EVGA Z87 Stinger Review

Performance

After a run of many mediocre-performing boards in recent months, it was good to see something push the envelope again. The Z87 Stinger took no prisoners in our image editing and multi-tasking tests, pipping the Maximus VI Impact in both and bettering the MSI Z87I by quite a margin too. It slipped a little in the video encoding test, but was still in the top four and only just behind the Asus Z87i-Pro. Overall, it was just one point behind the Maximus VI Impact, making it the second-fastest Z87 motherboard we've tested, which is quite a feat.


There was more chart-topping in our game tests, with the Z87 Stinger returning the best stock speed result in Shogun 2: Total War of 29fps, while being just 1fps behind the top-scoring Impact in Skyrim. SATA 6Gbps performance was on-par with the best results we've seen too, with just a couple of megabytes a second gap between it and the Impact.

The overclock saw the Z87 Stinger come top in our image editing test once again and also bettered the Maximus VI Impact by a couple of points overall. It matched the best result in The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and was just 1fps slower on the minimum frame rate in Shogun 2: Total War CPU Test too.


Conclusion

The EVGA Z87 Stinger has hit the nail on the head as far as performance and overclocking are concerned. If you're at all concerned about having the very best results at stock speed, or being able to achieve the highest overclock, the Z87 Stinger should definitely be on your shortlist.

We've stopped short of unequivocally recommending it, though, and this is for a couple of reasons. Firstly there's the competition at the premium end of the scale. Costing over £170, the Stinger competes directly with the Asus Maximus VI Impact, and with that motherboard being nearly as fast and packing in far more features it really is a no-brainer which to get.

There's also the issue of what's available at the other end of the scale. The MSI Z87I Pro costs a whopping £70 less than the Stinger - that's a big chunk towards a better processor of graphics card - and, while it didn't overclock quite as well nor rack up the same calibre of results, its performance is perfectly adequate and in terms of features it can also boast Wi-Fi out of the box meaning you could save a significant amount if connecting wirelessly.

As such, while it's a superb mini-ITX motherboard, the stiff competition means the EVGA Z87 Stinger doesn't quite deserve an award - it would have to offer more or cost £20-30 less for it to do so.