The ECS Z270H4-I Durathon 2 Mini ITX Motherboard Review
by E. Fylladitakis on September 5, 2017 10:30 AM ESTCPU Performance, Short Form
For our motherboard reviews, we use our short form testing method. These tests usually focus on if a motherboard is using MultiCore Turbo (the feature used to have a maximum turbo on at all times, giving a frequency advantage), or if there are slight gains to be had from tweaking the firmware. We leave the BIOS settings at default and memory at JEDEC (DDR4-2133 C15) for these tests, making it very easy to see which motherboards have MCT enabled by default.
Video Conversion – Handbrake v0.9.9: link
Handbrake is a media conversion tool that was initially designed to help DVD ISOs and Video CDs into more common video formats. For HandBrake, we take two videos (a 2h20 640x266 DVD rip and a 10min double UHD 3840x4320 animation short) and convert them to x264 format in an MP4 container. Results are given in terms of the frames per second processed, and HandBrake uses as many threads as possible.
Compression – WinRAR 5.0.1: link
Our WinRAR test from 2013 is updated to the latest version of WinRAR at the start of 2014. We compress a set of 2867 files across 320 folders totaling 1.52 GB in size – 95% of these files are small typical website files, and the rest (90% of the size) are small 30-second 720p videos.
Point Calculations – 3D Movement Algorithm Test: link
3DPM is a self-penned benchmark, taking basic 3D movement algorithms used in Brownian Motion simulations and testing them for speed. High floating point performance, MHz, and IPC win in the single thread version, whereas the multithread version has to handle the threads and loves more cores. For a brief explanation of the platform agnostic coding behind this benchmark, see my forum post here.
Rendering – POV-Ray 3.7: link
The Persistence of Vision Ray Tracer, or POV-Ray, is a freeware package for as the name suggests, ray tracing. It is a pure renderer, rather than modeling software, but the latest beta version contains a handy benchmark for stressing all processing threads on a platform. We have been using this test in motherboard reviews to test memory stability at various CPU speeds to good effect – if it passes the test, the IMC in the CPU is stable for a given CPU speed. As a CPU test, it runs for approximately 2-3 minutes on high-end platforms.
Synthetic – 7-Zip 9.2: link
As an open source compression tool, 7-Zip is a popular tool for making sets of files easier to handle and transfer. The software offers up its own benchmark, to which we report the result.
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Hixbot - Wednesday, September 6, 2017 - link
Audiophilos are not going to use the DAC on a motherboard. They're going to use HDMI to their own DAC in the AVR.petteyg359 - Thursday, September 7, 2017 - link
With a name like that, I'm expecting a 462-pin socket for my old Durons and Athlons :)zodiacfml - Friday, September 8, 2017 - link
Nice enough for me. Are there any competing boards versus this one?Beaver M. - Friday, September 8, 2017 - link
Why would you not test temperatures and power usage of an ITX board?Instead performance benchmarks that always only show how useless they really are...
Beaver M. - Friday, September 8, 2017 - link
Nevermind, Im stupid. Theres power usage at least.Brianmmm - Monday, September 18, 2017 - link
This one is most assuredly NOT useless...http://www.anandtech.com/show/9854/asus-maximus-vi...
MenhirMike - Friday, September 8, 2017 - link
I have that board for my HTPC - it's pretty much the only board that combines Mini-ITX, Display Port out (for HDMI 2.0 since the HDMI on Kaby Lake is still only 1.4) and can be powered with just one (instead of 2) 4-Pin 12V connectors (for owners of some HTPC cases with power supplies that weren't made for higher end systems).The BIOS is pretty bare bones, but for the price, it's a great HTPC board, combined with a Celeron G3930 and 4 Gigs of RAM it's a good package.
MenhirMike - Friday, September 8, 2017 - link
(Also, since Antennas are part of the package, a $20 Intel 8260 WiFi/BT card is all that's needed to avoid having to use a PCIe or USB WiFi solution)EnFission - Friday, September 8, 2017 - link
You can plugin a 4 pin power cable into an 8 pin motherboard connector, you'll just have less power at your disposal. Not that it's a problem with a Celeron G3930. You'd be better off with an Asus Strix B250 board. It has DisplayPort, built-in wifi so you don't have to pay even more, retails for the same price as this ECS board, and is from a much more reputable manufacturer with higher quality parts. Losing out on the Z270 chipset doesn't matter because of your CPU choice and the lack of an 8 pin power connector.