Drive and Audio Performance Results

Our drive- and audio testing differs a bit from the rest of our testing for several reasons. First of all, when it comes to drive-performance comparisons, nearly every platform on the market is very close to all the others because most provide external drive-controllers, making the numbers offered very platform agnostic. And finally, with audio, we do not list any numbers except for those reported by the product we are testing. This is to provide the most information possible as each audio CODEC will behave quite differently. Many boards also employ a different CODEC. As such, there is no standard we can use other than the numbers themselves. You can always check our other motherboard reviews to make direct comparisons in audio performance.

We tested each drive interface separately in order to provide you with numbers that are as complete as possible. Employing HDTune Pro for all of the testing, we tested each drive outside of the OS environment through a separate OS on a separate drive. However, we do use drives with a fair amount of data on both the Corsair ForceGT and the Corsair F60 (60% full) to simulate performance in real-world situations. Also new is that all USB 3.0 testing is done via the provided front-panel ports rather than the ports on the rear of the board since front-panel ports are more likely to be used. I also no longer test SATA interfaces using a SATA 3 Gb/s drive since SATA 3 Gb/s functionality is now a legacy item.

HDTune Pro (SATA 6Gb/s)

HDTune Pro (USB3.0 Front Panel)

Drive performance was a bit low. Given that performance elsewhere is pretty damn good, this seems of little importance to me. With the differences between the top boards and the worst boards amounting to less than 5%, drive performance is relatively equal no matter what product you choose.

RightMark Audio Analyzer

Audio testing results were very good. This is the sort of result I expect out of a board claiming to have decent audio. My testing set-up is rather unforgiving, but the MSI Z87-G45 GAMING passed with flying colors.