ASUS Z97I-Plus Review
Published by Hiwa Pouri on 28.05.14Page:
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| At a first glance the Z97I-Plus leaves a good impression. You get a reasonable feature mix and it won't take long until you realize that ASUS created a product, which should feature a reasonable price tag. There is a decent power design and the absence of any overclocking features, makes it clear that this board will end up with a decent price tag. In terms of storage connectivity there are four SATA connectors, which makes this board perfectly suitable for compact gaming rigs or powerful HTPC's. There is also an M.2 slot on the back of the motherboard and furthermore you also get onboard WiFi. In case of the color scheme we're happy to see that the new Z97 Classic-Series from ASUS isn't as flashy as the Z87 motherboards anymore. | -
Design - Layout - mini-ITX |
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| Layout | + | - | |
| Basically the ASUS Z97I-Plus 's Layout has been well thought. There is a compact power design located at the top end of the board. Furhtermore the straight SATA 6Gbps ports have been placed at well accessible locations. Another thing we like are the four 4-pin fan header on the left side of the CPU socket. A really neat little features, that's what the M.2 slot on the backside of the motherboard is. We think it's a really good idea from ASUS to place this slot on the backside of the motherboard, since they now have more space for all the other features on the front. It also makes the installation of an M.2 drive a bit easier but you have to keep in mind, that an M.2 drive needs to be installed before mounting to motherboard. | - Space around the CPU socket | ||
| Performance | + | - | |
| Calculating the average of all 3D benchmarks we ran, we see that this board ranks in the middle of our comparison tables, which include values from all Z87 motherboards we've tested too. When taking the average of all 2D results, this board is capable of achieving a position in the top third. Also with this board it is interesting to see that especially in Super Pi 1M it's slow. This is a solid hint that memory timings are loose. Choosing settings like this reduces performance but increases memory compatibility. On another note, we had a look at power consumption and noticed that this isn't one of the most efficient motherboards we've had for testing so far when it comes to load power consumption. In case of idle power consumption we find this board in the top quarter of our charts. | - 3D Mark | - Super Pi 1M - SiSoft Sandra Arithmetic - 3D Mark Vantage - 3D Mark 11 |
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| 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. | - Sheer amount of
options - Design |
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| Recommendation | + | - | |
| These days, the Z97I-Plus from ASUS costs 120 Euro, which is ok in terms of value for money and for this kind of money you get a miniITX motherboard, which is perfectly suitable for compact HTPCs, office PCs as well as gaming rigs. If you want to assemble an as compact rig as possible then you will love the fact, that there is an M.2 slot on the back of this motherboard. | -
Office - HTPC - Gaming |
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| Rating | |||
| We give the ASUS Z97I-Plus very good 4.5 out of 5 stars. | |||
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