Intel Z87 Motherboard Review with Haswell: Gigabyte, MSI, ASRock and ASUS

ASUS Z87-Pro Overview

With the new designs of the ASUS motherboards, we were all thrown a curveball.  I for one did not expect ASUS to go with a gold/yellow color scheme, one that had up until this point been reserved for ECS’ Golden Series.  The ECS range was built on the basis of China, the Middle East, India, and other emerging markets where Gold means status; this could imply, combined with the global downturn in motherboard sales (~80 million 2012, expected ~77 million 2013) that ASUS wants a piece of that pie.  Nonetheless, the implementation from ASUS is a little less garish and obvious, by keeping a mainly black theme and not going too overboard on the styling.

Aesthetics aside, ASUS stepped up to the mound and are ready for another pitch (enough baseball metaphors here?).  In the past we have been used to their innovative features including inter alia TPU, EPU, BIOS Flashback, and Z87 brings in the new generation.  On the face of it we have an updated UEFI designed to look a little more contemporary, and now there is additional customization options to allow enthusiast users to organize the options they want into a separate menu.  I found it particularly useful when testing the overclocks on the Z87-Pro.  We also get a new version of AI Suite for the operating system which incorporates a slick design, simplifying overclocking and making the process a more pleasurable experience both physically and visually.  Regular features such as Fan XPert, USB 3.0 Boost and the new Dual Intelligent Processors IV help the user improve the experience of the platform. 

In terms of performance, the ASUS is quite efficient in our comparison tests, with good scores in the Windows 7 POST time (under 10 seconds), the audio (using a Realtek ALC1150), USB 3.0 speed, and dual 7970 Metro2033 power consumption was under 500W.  There are a couple of issues worth noting –the PCIe layout of PCIe 3.0 x8/x8 + PCIe 2.0 x4 from the chipset requires the PCIe 2.0 x4 to be set in the BIOS, otherwise it will default to PCIe 2.0 x1.  Because this x4 shares PCIe bandwidth with various controllers (such as the ASMedia SATA Controller), users have a choice between having the controllers and an x1 or just an x4.  If users do not know this and attempt a three-way AMD GPU configuration, performance will suffer.  But in any PCIe combination, two compatible NVIDIA GPUs will be able to perform SLI.

It is worth noting that ASUS is steering away from BIOSes that implement MultiCore Enhancement (their version of MultiCore Turbo).  By default it will not be applied when XMP is applied for all BIOSes that start 1xxx.  This would arguably give ASUS a 7% decrease in performance at stock in multi-threaded tests but ASUS’ reasoning is such that some of the Haswell i7-4770K CPUs, the ones that only just get into this category, will throttle the CPU speed when using the default Intel CPU cooler when MCT is enabled.  In order to counteract this, MCT has been disabled by default.  In order to accommodate users who want MCT by default, users can either implement it manually or download and install a 3xxx series BIOS for their ASUS motherboard.  For our testing, as the 3xxx was available, we used the BIOS that implemented MCT.

Overclocking on the ASUS gets a different sort of boost when automatically overclocking – with the TPU DIP switch on board now offering two placements, we can have a high and low type of TPU overclock.  The first one places a 4770K CPU at 43/43/42/41 multipliers, whereas the second uses the 125 MHz gear strap for 34x125 (4250 MHz) on all cores.  Manual overclocking was also relatively easy, with ASUS putting their usual high effort into making sure that Automatic settings for options like Load Line Calibration work very well, leaving the user to make minimal changes to get the speed they want.  Our CPU hit 4.7 GHz, similarly to the other motherboards in this review, with a peak temperature in Celsius in the low 90s with our TRUE Copper CPU cooler.  I did notice however that there is a difference in the temperature reported by AI Suite and OCCT of around 10C as ASUS uses a combination of the internal CPU sensor and their own on-board socket sensor to report the value.

By comparing the specification sheet of the ASUS and the ASRock, in terms of pure port numbers, the ASRock wins out, but there is a dichotomy depending on what the user wants – the ASRock has 802.11ac, but the ASUS has a better automatic overclock system and all the 4-pin fan headers are fully controllable (with good software to boot).  The ASRock has HDMI-In, XFast and dual Intel NICs, whereas the ASUS has Mem_OK, BIOS Flashback, DirectKey and a TB_Header if you can get hold of a Thunderbolt add-in card.  As these boards are around the same MSRP (within $10 at launch), a user is going to go for the board that either fits their needs most, or looks better, for which the ASUS wins based on their matte black finish.

Visual Inspection

Obviously what strikes at first glance is the color scheme, with ASUS aiming for various portions of the market with their gold/yellow/mustard livery.  I would point out that it is not completely overdone, whereby the socket and rear IO are default silvery colors.  Obviously the heatsinks are not coated with real gold, this is just a color.

The socket area is right at the Intel specifications next to the power delivery, but we have a little extra space to the DIMMs and the sockets below.  The VRM heatsinks are swathed in that gold color, and perhaps a little surprisingly these heatsinks are not heatpiped together, despite a 12+2 phase solution being used.  In is helpful though that the memory slots on the Pro are the only ones in this review that are using the single sided latches.

The socket area has access to four fan headers with immediate reach, or five at a stretch, for a total of six on board and all of them are 4-pin headers.  The main two for the CPU are between the power delivery heatsinks and the memory slots, with the main CPU fan header using a new design to detect between different sorts of 4-pin fan (PWM, voltage).  A third 4-pin is to the bottom left of the socket area near the IO, and a 4-pin header is found either side of the 24-pin ATX power connector.  The final 4-pin header is on the bottom of the board sandwiched between the front panel header and USB 2.0 headers.

Moving clockwise around the motherboard and we reach the 24-pin ATX power connector surrounded by two of the aforementioned 4-pin fan headers but also a USB 3.0 header.  Beneath these are our eight SATA 6 Gbps ports – six from the PCH in yellow and two from an ASMedia controller in black.  The ASMedia SATA ports share connectivity with the PCIe 2.0 x4 slot on board, and are disabled when the PCIe 2.0 x4 slot is set to x4 rather than x1 by default.

The TPU and EPU switches come next, with the two-stage TPU clearly labeled (but might be overcast if two double length GPUs are used).  From right to left along the bottom of the board we have a front panel header, a 4-pin fan header, four USB 2.0 headers, a BIOS_Flashback button, a DirectKey button, a two-digit debug LED, a power button, the Thunderbolt header for an add-in card, a front panel audio header and a TPM header.  Aside from the lack of a reset button (which helps a lot during my testing), it will be worth pointing out the DIrectKey button – this allows a user to restart go straight into the BIOS at the next boot, and holding the button down will cause the system to hard shutdown.

The PCIe layout comes about as regular as they get, with the full length lanes supporting PCIe 3.0 x16 or x8/x8, and the final slot supporting PCIe 2.0 x4.  We also have four PCIe 2.0 x1 slots onboard.

The rear IO on board consists of a PS/2 combination port, a total of six USB 3.0, a WiFi module (2x2:2, dual band a/b/g/n with Bluetooth 4.0), all four video outputs, an Intel NIC and audio jacks.

Board Features

As ASUS are the only manufacturer with features such as Mem-OK, BIOS Flashback, TPU, EPU and an IO mounted WiFi module, sometimes it is hard to quantify the worth in comparison to other manufacturers.  Clearly there is significant engineering work taking place to make such functions happen, and if it requires bandwidth it often gives the potential for other manufacturers to steam ahead with more NICs, more USB ports and more SATA ports.  The value in such hardware designs is partly reflected in price, but it also has to be vital in the eyes of the user.