Gigabyte's IOC' range first appeared with X58 and has since offered overclockers a board with minimal frills and plenty of overclocking-specific features. The concept has evolved a little over time and now the recent boards have offered a solid overclocking platform for the serious overclocker with enough features to satisfy the daily gamer. Now, Gigabyte has added a new OC board based around Intel's new Series 9 chipset.
 |
| Gigabyte Z97-SOC Force |
The Z97X-SOC Force comes in the instantly recognisable orange and black colours with 8 phase power design, featuring IR Digital PWM and PowIRstage IC for an all-digital design to feed the CPU. This is a very similar setup to the Z87X-OC which managed to push Intel Haswell CPUs to the limit, claiming many world records and hailed as the most used Z87 motherboard on the premier overclocking website HWBOT. The area around the socket has been kept relatively empty in order to facilitate large coolers, or in the case of an extreme overclocker; large copper pots.
As for expansion slots, there are four PCIe slots running in a 8x18x/4x14x configuration when they are all in use. There is support for 4-way Crossfire however there is only support for 2-way SLI, as a PLX chip is absent from this board. In between the PCIe slots is one PCIe xl slot and two PCI slots for those of you still using expansion cards that require them. Also included with the board is what Gigabyte are calling the OC Brace, a handy attachment that supports your graphics cards if you're using the motherboard without a case.
Gigabyte has also included six SATA3 ports, one SATA Express, six USB 3.0, and eight USB 2.0 ports. For video out on the CPU integrated graphics there is a D-SUB, DVI-D, HDMI, and DisplayPort connections, as well as the standard RJ-45 LAN port and audio/mic in. While this is an overclocking board, no sacrifice appears to have been made on providing a good amount of expansion ports.
OC Touch is one of Gigabyte's most important overclocking features on this board. It allows access to tweaking functions via physical switches which would ordinarily only be accessible via the BIOS or a desktop application, or in some cases not at all. The two dip switches allow you to control which PCIe slots are enabled, and which DIMM slots are enabled. This allows you to effectively turn graphics cards, or memory sticks on or off without having to physically remove them -- a handy feature for testing. There is also a button to load a BIOS profile, as well as buttons to control both BCLK and CPU ratio settings. Also worth mentioning is the OC Ignition feature that keeps the board powered up even if you have shut down, a handy feature to keep fans running or to avoid some cold bugs for extreme overclockers.
It's not all about the overclocking though, the board also manages to incorporate a Killer Gaming Network E2200 chip and headphone amplifier, features we haven't seen before on an OC board from Gigabyte and adds to the balance between overclocking and daily use.
The Z97X-SOC from Gigabyte is once again a solid overclocking base with enough features to suit the average gamer without interfering with the needs of an extreme overclocker. The design and feature set feels a lot like the previously released Z87X-0C, so much so that it almost felt like using the same board. While that isn't a bad thing given how well that board has performed, it isn't quite something new or exciting. That said, it does exactly what we want an OC board to do and comes with a few new things to keep us interested. Given the new Intel release itself is a refresh, it seems Gigabyte has treated the release of this board in the same way - a refresh. The Gigabyte Z97X-SOC Force has hit that market at just under 5300. Is it a worthy upgrade? Certainly, but only if you're looking to utilise its support of Intel's yet to be released CPUs - Jack Coxon.
KEY SPECS
ATX intel socket 1150, Intel Z97 chipset, 4x DIMM - HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI-D, D-SUB 6 x SATA 3, 1 x SATA Express, 6 x USB 3.0, 8 x USB 2.0, 1 x PCIe 3.0 x 16 + 1 PCIe 3.0 8 + x X PCIe x 4
