Pros: Lots of nice features and the ability to OC in a compact package. Fired right up with my spare Pentium G3240 to be used as an HTPC or possible future emulation and casual gaming box if I decide to get a G3258 or unlocked i5 in the future for it. Premium packaging and surprisingly useful and easy to understand manual for quick reference of things like the recommended DIMM population order and front panel header arrangement. A far cry from the first ECS motherboard I purchased back in 2006.

Cons: This isn't really a con, more like a heads up. Using a 2 slot PCI-E x16 graphics card in the topmost PCI-E 3.0 (x16 speed) slot will obstruct the lone x1 PCI-E slot, but the second extended PCI-E slot at the "bottom" of the motherboard can be used with tiny x1 sized devices. I plugged my ASUS PCI-E WLAN right into this PCI-E 2.0 slot and it was plug and play with no additional setup needed in Win 10.

Other Thoughts: Although I haven't been able test this board's overclocking ability yet with my current processor the UEFI utilities seem very easy to use for those who are so inclined.

Pros: It has the Z97 and is a basic board.

Cons: Could use more fans connectors. Manual shows 3, but the board actually only has two. The third has the location and is labelled, but doesn't have the header for it.

Other Thoughts: I had to modify my USB 3.0 head Front panel cable in order to be able to utilize them. This could be the case issue as the cable case hit the motherboard and wouldn't fully push in.

Pros: Worked the first time.

The bios looks one way with onboard graphics, then looks different when I put in a video card.

Bought this to replace my eMachines motherboard, which is also made by ECS. they make many oem boards.

Good layout for the sata ports.

Cons: Narrower than my previous board, the upper and middle right screw hole is not present.

The score in get in unigine heaven is lower than the eMachines motherboard, keeping in mind it uses a phenom dual core and DDR2 memory and using the same graphics card.

Other Thoughts: The board is running open on my desk and will be until I get all the bugs out. Once that happens I will install it in the case.

I don't see the bios version written inside the bios. Cpuz says it's 5.6.5. There is a date 8/12/14. Not sure what updates are available.

Had a bit of a hiccup installing windows 7 from the recovery disk. I wiped the hdd then tried to install windows on one large partition. when booting I kept getting a message saying AUTOCHECK IS MISSING. Grabbed my Microsoft disk and installed windows 7 from that, which put in a 100mb SYSTEM RESERVED PARTITION. Then I re-ran the recovery disk and it worked. Apparently it needs the system reserved partition to work. I did not put in the 12gb PQSERVICE PARTITION, since I have the recovery disk.

Windows 10? umm no!

Overall, it did what I wanted, but could be better.

The onboard desktop aero graphics went from 3.3 to 5.6.

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for your feedback. It is appreciated. We need your feedback in order to improve the quality of our products and service.

For the screw holes, this motherboard is a mATX form factor and follows standard placement for this form factor. The OEM eMachines case may have been designed for a different form factor or may not follow standard.

To take a look at the Unigine score we would need to find out more about your configuration.

For the BIOS, there is a newer BIOS to support Intel Broadwell (5th generation Core CPUs). If you are not using one of these CPUs at this time, the BIOS update is not required. You can find the update at the link below.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us.

I or any of my team members here at technical support will be able to help you.
Our hours are Mon-Fri 9am-6pm PST.

Thank you,
Andy
Phone# 1-510-456-9836
Email: andy_K@ecsusa.com

External Link(s):

Broadwell Update|

Pros: It's a dirt cheap z97 motherboard with basic overclocking. It's a good jumping off point for someone building a system with the g3258.

Cons: Don't expect any substantial overclocking with a K-series i5 or i7, this just isn't the board for it.

Pros: Everything was good at the beginning, initial installation went without a hitch. I paired it with G3258, no overclocking.

Cons: Things started to die in one month or so. First the board started to refuse to boot from CD drive, then hard disk started to produce "A disk error occured" on boot, replacing disk did not change anything, now USB flash drive I am using for booting is not visible any more. The MB is gone.

Manufacturer Response:

We are sorry to hear about the issues you are experiencing with your motherboard. If you haven't already, please contact us, we would like to to worth you in finding a solution or providing RMA if necessary.

When contacting us, you can refer to case #ECD15041710003

I or any of my team members here at technical support will be able to help you.
Our hours are Mon-Fri 9am-6pm PST.

Thank you,
Andy
Phone# 1- 510-456-9836
Email: andy_K@ecsusa.com

Pros: The ECS Z97-PK is a z97 chipset at $60 with decent overclocking ability with the pentium G3258. Jumped up to 4.4ghz with just a multiplyer change and cool temps with a corsair h60

Cons: 2 fan headers a 4 pin CPU and a 3 pin for a case fan or in my case h60 pump and fan added a nzxt grid fan hub and I was okay.

not fancy but hey its a budget board

Pros: Great little motherboard. I was cautious at first having never purchased from this company, but so far zero issues. I build with G3258 Haswell Dual-Core 3.2GHz LGA 1150 53W BX80646G3258 and G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800). I have two memory kits for a total of 32gb. Zero drama.

Love the UEFI menu, looks like the future!

Cons: I was not able to use the Easy Overclock to boost my processor, had to use the motherboard jumpers to reset CMOS. My guess is that I just didnt get a good G3258. I have not tried messing with the OC settings to see if I can get it to run past 3.2ghz. It was running @ 4.2 until reboot, then post and power cycle (almost like dead PSU). Reset CMOS and it booted, had to reset system clock in UEFI menu and in Windows again after this happened.

None of this is unexpected. This is part and parcel of trying to run things faster than the numbers on the box they came in.

Other Thoughts: Not sure I could have done better for the price.

Pros: Great price
No hardware malfunctions as of yet
2 PCIE on a mATX, very nice

Cons: The stock BIOS was defective. I couldn't boot Windows installation from the CD or a USB stick because it kept BSOD and rebooting. It worked fine after flashing the update, but it was a pain to go through for a new computer. Even after I got it working, the UEFI menu is pretty bad and a lot of features don't seem to work.

Other Thoughts: Be prepared to spend time getting this to work right. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners. If you know what you're doing and have some time to tinker with it, it's a great deal.

Manufacturer Response:

We are sorry to hear about the issues you are experiencing with our motherboard. If you haven't already, please contact us. We would like to work with you on your BIOS issues and providing an RMA if necessary.

I or any of my team members here at technical support will be able to help you.
Our hours are Mon-Fri 9am-6pm PST.

Thank you,
Andy
Phone# 1- 510-456-9836
Email: andy_K@ecsusa.com

External Link(s):

99 Hours Replacement Service|

Pros: Performance. Reliability, & Price.

Cons: I wish it had one more PCI or PCI Express Slot.

Other Thoughts: ECS has improved greatly since the days of the bad Chinese electrolyte capacitors. I like everything ECS I bought in the past 5 years,

Pros: Price/performance shows no shortcomings.
Very minor faults would only be noticed by very few.

Cons: none