Intel Z97 Motherboard Roundup with ASUS, Biostar, Gigabyte and MSI

System Power Consumption

Benchmark Results: The BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z97WE has the lowest power consumption across the board of all of our motherboards. At idle the BIOSTAR was sipping only 56 Watts at the wall while the MSI Z97 Gaming 7 was pulling a hair more at 63 Watts and the GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H was drawing more yet at 65 Watts. Of our three boards we’re looking at, the MSI Z97 Gaming 7 was pulling the most power under a strictly CPU load with 149 Watts, while the GIGABYTE was pulling 146 Watts ant the BIOSTAR was pulling only 134 Watts. While running FutureMark 3DMark Firestrike, the BIOSTAR was pulling 225 Watts, the MSI Z97 Gaming 7 hit 236 Watts and the GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H was at 237 Watts.