Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 ATX Motherboard Review

Futuremark 3DMark – Fire Strike Extreme

Futuremark 3DMark has multiple benchmarks depending on your specific needs. Fire Strike is the benchmark that is designed for gaming computer, so we will focus on that benchmark.

You can see a clear progression in scores going from the most advanced test, Fire Strike Ultra, which is designed for 4K, to Fire Strike at 1080p. Let’s take a look at the middle test, Fire Strike Extreme.

Taking a look at the overall scores for Fire Strike Extreme, we see that the latest Gigabyte motherboard with the Intel i7-6700K comes in a little higher than the older Z97X system with an Intel i5-4960K processor. With around a 240 point difference between the two systems, it might be difficult to justify switching from an i5 to an i7 system.

Legit Bottom Line: We found around a 5% difference between the older generation i5-4960K processor and the latest i7-6700K processor within Fire Strike Extreme. Looking over the benchmark details, we can see the Physics score is what affected the overall score, which becomes even more evident when the i7-6700K is overclocked. That difference with the Physics score makes sense, as the older generation with the Z97X-UD3H used an i5, vs the i7, which we know performs better for Physics calculations.