Conclusion
The ECS Z87H3-A2X Golden is a good contender for the upmarket high end gaming motherboard niche. From the numbers, we can see that ECS is probably still very conservative in their BIOS. The benchmark shows that the graphics performance seems to be lower than the competition. Of course, this can be fined tuned to better for 3D benchmark tests. It is all up to the BIOS.
In terms of features, this board really has plenty to talk about. It has many options for expansion including mini PCIe. For gamers, the 3 PCIe 3.0 slots can power CrossFireX and SLI. There is also Lucid Logic X virtu MVP support which comes handy for those who wants to upgrade one at a time. The on board WiFi and Bluetooth comes in handy when you want to quickly get things up and running.
Installation is rather straightforward for this motherboard. There are some buttons with icons which I think ECS need to really document it so that users know what they are and how they can be used. When it comes to the BIOS, the settings are way too much and confusing. We were searching for CPU Vcore but it appeared by mini volts as an offset. So we have to keep monitoring the actual CPU Vcore just in case we supplied the wrong voltage. This can be done by using a voltmeter tapping the voltage points near the Power connector of the motherboard.
As for overclocking, the ECS Z87H3-A2X is rather stable at 47 x 100. We did it by changing the cpu multiplier and the cpu voltage. We used the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to overclock it See http://forums.ocworkbench.com/showthread.php?p=522323#post522323
The package is relatively simple for a gamer’s board. ECS could have thrown in a free game license.
In Conclusion, ECS has made the right move in it’s design but there is more work involved with it’s BIOS. This is a board I would recommend for it’s stability and expandability .
The ECS Z87H3-A2X is priced at
Compared to
Pros :
Qooltech V
CrossFire x and SLI support
Virtu MVP
Voltage pin out for voltage level checks
Golden Colour Scheme
Cons:
BIOS needs to be more friendly
Documentation is lacking in some features
| Category | Score |
| Performance | 8 / 10 |
| Features | 10 / 10 |
| Ease Of Installation | 9 / 10 |
| Overclocking Features | 10 / 10 |
| Documentation | 7 / 10 |
| Packaging | 7 / 10 |
| Cost / Performance | 8 / 10 |
| Overall Rating : | 8.4 / 10 |