To the surprise of many, I really really like the ECS Golden Board Z77H2-AX. Its BIOS is broken, and overclocking isn't easy at all, but its extra capability, and relatively high performance that can hang out with the bigger boys is not something that can be ignored. ECS isn't traditionally a name people think of when it comes to high end products, and for a really expensive, limited edition option, they've done a damn fine job for a first venture.
This BIOS issue is a big thing to the average user, but I'm not the average user, so it's not something I consider really all that important, although it does affect the final score. The added PCIe connectivity is something personally that I require, and it meets my needs there; it overclocks with our test CPU just like any other product once you overclock using the right method, and runs cooler overall while consuming similar power. To be honest, I find it hard to believe that this product is coming from ECS, and after having spent some time talking to them about what's going on and how things are changing, I'm really excited to see how things progress from this point, because there is really nothing wrong here that cannot easily be fixed with just a single BIOS update. That's it. Its hardware is perfect, comparable to even Gigabyte in performance, and this is from ECS. A little bit of BIOS issues are expected from ECS, and because they were so easily overcome, I've really got to congratulate ECS on providing their best product ever.
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