how we tested

CPU tests > The industry standard tests Cinebench R15 and X264 v4.0 were used to measure the relative CPU performance of the boards while running a i7 4770K CPU at stock speeds.

Storage tests > While the SATA interface limits SSD speed, SSD performance between boards can still vary greatly. The AS SSD benchmark was used to test read and write speeds across the SATA interface with a 960GB Crucial M500 SSD.

Gaming tests > Using the same CPU and GPU (i7 4770K and Nvidia GTX 780 Ti) the CPU-intensive Total War:

Rome II benchmark was run at 1080p to measure gaming variance between boards.