Biostar GAMING Z97X Motherboard Review

Overview

 

Biostar made a welcome return to the limelight last year with the launch of the audio-centric Biostar Hi-Fi Z97Z7. A motherboard that provided a surprising amount of features and good aesthetics, at an incredibly low price. What we have here is Biostar moving in a different direction yet again, whilst tapping on to the most important of all PC users, us Gamers! Ok, so we all know that a Gaming motherboard actually gives us very little gain when it comes down to in-Game performance, but they do generally offer us a few additional features, with the added benefit of looking dam good to boot (yep, I’m sold too).

So to launch the new GAMING range, we introduce to you the Biostar GAMING Z97X. An ATX motherboard featuring the Intel Z97 chipset and supporting Intel Socket 1150. More interestingly the GAMING Z97X has several key features much unlike many Gaming motherboards at present, including USB 3.1, three PCI Express 3.0×16, PCI-E M.2 Support, Dual GbE LAN, along with support for DisplayPort. Two on-board HDMI supports 4K and 2K resolutions. We also see the return of the previously seen Biostar exclusive Super Hi-Fi Audio technology, but this time with the inclusion of the new Biostar GAMING Commander box. What is this exactly?! You best read on to find out! 😉

 

 

 

The Biostar GAMING Z97X is packaged rather nicely in a predominately satin black box with a silvery grey mesh effect in the background. In the top right we have the Biostar branding with a large full colour logo in the lower right. More or less centrally, we are told motherboard is part of the new GAMING range and that this particular board is the Z97X variant. On the lower half of the box are then given four of the motherboards key features; GAMING Commander, Intel CORE support, Intel Z97 Chipset and KILLER E2200 Game Networking. In all fairness I think it looks quite nice, but it isn’t too informative…

Luckily that’s what the back of the box is for! Although unlike some motherboard boxes, Biostar haven’t given us information overload. We have a simple top down image of the GAMING Z97X pointing out the locations of its main features, along with an image of the GAMING Commander 5.25″ unit and the motherboard I/O, both of which have thir features highlighted also. At the foot of the box, we are then given pictograms and brief descriptions for the following features:

• Super Durable Solid Caps
• Super Durable Ferrite Choke
• Super Hi-Fi Audio Connectors
• USB 3.1
• XMP Button
• XLOUDER

So there seems to be a lot of super things going on. 😉

 

 

Flipping open the box reveals two trays. The top containing the GAMING Commander unit, cables, fittings, I/O shield and paperwork. The lower tray contains the motherboard itself, which is placed upon a large piece of pink soft foam to help protect the back of the PCB, then sealed within a plastic anti-static bag.

 

 

 

One oddity of the Biostar GAMING Z97X isn’t the inclusion of the GAMING Commander unit (although it is a pretty cool idea), but the lack of a Driver and Utilities Disc?! Where am I supposed to get my Drivers from when my Internet Provider goes down once again?! Well this is where the 4GB USB Flash Drive comes in. All of the Drivers, Utilities and even a User Manual are all held on this rather cool Credit Card styled device. No more ODD needed whatsoever. Even if the GAMING Z97X turns out to be rubbish, Biostar have certainly earned brownie points here! 😉

At the time of writing this review, the Biostar GAMING Z97X is currently not available in the UK, but it will be soon from eBuyer and at a cost of approximately £130, whilst offering a typical 12 month warranty.

 

Specifications/Features

courtesy of Biostar

 

* Additional details available here

 

First Impressions

 

 

Ok, so Biostar may have partially pinched the armour idea from ASUS with their TUF endowed Sabertooth, Gryphon and ROG Maximus Formula, but that doesn’t mean it looks any worse for it. Even for a motherboard with primary colours of black and brown, the half armoured looks pretty damn good to me! Stranger still is my least favourite colour in the world is brown, but on face value the Biostar GAMING Z97X is far from my least favourite looking motherboard (I might even keep this one 😉 ). The PCB featured on the GAMING Z97X, just like many others is of a satin black. The GAMING armour is again of a satin black finish and covers most of the I/O side of the motherboard, along with the Northbridge, Southbridge, in fact even the bridge in-between. All of the headers are again black, as are the PCI-E x1 2.0 slots and two DIMM slots, leaving two DIMM slots and the PCI-E x16 3.0 in a bronzed brown colour just to shake things up a bit. One certain benefit of the motherboard covering is that of aesthetics, another is it hides away a lot of the things we don’t really want to see and makes it look less busy.

In fact in a rather strange turn of events, the back of the GAMING Z97X PCB doesn’t seem to be that busy either?! Ok, so perhaps I may be telling porky pies. Just like many other motherboards available on today’s market, the latest number from Biostar is largely featureless. We can however see the EMI divider on the PCB around the Puro Hi-Fi chip, running up and around the audio jacks.

 

 

Taking a look across the top of the Biostar GAMING Z97X looks rather tidy. This is obviously helped by the armour (perhaps this should be coined BIO-armor?), but the top also looks surprisingly barren. From the right we see the 4-pin power socket, then just to the left of the Northbridge we find the CPU_FAN1 and CPU_FAN2 headers.

Moving to the foot of the GAMING Z97X shows us where the majority of the headers are. Starting on the left we have the Front Panel Audio and GAMING Panel headers (both of which will be hooked up to the GAMING Commander in the final build), followed by the SPDIF_OUT2 and the first of the USB 2.0 headers.

Moving along to the right we find the second of the two USB 2.0 headers, CMOS Jumpers, SYS_FAN 1 and 3 (both 40pin PWM and very sensibly placed), the Front Panel Header (this takes the place of the two sometimes found on motherboards. Rather annoyingly though it isn’t clear which pin does what without consulting the User Manual) then something unusual. We find auto overclocking buttons on a lot of motherboards these days, but this is the first I’ve seen that solely overclocks your RAM to their XMP profile setting. We then have a handy Clear CMOS button and a simple sliding switch to allow the Biostar GAMING Z97X to boot from the extreme cold state caused by LN2 (Liquid Nitrogen) overclocking. Another handy feature that you may have noticed, sits just above the XMP button. This being a feature I’ve become accustomed to seeing on the newer ASRock motherboards, being a removable BIOS chip.

 

Along the right from bottom to top, we find the typically placed SATA connectors. These are broken up in to three groups, the first (SATA2) of which is grouped in two (SATA3-PM1-U & SATA0PM0-L) and are controlled by an ASMedia Storage Controller and only supports AHCI mode (so sadly no RAID here), the second set (SATA1) is again comprised of two connectors (SATA3-1U & SATA3-1L) and controlled by the Intel Z97 Chipset, finally the third (SATA_Express) which is also controlled by the chipset and features five connectors; 1x SATA Express and 4x SATA3 (SATA3-3U, SATA3-3L, SATA3-2U & SATA-2L). As per the norm with Z97 based motherboards, if you should choose to use the SATA Express connector you will lose the use of the M.2 slot and vice-versa. It may seem a small detail, but I like the way these connectors are made, they feel solid and are more pleasing on the eye than a row of dual headers as seen on many other motherboards. Moving along we find something else a little unusual on the Biostar GAMING Z97X. Instead of a typically vertical USB 3.0 header, we have a horizontal one. This may be a little inconvenient when installed into a fairly confined ATX case, but if you have that little extra space makes for much tidier looking cable management (at least I think so).

Leaving just the top of the right with its nicely placed and always welcome Debug LED, 24-pin motherboard power connector, then Reset and Power buttons. The Biostar GAMING Z97X certainly impresses with its tidy and sensible approach for all of its connectors and headers, while throwing in some very handy features too.

 

 

Looking towards the Northbridge we find not only are the two heatsinks covered in armour, but so is the back of the I/O panel. Personally I think this looks great and I’ve been a big fan of motherboard coverings since they were first introduced by Asus. Hidden just below the Northbridge armour and sandwiched above the first PCI-E x1 2.0 slot, we find the SYS-FAN2 header. This is very handily placed for a single rear case fan, but I’m not convinced of its ease of use during installation (at least not if you have sausage fingers like myself…).

As we can easily see, the Southbridge is also covered in the black armour. Just to break it up a bit we have the GAMING name at the bottom, with a silver and red Biostar logo above it. I’m not sure if the logo features an LED and illuminates, I guess we’ll find out soon. 😉

 

 

 

Looking down the line of expansion slots shows us the Biostar GAMING Z97X is fairly well equipped, but also a little surprising. Simply because as a motherboard aimed at Gamers, we have AMD CrossFireX support, but nothing for Nvidia SLI?! Nonetheless, here is a description of the motherboards PCI-E lane specifications:

• PEX1_1 (PCI-Express Gen2 x1 slot) is used for PCI Express x1 lane width cards.
• PEX16_1 (PCI-Express Gen3 x16 slot) is used for PCI Express x16 lane width graphics cards.
• PEX1_2 (PCI-Express Gen2 x1 slot) is used for PCI Express x1 lane width cards.
• PEX16_2 (PCI-Express Gen3 x16 slot) is used for PCI Express x16 lane width graphics cards.
• PEX1_3 (PCI-Express Gen2 x1 slot) is used for PCI Express x1 lane width cards.
• PEX16_3 (PCI-Express Gen3 x16 slot) is used for PCI Express x16 lane width graphics cards.

Remember that strange bridge between the North and Southbridge? Well rather stealthily concealed beneath this, is a feature that was first introduced by the Intel Z97 Chipset. That’s right, an M.2 slot. Despite loving the ability to slot a daughterboard of sorts in the form of M.2 SSD’s (or mSATA on the Z87 gen), which allows you to effectively get rid of all the cables from off-board storage, I’m acutely aware that no manufacturer actually produces one that actually looks desirable… So personally I think this is a brilliant idea.

 

 

One of the biggest (if not THE biggest) new features and selling points of the Biostar GAMING Z97X motherboard is this little device, the Biostar GAMING Commander. This slots into on available 5.25″ expansion bay and simply plugs into the allocated GAMING_PANEL, Front Panel Audio and an available USB 2.0 header, but what actually is it?! Well hidden inside this little box of tricks is an independent USB DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter, courtesy of CMedia), which again is a surprise as when I reviewed the Biostar Hi-Fi Z97Z7 last year, I found the new PURO Hi-Fi audio sub-system to actually be quite good. Along with this the GAMING Commander box features dedicated audio jacks, volume controls, mute, audio mix, XLOUDER for a microphone boost, then we also have diagnostic LED’s for CPU, DDR and VGA, continued with a CPU temperature LED. There is even a dedicated software suite to go with it. It’s a pretty comprehensive little unit that also happens to be very solid and well made. I do feel it could have benefited from a couple of additional USB 3.0 or 3.1 ports and perhaps a slightly different look (it isn’t exactly pretty to look at…).

 

 

Overall I have to admit that I’m very impressed with the Biostar GAMING Z97X and its GAMING Commander box. Biostar have clearly put a lot of planning into the header layout and appear to have placed them nigh on perfectly. The DEBUG LED is also very well placed, meaning it won’t be obscured by any other hardware, I like the armour and the stealthily placed M.2 mount, in fact I’ve even warmed to the bronze/brown colour of some of the PCI-E and DIMM slots. In fact the aesthetics are very good and there is very little I can find wrong with it.

Let’s get it in the rig!

 

Hardware Installation

 

A new build was put together to house the Biostar GAMING Z97X motherboard and the Intel i5-4690K CPU. The following components were used:

Test Rig Setup

Case	Cooler Master HAF XB	Power Supply	Corsair Professional Series AX 760i
Motherboard	Biostar GAMING Z97X	CPU	Intel Core i5-4690K
CPU Cooler	Raijintek Themis	RAM	HyperX Savage 2400MHz 8GB Kit
Graphics Card	XFX AMD Radeon R9 290X DD Black Edition	SSD	HyperX FURY 120GB

 

 

Installation of the Biostar GAMING Z97X into the Cooler Master HAF XB was as straightforward as any other motherboard. As per the norm in goes the motherboard I/O shield, the Biostar GAMING Z97X is then set in place and fixed using the usual nine screws with an additional screw underneath the top PCI-E x16 slot. The i5-4690K is then slotted into its socket, then Raijintek Themis installed, followed by the HyperX Savage kit, Creative Sound Blaster Zx and XFX Radeon R9 290X DD Black Edition.

 

 

All necessary SATA cables are connected to the motherboard, then in turn to both the Seagate 2TB SSHD and HyperX Fury SSD test drives. All of the relevant power cables from the Corsair Professional Series AX760i are then plugged in to the GAMING Z97X along side all of the case fans. It’s really no different to any other ATX motherboard. Leaving just the GAMING Commander box. This simply slides in to your 5.25″ drive bay of choice and then fixed in place by two small screws either side (or two in the case of the HAF XB. The hot swap bay to the right of the case is too close to gain access unfortunately). Once in place it is then plugged into the GAMING_PANEL, Front Panel Audio and one of the USB 2.0. Could it really be any easier?!

 

 

So on goes the Biostar GAMING Z97X test rig and before going in to full details of the UEFI, performance, overclocking and software, I just wanted to show you how the GAMING Commander looks when in use. The CPU, VGA and DDR LED’s to the left all illuminate white if they are all working fine. The MIX and XLOUDER (microphone boost) both illuminate when on, while the Biostar logo lights up in correspondence to the CPU temperature; green for when the temperature is under 70C, yellow for between 70C-90C, then red for anything above 90C. You may have noticed a missing photo, despite trying I couldn’t get the CPU temperature above 90C I’m afraid. The final image is of that well placed DEBUG LED, which as you can plainly see doubles up as a display for your CPU temperature as well. You may very well forget it’s there or does this, but it is still very handy nonetheless.

 

Testing Methodology/Setup

 

A fresh installation of Windows 7 Professional N 64bit (Service Pack 1) was performed and the following Drivers were then installed. The latest Biostar Drivers were used and can been obtained (here). Although the Biostar GAMING Z97X has its Drivers and Utilities available on that very cool USB flash drive, we here at pcG try to keep up with the latest Drivers and software where possible.

* The latest UEFI BIOS version (Z97CF107.BST) was downloaded and installed via the BIOS Update Utility within Windows and was used throughout testing *

Drivers installed:

• Intel Chipset Driver (INF driver version: 10.0.13)
• Realtek High Definition Audio Driver (6.0.1.7293)
• CMedia 120B Audio Driver (1.03)
• GAMING_Panel Controller Driver (5.0)
• Killer Network Driver (1.1.47.1374)
• Intel Network Chip Driver (19.3C00334)
• Intel USB 3.0 Driver (3.0.0.16)
• ASMedia USB 3.0 Driver (1.16.19.0)
• ASMedia USB 3.1 Driver (1.16.23.0)
• Renesas USB 3.0 Driver 2.1.36.0)
• AMD Catalyst Software Suite (Omega 14.12)

During testing the following tools/benchmarks & games were used/played:

Prime 95 CPU-Z 3DMark Unigine Heaven 4.0 Metro Last Light

World of Warships (beta) Rainbow Six: Siege (alpha) War Thunder Far Cry 4

 

Hardware Performance

 

 

With the Biostar GAMING Z97X installed, it was time to take a look in the UEFI and check for an update. Rather unlike other motherboards I’ve seen of late, not only is there not an update facility within the UEFI, but no BIOS flash either?! Still we’ll have a poke around anyway.

The UEFI layout itself is nigh on identical to that of the Biostar Hi-Fi Z97Z7 we looked at last year, the skin however is very different and I rather like it. No matter what tab you have selected, the left side of the screen will always display the time, CPU MHz and voltage, memory MHz and voltage, CPU fan speeds and the CPU temperature. The top right will always display the keyboard short-cuts, beneath which will always show a large grey and red Biostar logo (which is also animated). Then under this we have a window to display any information about the option selected. Then running along the foot in a stone grey colour are the options headers.

To start of we have the ‘Main’ tab which is pre-set to give us very basic system information (this can be changed within the ‘O.N.E’ tab). Next up is ‘Advanced’, this allows us access to the subsystem setting including PCI, ACPI, CPU, SATA, Intel Rapid Start Technology, USB Configuration, SMART Fan Control, SUPER I/O Configuration, HW (Hardware) Monitor, Intel SMART Connect Technology and Network Stack Configuration (the GAMING Z97X features dual LAN). The ‘Chipset’, ‘Boot’ and ‘Security’ tabs in all fairness are more or less the same as most other UEFI out there.

 

 

Rather than go through every sub menu in detail, I’ve selected the few we here at pcG use for testing purposes and the same ones that you’ll most commonly be using yourselves. Normally we’d start of with the memory XMP profile, turn up the fans, then boot into Windows and kick off the benchmarks. The Biostar UEFI set-up is in a slightly odd order, so instead we go straight into ‘SMART FAN Control’, this is pretty straightforward and allows automatic or manual control of CPU_FAN1, CPU_FAN2 and the three System fans. As you can see from the image above it certainly allows for finite control of all the fans connected to the Biostar GAMING Z97X, but what is a little odd is that all of the system fans are controlled as one.

Of course the really interesting part of the UEFI is the ‘O.N.E’ header, which allows us to change the start page and gives us short-cuts to the CPU, DRAM and Voltages configurations. Which is exactly where we want to be for overclocking. 😉

 

 

Hmmm… I guess I’ve been a little spoilt and lazy with motherboards of late when it comes down to overclocking a CPU. Unlike many motherboards, the Biostar GAMING Z97X does not feature any CPU auto-overclocking feature of any kind, which means I had to get my hands dirty for a change and do everything manually just like the old days (which isn’t as hard as you’d expect). Yet another odd aspect of Biostar’s first GAMING motherboard, is the CPU Clock is not set at 100.00MHz at default, instead we have a CPU Clock speed of 100.53MHz, which meant any overclock using the CPU Ratio was in fact ever so slightly higher because of it. So to kick off we switch the CPU Ratio Mode from auto to all cores, then bump up the CPU Ratio by +1, boot into Windows, then run a Prime95 stress test until to check stability. If the overclock is good, we then re-boot and repeat the process again. As soon as the system becomes unstable we have to up CPU Adaptive Voltage Target by 0.25V or until stable. The maximum stable overclock I was able to achieve for this test i5-4690K in conjunction with the Biostar GAMING Z97X was 4731MHz (or 4.7Ghz rounded down) using an adative voltage of 1.275V, which is certainly not bad at all. For the RAM you have a choice of selecting an XMP profile within the UEFI or just simply by pressing the motherboard XMP button for an instant memory overclock. All nice and simple.

 

 

• Benchmark Results (CPU @ STOCK: 3.5GHz (1.057v) : RAM @ 2400MHz) with XFX AMD Radeon R9 290X DD Black Edition

Benchmark	Resolution	Result
Metro Last Light	1920×1080	80.00
Unigine Heaven 4.0	1920×1080	1364
3DMark Firestrike	Default	9372
3DMark Firestrike	Extreme	4799

 

• Benchmark Results (CPU @ OC: 4.0GHz (1.216v) : RAM @ 2400MHz) with XFX AMD Radeon R9 290X DD Black Edition

Benchmark	Resolution	Result
Metro Last Light	1920×1080	80.00
Unigine Heaven 4.0	1920×1080	1384
3DMark Firestrike	Default	9420
3DMark Firestrike	Extreme	4812

 

• Benchmark Results (CPU @ OC: 4.7GHz (1.276v) : RAM @ 2400MHz) with XFX AMD Radeon R9 290X DD Black Edition

Benchmark	Resolution	Result
Metro Last Light	1920×1080	81.00
Unigine Heaven 4.0	1920×1080	1402
3DMark Firestrike	Default	9601
3DMark Firestrike	Extreme	4915

 

As you can see from the tables above, we don’t compare motherboard benchmark results here at pcG because when it comes down to Gaming there really is very little difference. Which is pretty much summed up with the Metro Last Light benchmarks (a gain of 1.00FPS isn’t a great deal to gain from a +1.2GHz CPU overclock). The Firestrike benchmarks will always gain score with higher CPU speeds, simply because the benchmark also contains a CPU only test. The real oddity being with the Heaven benchmark, which shows a slow but steady improvement when usually there is nothing in it (it is a GPU benchmark after all).

It’s worth noting that for pure Gaming performance, you really aren’t going to gain a lot when overclocking your CPU, there really aren’t many Games that lean on the CPU and most are bound by your GPU/s. Could this change any time soon? Who knows what the future holds… 😉

 

Additional Software/Features

 

Hardware (Hi-Fi Sound)

Hardware (GAMING Commander)

Hardware (Killer E2200)

Hardware (Dual GbE LAN)

Hardware (USB 3.1)

 

Software (TOverclocker)

 

 

The Biostar GAMING Z97X has a large range of additional software , but we’ll just focus on the few you’re likely to use. The first being TOverclocker (which I’d assume means Total Overclocker). Within the ‘CPU’ gives us detailed information on your chosen CPU (much like you’d find within the UEFI), along with very basic motherboard and BIOS details. The ‘Memory’ header simply gives us basic information about the installed RAM, but where the really interesting part of the software is, we find within ‘OC Tweaker’. This allows more finite control of your CPU overclock, much like within the UEFI. The we have ‘H/W Monitor’ which gives us current readings on voltages, fan speeds and temperatures. The software does exactly as you’d expect, but certainly isn’t as comprehensive as that of the competition and isn’t quite as nice to look at. For me overclocking with TOverclocker does pose a few of small, but annoying issues. The first of which is within ‘OC Tweaker’. Having the CPU Frequency and Voltages split between two headers tends to slow down the task at hand somewhat. Then within the same header we are also given the option to test our overclocks before applying them. This is certainly a sensible approach, but when used seems to take a lifetime (yes I’m impatient at the best of times), with no countdown or timer of any kind, made further worse by not seemingly working very well at all (according to the ‘Test’ the OC will be good, but when stress tested the system can suddenly prove itself unstable. Something hardly ideal). Perhaps the biggest problem for me, is the lack of an auto-overclock function. I understand this isn’t really necessary and many end-users probably won’t even use it, but all of the competition does feature this on their Gaming motherboard software.

 

 

The next software you’re likely to use (or at least look at once), is that of the audio and something the Biostar GAMING Z97X has a dizzying array of choices for. The on-board audio is supplied courtesy of the Biostar PURO Hi-Fi 3D audio chip, using the Realtek ALC898 CODEC. A tried and tested method that has proven itself well in the past. If you choose not to use the GAMING Commander box, your Front Panel Audio will most likely be connected to your case front panel, which will then allow you to hook up your Gaming Headset of choice, to the 3.5mm audio jacks and use the SmartEAR 3D Headphone Utility. This allows for an application based volume control and mute, along with a number of 3D effects and three choices of Gain. It works well and looks rather nice, especially the horizontal graphic equalizer effect. Although admittedly you’re unlikely to use most of these. Then another option is to use the GAMING Commander box itself, which contains its own DAC and uses the CMedia 120B Audio Driver. This again has a number of 3D effects, but with additional voice effects, pre-set and programmable equaliser effects and left or right volume controls.

Whilst using the Biostar GAMING Z97X, I chose to use GAMING Commander box and I’ll admit it wasn’t bad at all, but doesn’t quite match up to the likes of a dedicated sound card such as the Creative Sound Blaster Zx. What is very nice about the box itself, is that it allows hardware based volume control and mute, but even more handily the ‘Mix’ button allows you to switch from your headset to an alternative audio outlet on the fly (a godsend for those as lazy as me 😉 ).

 

Final Thoughts

 

Last year Biostar came back to the enthusiast motherboard market with the launch of the audio centric Hi-Fi Z97Z7. This year we see them branch off in a different direction with the launch of the Biostar GAMING Z97X. A feature packed Gaming motherboard that doesn’t have a red and black colour scheme?!

The Biostar GAMING Z97X arrived at pcG inside a rather stylish looking, predominately satin black box with an industrial grey overlay. Once inside we found the motherboard itself to be safely packaged with a good variety of accessories. Admittedly, on paper I wasn’t sold on the idea of black and bronzed brown colour scheme, but in practice the armoured Biostar GAMING Z97X is very solidly built and actually looks rather nice. In fact I think it is one of the best looking motherboards I’ve seen in a long time. Taking a look around the board layout shows that Biostar have clearly taken a little time out and planned its layout very well, each socket and header being nigh on perfectly placed. They’ve even gone as far as throwing in a plethora of features including; USB 3.1, Dual GbE LAN, 3x PCI-E 3.0 x16 lanes, AMD CrossfireX, a hidden M.2 port, DEBUG/CPU temperature LED, Super Hi-Fi Audio, a removable BIOS chip and LN2 support for extreme overclocking, yet oddly no Nvidia SLI support. Of course one of the motherboards stand out features is not its aesthetics, but comes in the form of the new GAMING Commander box, a small unit that sits within a vacant 5.25″ expansion slot, that even has its own DAC!

Installation of the Biostar GAMING Z97X was as easy as you’d expect from an ATX motherboard, perhaps even easier owing to its very sensible layout. No issues were encountered and the motherboard powered on without a hitch. We then ventured into the UEFI, which like the Z97X itself certainly looks a little different with its Biostar GAMING skin and animated logo. My only concern being unlike the motherboard, it doesn’t feel quite as intuitive or well planned out. It certainly does the necessary job though. The Biostar GAMING Z97X and its UEFI surprisingly include an X.M.P button to auto-overclock your memory of choice, but no auto-overclocking feature for your CPU?! This seems a little bit of an over site and a missed opportunity to me, but admittedly a manual overclock was easily attained to the heights of 4.7GHz with just 1.276v required.

The one very small area that does let down the Biostar GAMING Z97X is its software (that is very handily not supplied on a DVD of any kind… Instead we have a rather cool credit card style USB flash drive!), which whilst perfectly functional does look a little dated and at odds to the new GAMING brand.

Which finally leaves us with the big question ‘is the Biostar GAMING Z97X worth your money?’, a hard question to answer if I’m honest. If the motherboard comes to market for the estimated £130 asking price, for its unique aesthetics and features I would personally be very tempted to buy one for my next build. If anything more and Biostar may find they’ve priced themselves out of an already crowded Gaming motherboard market.

 

Verdict

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Many thanks to Biostar for providing this sample for review