ASUS Z87-Expert Review
Published by Marc Büchel on 19.12.13Page:
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| As expected the ASUS Z87-Expert is a high-quality product that comes with really quite a few features. Regarding the new color scheme (black/gold/yellow) we would wish that ASUS throws it over board as soon as possible and goes back to black/blue. We mentioned the reasons for this on page 4. Overall this is definitely a good motherobard which offers a solid basis for any upper mid-range PC. | - Features | ||
| Layout | + | - | |
| Generally the ASUS Z87-Expert's Layout is very well thought. Once more very practical are the angled SATA connectors, of which there are eight, as well as the power- and reset-buttons. Also the debug display is very useful in case you should have issues with a component in your system or the board itself. Furthermore the placement of the PCI-Express x16 slots is well thought an therefore nothing needs to be criticized at this point. There are for example two slots between the first and the second PCI-Express x16 slot. Should you decide to build an SLI/CrossFire setup, then the first card will still be able to get plenty of fresh air. Another thing that is good with this board is the fact, that there as plenty of space between the CPU socket and the heatsinks on the power design as well as between the CPU socket and the DIMM slots. Something else we like is the fact that ASUS equipped this board with WiFi, which supports 802.11 b/g/n as well as ac standards. In case the board can connect to either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz networks. | - Angled SATA connectors
- Power/Reset-Button onboard - Debug display - Place autour du socket - Onboard WiFi (5 GHz) |
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| Performance | + | - | |
| Let's first have closer look at overall 3D performance. Calcualting the average of all 3D benchmarks we ran, we see that this board comes in on the sixth spot. Concerning the average of all 2D benchmarks we ran, this board reaches a solid 8th place. Overall the performance of this board isn't bad at all. It is somewhere in the upper center span. On another note we had a look at power consumption and in this case we clearly see that we have a board here that has been equipped with quite a few additional chips. In the end this means, that power consumption is high. In fact, it this board can be found close to the bottom of our comparison tables, when it comes to power consumption. | -
3DMark 11 - SuperPi 32M - Bioshock: Infinite High Details |
- PCMark - SiSoft Sandra Arithmetik - SiSoft Sandra Multimedia |
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| Overclocking / BIOS | + | - | |
| As you might have expected from ASUS you get an excellent BIOS which offers not only a boatload of tuning and tweaking options but is also very easy to use. Especially with the entry screen ASUS is trying and also succeeding to add elements which make the BIOS much easier to use also for unexperienced users. For example the feature that the boot order can be changed by drag'n'drop is a neat addition. | -
Clear arrangement
- Sheer amount of options |
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| Recommendation | + | - | |
| Should you be looking for a very well equipped and rock solid motherboard with a reasonable price tag, then the Z87-Expert will be a great choice. The only flaw it has, is the power consumption, but apart from that, there are no other issues that really need mentioning. |
- Office
- Gaming - Workstation |
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| Rating | |||
| We give the ASUS Z87-Expert good 4.5 out of 5 stars. | |||
Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch
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