Layout

At a first glance the ASUS Z97-Pro Gamer is a really good looking and simple motherboard. The manfucaturer decided to go for a combination of black and red. In fact the PCB is kept in black entirely and the coolers received some red spots every here and there. The layout is well thought and there is for example plenty of space around the CPU socket to install large coolers without an issue. The fact that there are SATA connectors which have been angled by 90 degrees allow an easy installation of oversized graphics cards.


The ASUS Z97-Pro Gamer comes with a digital 8+2 phase power design. The CPU gets eight phases and the memory can rely on two phases for stable current delivery. As we already mentioned on the features page, this board comes with a digital power design, which is standard already with mid-range motherboards these days. Compared to their Republic of Gamers portfolio ASUS is saving a few bucks on the power design, but that doesn't mean the PWM is underdesigned.



Totally you'll find four DIMM-slots on the Z97-Pro Gamer. Officially supported are DDR3 3200(O.C.) / 3000(O.C.) / 2933(O.C.) / 2800(O.C.) / 2666(O.C.) / 2600(O.C.) / 2500(O.C.) / 2400(O.C.) / 2200(O.C.) / 2133(O.C.) / 2000(O.C.) / 1866(O.C.) / 1800(O.C.) / 1600 / 1333 MHz. There is engough space between the DIMM-slots and the CPU socket which means that you won't run into issues with large coolers even if you choose to install memory with big heatspreaders. Also supported are Xtreme Memory Profiles (XMP) in version 1.3.


PCH as well as the current converters are being held at adequate temperatures via passive heatsinks. Apart from that the blocks are big enough to provide decent cooling and also the design is once again really good looking.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 14 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery	Page 15 - UC Bench
Page 3 - Features	Page 16 - Super Pi 1M / 32M
Page 4 - Layout	Page 17 - wPrime 1024M Multi Core
Page 5 - Connectors and I/O	Page 18 - Cinebench
Page 6 - BIOS	Page 19 - Bioshock: Infinite
Page 7 - Test setup	Page 20 - Metro Last Light
Page 8 - Preview / Gallery	Page 21 - Sleeping Dogs
Page 9 - 3D Mark	Page 22 - Power Consumption
Page 10 - 3D Mark 11	Page 23 - Performance Rating
Page 11 - 3D Mark Vantage	Page 24 - Price Comparison
Page 12 - PC Mark 7	Page 25 - Conclusion
Page 13 - SiSoft Sandra 1