ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2 Review
Published by Hiwa Pouri on 18.02.15Page:
Conclusion
| Overall | + | - | |
| As expected the ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2 is a well-built motherboard that comes with quite a few features, for instance, a high quality power design as well as a lot of flexibility regarding cooling. Compared to the ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 the Mark 2 lacks the "Thermal Shield" but on the other hand ASUS have been able to reduce the price of this board. Talking about the price; Checking Geizhals.at reveals that this board sells for about 142 Euros. With this price the Mark 2 isn't amongst the cheapest Z97 motherboard. If we start to look a little further for additional features there is unfortunately neither M.2 nor SATA-Express onboard. | -
Design - Connectors - SATA-Express |
- No SATA-Express - No M.2 slot | |
| Layout | + | - | |
| Generally the ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2's Layout is well thoughtout. The angled SATA connectors, of which there are six, are very practical. Furthermore the placement of the PCI-Express x16 slots is well thought and therefore nothing needs to be criticized at this point. There are two slots between the first and the second PCI-Express x16 slot. Another thing that is good with this board is the fact that there is 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. If we look further, then we find a high-quality power design, where ASUS is making extensive use of parts with very long life-span. Therefore they comply with their own quality standards which are rather high in case of the Sabertooth motherboard line. | - Angled SATA connectors - Space around the CPU socket | ||
| Performance |
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| Calculating the average of all 3D benchmarks we ran, we see that this board ranks second to bottom in our comparison tables. When taking the average of all 2D results, this board is achieving a position in the top half. The performance of this board could really be better and we're hoping ASUS BIOS team will have another look at the BIOS putting a focus on performance improvements. 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 idle as well as load power consumption this board ranks in the bottom third of our comparison tables. | - 3D | ||
| BIOS - Overclocking |
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| 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 for all users alike. For example the feature that the boot order can be changed by drag'n'drop is a neat addition. | - Clear arrangement | ||
| Recommendation |
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| These days you can get the Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2 for 142 Euros and for that price you get a motherboard with quite a few features. What's missing is a M.2 slot, which should definitely be part of any Z97 board today. Apart from that you get the typical Sabertooth design but no thermal shield. | - Gaming - Multimedia - Price |
- High-End | |
| Rating | |||
| The ASUS Sabertooth Mark 2 receives 3.5 out of 5 stars. | |||
| Navigate through the articles | |
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