Motherboards

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.

With the launch of Intel’s Haswell there was the normal shift to a new chipset. This is Intel’s Z87 chipset and everyone rushed to get their version of this new chipset out onto the market. Many of the boards that reached consumers were just rehashes of boards that were already on the market with the Z77 chipset, but with the bonus of improved performance under Haswell. So with that in mind we have Asus’ Z87-Expert up on the test bench to see just how it stacks up to the older Z77 boards running Ivy Bridge. Let’s dive in.

Two years ago Gigabyte announced their G1.Kille series of motherboards with an interesting event featuring camouflage and tons of military imagery. The concept behind it was that the G1.Killer was meant to be a series of “super-soldiers” for gaming. Each of the products would be tailored after an imaginary persona: The Assassin, The Sniper and the Scout.  These would have super sight, hearing, speed, and shield all to assist you in your gaming dominance. We have taken a look at some of these for the X79 lineup and now have one from the Z77 chipset line; the G1.Sniper M3. This $180 board from Gigabyte features a full audio card built into the motherboard, SLI, and a Micro ATX form factor. So let’s take a look at what Gigabyte has stuffed into this little package.

In the enthusiast world you can never seem to have enough power or enough headroom for your system. Although you might hear rumors of the “post PC” era or that the desktop is dead nothing could be further from the truth with regards to Asus and their Republic of Gamers line up of boards. We have covered a number of these going all the way back to before the ROG line was even established and can tell you that when it comes to this line Asus spares no expense in components or research and development. Today we have the ROG Rampage IV Formula in the lab and will be covering the design, features and component choices that Asus has made with this this board and across the entire ROG line.