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Five Z97 Express Motherboards, $160 To $220, Reviewed

Tags:
  • Overclocking
  • Motherboards
  • Supermicro
  • Gigabyte
  • Tom's Hardware Top Picks
  • MSI
  • Asus
  • ASrock
Last response: in Reviews comments
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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
August 13, 2014 11:57:07 PM

Intel’s “mainstream” socket continues to spawn enthusiast parts with the company’s fastest-ever gaming-oriented CPU. You’ll probably want a feature-packed motherboard for that, and five companies stepped up to show off the best of the sub-$220 segment.

Five Z97 Express Motherboards, $160 To $220, Reviewed : Read more

More about : z97 express motherboards 160 220 reviewed

a b V Motherboard
August 14, 2014 12:39:55 AM

At this price Asus could send a ROG product (Maximus VII Hero). I wonder why they choose to send the Z97-Pro instead...
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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
a b Ĉ ASUS
August 14, 2014 12:48:34 AM

Quote:
At this price Asus could send a ROG product (Maximus VII Hero). I wonder why they choose to send the Z97-Pro instead...


My thoughts you can find the hero board within that price range quite easy. http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-maximusvi...
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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
a b Ĉ ASUS
August 14, 2014 12:51:11 AM

-snip- duplicate post silly tomshardware.
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August 14, 2014 4:40:26 AM

I'd like some ITX Z97 and H97 with M.2 reviewed.
I'm buying the Asus Z97i-plus because it just mount a 2x M.2 2280 and 2260, and all other connectivity goodness, uninterested in overclocking unless the broadwell i5 K consume less than 90W :D 
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a b V Motherboard
August 14, 2014 6:22:43 AM


I recently bought a Z97I-Plus. Being so used to EATX boards as of late, I was a tad
stunned at how tiny even the packing box is. :D  Just pairing it up with a G3258
initially to see how it behaves. Pondering a GTX 750 Ti, but kinda hoping NVIDIA
will release a newer version in Sept.

Ian.

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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
August 14, 2014 8:33:21 AM

Memnarchon said:
At this price Asus could send a ROG product (Maximus VII Hero). I wonder why they choose to send the Z97-Pro instead...
They probably wanted to win based on features for the money? We know that the Wi-Fi ac has A $50 WI-FI CONTROLLER, what does the Hero add that's worth $50?

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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
a b Ĉ ASUS
August 14, 2014 9:11:33 AM

The Asus ROG boards have a red line that lights up showing the audio path through it's build in LEDs, but the mainstream Z97 don't. I had a chance to take a look at one of the Asus Z97 board and took my phone's flash to shine in on it. The color was somewhat yellowish green and it looks really nice.
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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
a b Ĉ ASUS
August 14, 2014 9:16:36 AM

I have a Z97 Extreme 6, it's a very nice board and it's definitely worthy of the approval award.
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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
a b Ĉ ASUS
August 14, 2014 12:18:40 PM

Nice boards!! I love the gigabyte model but I like asus more because yellow heatsinks just don't fit in my opinion.
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a b V Motherboard
August 14, 2014 1:57:56 PM

Crashman said:
Memnarchon said:
At this price Asus could send a ROG product (Maximus VII Hero). I wonder why they choose to send the Z97-Pro instead...
They probably wanted to win based on features for the money? We know that the Wi-Fi ac has A $50 WI-FI CONTROLLER, what does the Hero add that's worth $50?

Hello. I think there are more reasons to buy a ROG product, instead of a Wi-Fi controller...
Better audio quality.
Better MOF-SETs.
Better inductors.
ROG BIOS.
Generally ROG boards have better quality parts.
But in the end we need the reviewers (like you) to review as many products as they can, so we can see the performance difference between them.
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August 14, 2014 4:28:32 PM

Quote:
Memnarchon said:
At this price Asus could send a ROG product (Maximus VII Hero). I wonder why they choose to send the Z97-Pro instead...
They probably wanted to win based on features for the money? We know that the Wi-Fi ac has A $50 WI-FI CONTROLLER, what does the Hero add that's worth $50?





Nothing. No one would use wifi on a ROG board that is geared for gaming. I can't see many buyers of the Z97 Pro using wifi either for that matter. Unless of course you like to pack up your tower and walk around with it in one hand and your monitor in the other.
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August 14, 2014 4:31:01 PM

Quote:
Memnarchon said:
At this price Asus could send a ROG product (Maximus VII Hero). I wonder why they choose to send the Z97-Pro instead...
They probably wanted to win based on features for the money? We know that the Wi-Fi ac has A $50 WI-FI CONTROLLER, what does the Hero add that's worth $50?





Nothing would be added, just better board quality. No one would use wifi on a ROG board that is geared for gaming. I can't see many buyers of the Z97 Pro using wifi either for that matter. Unless of course you like to pick up your tower and walk around with it in one hand and your monitor in the other tonguing the mouse for movement. But yes that would use that wifi controller.
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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
a b Ĉ ASUS
August 14, 2014 4:35:30 PM

ssdpro said:
Quote:
Memnarchon said:
At this price Asus could send a ROG product (Maximus VII Hero). I wonder why they choose to send the Z97-Pro instead...
They probably wanted to win based on features for the money? We know that the Wi-Fi ac has A $50 WI-FI CONTROLLER, what does the Hero add that's worth $50?





Nothing would be added, just better board quality. No one would use wifi on a ROG board that is geared for gaming. I can't see many buyers of the Z97 Pro using wifi either for that matter. Unless of course you like to pick up your tower and walk around with it in one hand and your monitor in the other tonguing the mouse for movement. But yes that would use that wifi controller.


Whole heartily agree! With any worth while gaming setup you wouldn't be playing games over wifi anyway. The slap in the face bandwidth wise is enough to keep people away. Lets check Intel Lan/Killer Nic yea I'll stick with one of those two thank you.
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August 14, 2014 5:59:55 PM

the nice things about the Asus board imo is i already have a PCIe 1x Soundblaster X-Fi and I really don't want it butting up to a lava-hot Volcanic Islands card. the port placement lets me keep that card way down, and keeps me from having to worry about how good on-board audio is for at least another generation. Yeah, it's a $220, but Microcenter has a deal (on top of best CPU prices) to nab the 4790k + this board for $160 as a combo deal. makes for a smokin' offer imo
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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
August 14, 2014 6:20:50 PM

Memnarchon said:
Crashman said:
Memnarchon said:
At this price Asus could send a ROG product (Maximus VII Hero). I wonder why they choose to send the Z97-Pro instead...
They probably wanted to win based on features for the money? We know that the Wi-Fi ac has A $50 WI-FI CONTROLLER, what does the Hero add that's worth $50?

Hello. I think there are more reasons to buy a ROG product, instead of a Wi-Fi controller...
Better audio quality.
Better MOF-SETs.
Better inductors.
ROG BIOS.
Generally ROG boards have better quality parts.
But in the end we need the reviewers (like you) to review as many products as they can, so we can see the performance difference between them.


ssdpro said:
Quote:
Memnarchon said:
At this price Asus could send a ROG product (Maximus VII Hero). I wonder why they choose to send the Z97-Pro instead...
They probably wanted to win based on features for the money? We know that the Wi-Fi ac has A $50 WI-FI CONTROLLER, what does the Hero add that's worth $50?





Nothing would be added, just better board quality. No one would use wifi on a ROG board that is geared for gaming. I can't see many buyers of the Z97 Pro using wifi either for that matter. Unless of course you like to pick up your tower and walk around with it in one hand and your monitor in the other tonguing the mouse for movement. But yes that would use that wifi controller.

The problem for Asus is that they like to win awards. Costlier components don't boost a review rating when they don't boost performance or overclocking. In case you missed it, MOST of Asus' deluxe boards have out-overclocked MOST of its ROG boards in Tom's Hardware's tests.

As for Wi-Fi, I've occasionally set up mine as an access point.
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August 14, 2014 8:14:20 PM

i just built this Z97-A with i7 4790k running smoothly
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a b V Motherboard
August 15, 2014 4:47:27 AM

Crashman said:
The problem for Asus is that they like to win awards. Costlier components don't boost a review rating when they don't boost performance or overclocking. In case you missed it, MOST of Asus' deluxe boards have out-overclocked MOST of its ROG boards in Tom's Hardware's tests.

As for Wi-Fi, I've occasionally set up mine as an access point.

My apologies for the delay of responding. Due to a surgery after medial meniscus injury, I can't [removed] sit too much on my PC desk for some weeks.
Indeed, every company wants awards in their product page to show how good their product is.
Well, "Deluxe" products could be able to compete in o/c since they have similar PWM phases used. They also have same quality inductors. On the other hand "Pro" products aren't the same as "Deluxe" (they have a good difference in their price as well) and they are missing the things I just wrote (apart from other fearures...).
Also from the time Asus first release a cheap (~$200) ROG motherboard (Hero and Ranger joined a year later...), Tom's Hardware didn't made a review on them yet. And the only Z97/Z87/Z77 Asus ROG product in the reviews is the Z87 Maximus VI Formula, which won an elite award. Asus seems to send Deluxe and Pro products all the time, but they rarely send an ROG motherboard. So I think there is a large margin of error in comparing just one product to a lot of others, the results will be heavily affected by the result of one product (Maximus Formula).
For Wi-Fi, I just use my router's controller which was provided by my ISP, free of charge...
ps: I couldn't miss it since I read Tom's Hardware daily (mostly waiting for each day's article, apart from weekends which you almost never do) with a cup of coffee, like most people read a newspaper, the last five years :) .
ps2: I would love to hear also raja@asus opinion on this.

Watch the language. - G
edit: Sorry G, I didn't noticed it. I mistyped...
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a b V Motherboard
August 15, 2014 6:40:20 PM

Crash, really nice article. Obviously a ton of work went into this one. Well done.
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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
a b Ĉ ASUS
August 15, 2014 11:17:40 PM

No EVGA boards? I'd like to see how the Z97 Classified, Stinger, and FTW models compare to the competition.
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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
August 16, 2014 2:40:54 AM

g-unit1111 said:
No EVGA boards? I'd like to see how the Z97 Classified, Stinger, and FTW models compare to the competition.
EVGA only wanted to show a more-expensive model and asked that they be informed when that roundup is planned.
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August 16, 2014 4:16:26 PM

That yellow M on MSI board reminds me of Metro Last Light for some reason.
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August 16, 2014 5:05:30 PM

That yellow M on MSI board reminds me of Metro Last Light for some reason.
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August 18, 2014 5:47:22 AM

Sorry but ASRock lost my vote when they gave me gruff over a sata port failing and I proved the drive was 100%

Besides their hardware has gotten pretty flaky over the years. They're even desperate enough to do a Fatality board.. lol (that guys a dooosh)
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a b V Motherboard
August 18, 2014 9:02:25 AM

therogerwilco said:
Besides their hardware has gotten pretty flaky over the years. They're even desperate enough to do a Fatality board.. lol (that guys a dooosh)

This has nothing to do with last ditch desperation. They've been marketing a Fatality line for years now, since the P67/Z68 chipsets.
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August 21, 2014 8:49:28 PM

good review...................
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August 22, 2014 10:46:13 PM

Crashman et al (reviewers),

It would help some folks like me if you guys add two more rows to review table:

1) Visualization for Directed I/O or VT-d support
2) RAMDisk support

I'd never consider any board for WS-grade business R&D or pro builds which doesn't meet (1)
I'd never consider any board for high-end home builds which doesn't meet (2)
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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
August 24, 2014 2:46:23 AM

akula2 said:
Crashman et al (reviewers),

It would help some folks like me if you guys add two more rows to review table:

1) Visualization for Directed I/O or VT-d support
2) RAMDisk support

I'd never consider any board for WS-grade business R&D or pro builds which doesn't meet (1)
I'd never consider any board for high-end home builds which doesn't meet (2)
I haven't seen a board that didn't offer feature 1 (most have it disabled by default, however). If I see it missing, I'll mention that.
Feature 2 is software...sure some companies give you free software for your board but our drive image has a third-party solution that works on everything we test.

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August 28, 2014 7:55:57 AM

ASUS ROG is a hard-overclocking board nothing else nothing more, PRO version is cheaper and has more features.
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August 29, 2014 4:41:45 AM

ASUS ROG is a hard-overclocking board nothing else nothing more, PRO version is cheaper and has more features.
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September 2, 2014 8:18:24 PM

Whats the purpose of the small heatsink under the socket on the MSI board. Aren't they for PLX chips and aren't those chips used for boards with 4+ full size pci slots?
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a b K Overclocking
a b V Motherboard
September 2, 2014 9:06:09 PM

Gazabi said:
Whats the purpose of the small heatsink under the socket on the MSI board. Aren't they for PLX chips and aren't those chips used for boards with 4+ full size pci slots?
I believe that sink is placed there to replicate the look of a board with more features.

BTW, PLX also makes all those little 2-lane switches beneath the lower sink, that allows the slots to switch from x16/x0/x0 to x8/x8/x0 and x8/x4/x4. And, as marketing would have it, the so-called 48-lane version that's NOT on this board has only 32 lanes of output.

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September 18, 2014 3:31:52 AM

You should do a mATX shootout for the small form-factor builders like myself...
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!