ECS Z77H2-AX ‘Golden Board’ Intel Z77 Motherboard Review

Mass Effect 3

Not everyone will survive. An ancient alien race, known only as “Reapers”, has launched an all-out invasion leaving nothing but a trail of destruction in their wake. Earth has been taken, the galaxy is on the verge of total annihilation, and you are the only one who can stop them. The price of failure is extinction. You are Commander Shepard, a character that you can forge in your own image. You determine how events will play out, which planets to explore, and whom to form alliances with as you rally a force to eliminate the Reaper threat once and for all. How you wage this war is completely up to you: go into combat with guns blazing or use cover to plan a more tactical assault. Utilize your squad to full effect or take a lone wolf approach. Rain death from a distance or go toe–to-toe with enemies using devastating melee attacks. Mass Effect 3 will react to each decision you make as you play through a truly unique experience of your own creation. The war for Earth has begun, decide how it ends.

The graphics settings in Mass Effect 3 are pretty limited. We had Antialiasing and Dynamic Shadows both enabled. In order to disable the VSync we edited the configuration file and added the lines; ‘UseVsync=False’ and ‘SmoothFramerate=False’. If you want to edit your configuration file you can find it at ‘C:Usersyour usernameDocumentsBioWareMass Effect 3BIOGameConfigGamerSettings.ini’.

Benchmark Results: The ECS Z77H2-AX Black Extreme was able to average 147.48 frames per second at a resolution of 1280×1024. At this resolution it was once again at the bottom of the charts separated from the top spot by 5.045 frames per second or 3.3%. Much like in Battlefield 3, once we increased the resolution to 1920×1080 the ECS Z77H2-AX Black Extreme stepped up the game and climbed up in the charts, granted it’s only one spot. Consistently climbing up spots when the resolution is increased shows that the ECS Z77H2-AX does better under a higher load.