So now that we have covered the design and features of the Asus Z87-Expert it is time to dive into how well the board performs. Asus has always been a company that talks up the performance that their products are capable of and, from our initial look, we can understand this. Asus is one of the companies that drives the market in terms of how to build a motherboard and the components used to squeeze as much performance as possible out of them. So with that in mind let’s just how well the Z87-Expert does perform when on the bench.
Section IV Performance – GamingGaming as a test of motherboard performance is sort of a joke these days. The big player in the gaming arena is the GPU. Everyone but a few hardcore PR teams know this. However, it is important to run at least a few (one from each current DX version) to see if there are any issues with the combination of components on a motherboard. These are items like Audio lag, memory lag and of course problems with the PCIe lanes and signal traces. If there are issues in design, drivers or BIOS then you can have odd gaming performance. So without much more preamble let’s dive into the three games we currently use; Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for DX9 FarCry 2 for DX10 and Battlefield Bad Company 2 for DX11.
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 DX9 -As the third installment in the Modern Warfare franchise you are picking up some old roles while adding a couple of new ones as well. The game play is almost identical to what you are used to in Modern Warfare 2 as are the graphical settings. The AI is a little different thought it is still similar to the bar fight style AI we like in the Call of Duty series. For our testing we run the first mission (Black Tuesday) from start to finish. Settings are shown below.
You can see the improved performance that Intel has dropped into the HD 4600 GPU inside the Core i7 4770K here. We were not able to push the graphics too hard and we had to stick with auto textures to get “normal” performance. This made the game seem a little flat. The Asus still has done a good job with all of the other systems, except perhaps the audio on the board.
Napoleon Total War DX9-Napoleon Total War is a turn based strategy game that puts you in charge of Napoleon’s army during the height of his power. The game has some very interesting strategic systems although it can be boring when you are moving units into place. One of the more interesting things about Napoleon Total war is that the more CPU power you have at hand the better the game performs. This is because the system AI is dynamic and improves based on the resources available. For our testing we ran through the Lodi campaign. You can see the settings below.
The gaming performance here was solid with frame rates that allowed for an enjoyable gaming experience in Napoleon Total War. Once again the audio was not the greatest, but this is not a game that requires outstanding audio.
Civilization V DX11 –Civilization V is a strategy game that pits you against other world leaders. You must advance your civilization and try to beat your opponents through military prowess, scientific achievement, or just lasting longer than they do. For our testing we ran through 30 minutes of game play using the same country and leader. We mapped out a city and production strategy attempting to move through the game the same way during all three test runs. You can check out the settings below along with a screenshot.
Civilization V pushed the limits of the HD 4600 and Asus Z87-Expert in a way that I would not have thought possible. We were not able to run the game at 1920x1080 at all, you could chose the setting, but it would begin flashing and stuttering in a way that made the game unplayable. Oddly enough this also affected the audio as the two tried to stay in sync with each other. We ended up backing everything off to 1680x1050 and dropping AA. This gave us an acceptable playing experience both at stock speeds and overclocked.
Gaming wrap-up -Overall the Asus Z87-Expert gave us a good experience in our gaming tests, but there were some things that were lacking. One of the things that stood out the most was the audio. Although it was acceptable, it lacked any real life. If you are looking to improve your gaming experience we would recommend dropping in a discrete GPU and audio card.
