are ever packed to ship.  Each gold edition board goes through a 72hr stability test which ensures component reliability and stability right out of the box so that you know one of ECS very own testing specialists hand tested the board for you.

Sahara Severe Test – This is one of the most extreme tests as the Gold Edition boards are stability tested at a much higher than normal 50C temperature to ensure the stability of components as desktop systems will rarely if ever see those kind of temperatures for extended periods.  This of course translates to the idea that if it can handle this environment during stress testing it should handle conditions in your rig with no issues.

Apache Long-life caps – This is ECS speak for they use specially selected and fully tested hand picked 100% solid state caps.  Solid state caps have been used for some time now and on motherboard pretty much exclusively on high end products as it allows much better lifespan and durability.  This is not as much a special feature as it is just keeping it a legit high performance board.

Thor Ultra Protection – This kind of made me laugh as the god of thunder does not adorn this board but if static does find it was to the board there are many protection circuits built in to keep components safe if a stray static spark does find its way to the board, there is less likelihood it will cause damage.

 

ECS Golden Z77H2-AX Overclocking

The ECS board does overclock about on par with what we can expect from Ivy Bridge and while the bios was a bit different and a little tougher to get used to overall it could pull off a 4.6-5GHz overclock with little trouble.  This places the ECS gold edition right there with the rest of the pack which as we have seen can easily hold their own against each other and with proper cooling can easily scale to amazing speeds in excess of 5GHz and beyond.

 

ECS Golden Z77H2-AX BIOS Features

The BIOS for the Z77H2-AX is the one stumbling block I can name as it is simply plain, not very good looking and many of the higher end advanced overclocking features are either missing completely or hidden somewhere that I could not find.  The BIOS works and does its job but as the tuning gets more necessary at higher clocks the BIOS may leave you wanting as it just doesn’t have some of the settings we have gotten used to on the other boards.   A simple BIOS update with some more features could easily unlock this board to being completely amazing given some time, love and polishing was done to the UEFI.

 

ECS Golden Z77H2-AX Test Setup

ECS Golden Z77H2-AX Performance Results

ECS Golden Z77H2-AX Final Thoughts

Well there you have it, the limited edition Uber-board from ECS is built to perform and minus some BIOS love, which is sorely needed, it can be one hell of a competitor.  I would not say I am ready to go with an all ECS build just yet but if they continue down the path of tweaking for maximum performance and pushing for the absolute limit I could see ECS becoming a major player in the near future.  Granted some love definitely needs to come from the BIOS team to bring the UEFI at least up to par with the pack and bringing on a few staff overclockers to help improve efficiency and setting this be a reality.

Anyone looking to jump into Z77 and looking for a pretty sweet deal and a board with bling to spare ECS has you covered with either of their 2 gold edition models to cover any 2 way or 3 way SLI gaming rig. Modders and those who are looking for something not carved out of your garden variety colored motherboard batch will most likely be the bunch of lads who covets this board. The only drawback I can see is stock, as this motherboard sold like hotcakes all over the NET and there was zero stock for a while. Hopefully this has changed as we post this review. My final thoughts are this: Overclockers will not be blown away by this board as the BIOS is really sub-par compared to many of their peers and this is one area ECS needs to do some homework on. Although, performance was on par with other Z77 boards so for those looking to just build, the ECS Golden Z77H2-HX does just fine.