ASUS Z97 Power/Cooling/Stability: WS, Hero, Sabertooth, Deluxe

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soldier9599

soldier9599

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I am looking for a versatile board that can outlast most of my other PC internals as I eventually replace them. I will do some overclocking (nothing crazy) with a water cooled CPU, gaming, audio/photo/video editing/encoding, and use it as a personal media server for a year or two until I get a dedicated device for that.

The Z97-WS is great when it comes to features because it seems to avoid gimmicky features while focusing on versatility and connectivity. When it comes to stability, at first glance, the WS looks like and is marketed as a perfect choice: highly efficient 12K capacitors, VRM heatsink that ASUS claims is the best in their lineup, Dr.MOS MOSFETS, solid Procool power connecter, etc., but I have a few unanswered concerns.

First is the MOSFETs. For one, the Maximus VII Hero has Nexfet MOSFETs. I was under the impression the Nexfets are top of the line when it comes to resistence and efficiency. Can Dr.MOS compete? Another issue is that despite the great WS heatsink, I'm pretty sure I see exposed MOSFETs. I can't understand why they would do this on their stability focused board when the Deluxe and Hero heatsinks seem to have more coverage. Couldn't this pose a problem with power hungry usage?

I also wonder about the TUF lineup which seems to contradict the idea that the WS is the stability focused board. Everything they say about the Sabertooth is that it is supposed to be the most durable with great thermal energy management. The thermal armor with a fan is a neat idea and I wonder why the WS doesn't come with it. However that feature seems very expensive compared to alternatives, so I wonder if it is just a marketing gimmick. I could see myself adding a fan to the northbridge at some point, so does the sabertooth design offer any benefit over the WS when it comes to cooling?

My last concern is the VRM design itself. All of the boards in question have a DIGI+ 8+2 phase design, whereas the Deluxe has a 16 phase design. Based on just numbers, the Deluxe sounds best, but numbers alone tell us little. As we know, quality plays at least as much a role as quantity, but how are we supposed to judge this?

Looking at all of these concepts combined together, how would you rank these boards when it comes to power management, cooling, and stability?
 
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soldier9599

soldier9599

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Well, for better or worse, I ended up purchasing the Z97-WS. Its benefits as far as power delivery are concerned seemed best in my untrained opinion despite the apparent weaknesses. So this can just be a discussion thread if anyone wants to chime in; I'm wondering what other people think about the differences in power delivery and cooling among Asus motherboards.
 
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dgingeri

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Well, I got the Z97-WS as well, and I have had a horrible time with it.

My first one lasted 10 days, and then it bluescreened and refused to boot, giving a 0055 LED code, meaning a memory issue. I tried rearranging the memory and found that as long as there was no DIMM in slot B1, it would boot. If there was a DIMM in B2, it would not recognize it. It would work with any memory in A1 or A2, but that's only single channel mode. I tried this with 4 different memory sets and 2 CPUs. With all 4 slots occupied, it gave a "ddFE" code, which isn't defined in the manual.

It took 10 days to get a replacement from Asus, and the next one did the same thing right out of the box. After a couple days operating in single channel mode, it stopped recognizing memory entirely.

I was unable to get another swap with Asus because my old board hadn't made it back to them yet. Once it does, probably today, I'll be able to arrange sending this board in to them to see if they can repair it, rather than use an advance exchange RMA. Hopefully they find out what's wrong and get me a working board somehow. I paid nearly $300 for that board, and more for the memory and the two CPUs. I'm out over $1000, all told, and can't do anything with it.

I'm back to using my old X79 board and CPU, that had been repurposed to become my ESXi host so I could train on my VCP and MCSE certs.

I wish you luck with yours. I really hope you have better luck than I have.
 
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feelingtheblanks

feelingtheblanks

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Z97 WS has the best VRM in Asus motherboard line atm. It's really a top-notch board with overkill VRM.

About your questions.

1- Deluxe doesn't have a 16 phase design. In fact none of the boards have more than 8 true phases this time around. If they claim so, then they are doing deceptive marketing. All they do is using doublers or virtual phases etc... So Deluxe has some doubler drivers to increase the output, that's all. Actually it has a 8 phase phase pwm. Controller is digital and from International Rectifier. Mosfets are not top notch though. Just some generic low rds (on) lf-paks from nxp. Asus tends to use these mosfets in pretty much every price range though. From z97-A to Sabertooth. They are not that efficient like nexfets or some on-semi powerpaks but still will get the job done.

2- Yes, nexfet power blocks are pretty good. But they are not the best. There is direct fets on top of the board and International Rectifier's powIRstages.

And WS doesn't have DRMos. It's just a terrible marketing from Asus team. Seriously what were they thinking. DRMos is an Intel standard and mostly Gigabyte and MSI have used them before. Known manufacturers lilke Vishay, Infineon and Renesas been making these mosfets mostly. They were pretty good and efficient. Capable of 35-40A easily and the performance is comparable to nexfets. But I guess only MSI's mini itx boards keep using these fets these days, due to limited space on the board.

Z97 WS boards, on the other hand, International Rectifier powerstages 3550. It's similar to DRMos since it has the driver, low and high side fets in one package but the technology of powerstages is alot better and efficient than the DRMos itself. It is closer to direct fets rather than drmos tbh. I have no friggin idea why Asus is making that kind of crappy marketing on an incredibly good component. IR 3550 powIRstages is by far the best mosfets on the Z87-97 board market now. Each of them can easily do 60A. WS has 8 of them and guess what? MSI Xpower has 16 of them (and the z87 one actually had 32). That made a new definition for the "overkill" word.

So about your question, IR3550 is a lot better than a nexfet power block. That also mean that IR3550 generate less heat since it's almost impossible to load them up. Another real life example: Top notch Gigabyte z97 overclock board is SOC-Force and it has 8 of IR3553 powerstages and they are tad less efficient (40A each).

Well you even can use these mosfets without a heatsink. And WS has more than enough coverage for them, don't worry about it. They are not comparable with nexfets.

3- TUF Line up? Well they are just mid-range boards with some badass looking armoring and heatsink. The actual component is pretty generic (lfpak mosfets) and doesn't really justify the price they asking for. Still easily enough for any overclock or heavy usage though.

So if you want me to make a ranking between these boards.

1- WS (4,5/5)
2- ROG Hero (not the Ranger since it has subpar vrm) (3,5/5)
3- Deluxe (3/5)
4- Sabertooth (3/5)
 
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