Asus Sabertooth Z87 vs Maximus VI Hero

classna · Apr 19, 2016

I understand this has been discussed before but my situation is slightly different. I had the Maximus VI hero for over 2 years and it died for some reason recently. Luckily it was under warranty so i sent it to the dealership and after a few weeks they offered me a replacement of Sabertooth Z87 or Gryphon Z87 as they didn't have Maximus VI hero available in stock and would likely take a month for new stock to arrive. My question is, should i go ahead and take the sabertooth Z87 or is it worth waiting for Maximus VI hero replacement? This is not a gaming PC and i only play games (mostly company of heros 2) occasionally. I am more interested in overclocking as i have the core i7 4770K chip. Please advice.

My Specs:

- Processor: Intel Core i7 4770K
- Cooler: Cooler Master Napton 280L
- Motherboard: Asus Maximus VI hero (dead)
- RAM: Corsair Vengeance 16GB Dual Channel (2x8GB 1866) DDR3 Memory Kit (CMZ16GX3M2A1866C10)
- Graphics Card: EVGA GTX 750Ti FTW
- PSU: Corsair VS650
- SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256GB
- Case: Cooler Master HAF XB
- OS: Windows 10 64bit

Darkbreeze · Apr 19, 2016

The Sabertooth is an excellent board and I'd probably rather have that than the Hero, except for strictly aesthetic reasons. Usually, on most Sabertooth boards, very high overclocks are possible and they are generally very solid boards with as good or better features than most of the "gaming" boards.

classna · Apr 19, 2016

Thanks for the quick response. I don't have any problem with how it looks but i wasn't sure if sabertooth is as good as hero for overclocking as i don't see too many OC guides with this board. Reading some of the threads here about the same topic, most people seem to recommend hero which is why i created this thread.

Darkbreeze · Apr 19, 2016

The Hero is supposedly a gaming board, but aside from it's aesthetics, it has little that other high end boards don't.

The Hero VI has Extreme Engine DIGI+ III 8+2 phase. The Sabertooth Z87 has TUF ENGINE! 8+2 phase. Both are very capable overclocking machines.

The Hero VI has 10k black caps. The Sabertooth has 10k black caps.

Both support 32GB of RAM. The Sabertooth has iGPU displayport and HDMI while the Hero only has HDMI.

There are some minor differences in multi-GPU support, but both support SLI and Crossfire.

Both have 8 SATA 6GBPS headers.

Both have the same onboard Ethernet adapter.

The Sabertooth supports the Thunderbolt EX II card, while the Hero does not.

The Sabertooth has ALC1150 audio, which is very good, while the Sabertooth has SupremeFX, which is supposedly better, but is a moot point as ALC1150 is very good. There might be minor audio shielding differences between the two boards but I suspect only a highly trained audiophile could tell the difference.

Both support the same number of x16 PCI slots and the same speeds on those slots.

There really is nothing much on the Hero that isn't on the Sabertooth, and a few things on the Sabertooth not on the Hero. Like I said, I'd probably personally prefer the Sabertooth, but that's mostly just personal preference. Both are good, no doubts there.

Overclock settings and expectations should be much the same, if not almost exactly the same, between these two boards.

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Asus Sabertooth Z87 vs Maximus VI Hero

classna

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Darkbreeze

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classna

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Darkbreeze

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