Overclocking and Conclusion
Overclocking
To give a feel for the overclocking performance potential of the Z97-Pro Gamer board, we attempted to push it to known CPU-supported performance parameters with minimal tweaking. We were easily able to get the board running stable for over 4hrs at a 4.67GHz CPU speed, a 2332MHz memory speed, and a 4.0GHz ring bus speed with a 167MHz base clock. System stability was tested running the AIDA64 stability test in conjunction with EVGA's OC Scanner X graphical benchmark running at 1280×1024 resolution and 2x MSAA in stress test mode. Note that 16GB (2 x 8GB) of Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR3-2400 memory modules were used for the overclocking tests.
Note that this is is meant only as a quick preview of the board's performance potential. With more time to tweak the settings to a greater extent, pushing to a higher base clock and ring bus speed may have been achievable, in addition to an overnight stability run without issue.
Performance
The Z97-Pro Gamer is another feather in ASUS' hat. The board performed well across the board with performance matching that of boards in ASUS' upper echelon product lines.
Pricing
As of May 31, the ASUS Z97-Pro Gamer motherboard was available at Amazon.com for $182.44 with free shipping (not Prime). The board was also available from Newegg.com for $149.99 after $20 instant rebate.
Conclusion
The Z97-Pro Gamers motherboard is a very well designed product, offering an exceptional value proposition for the features and performance housed under the hood. While the board is not part of ASUS' ROG (Republic of Gamers) product line, it shares aesthetics as well as included software with that product line as well as its board design and quality of its integrated components. ASUS kept the red accents muted on this board with its black coloration much more dominant throughout, making for a nice looking product. ASUS kept the board's price point down by not including a lot of the unnecessary nice-to-haves that their higher end board toute – onboard buttons and debug LEDs and overclocking-friendly jumpers and voltage measuring points. However, this does free up quite a bit of space on the PCB so that the Z97-Pro Gamer's surface does not have that overly crowded feel that you get with a lot of products. The board is squarely targeted at the budget conscious gamer market, and hits the mark well. It does include nice to haves like M.2 and SATA-Express ports, as well as some gamer-friendly options like a serial port header as well as a plethora of integrated video-out headers in the rear panel and integrated PCI ports.
Strengths
- Stock performance
- Overclocking performance
- Board layout and design
- Motherboard manual details and quality
- UEFI BIOS design and usability
- Quality of included power circuitry
- Intel GigE network controller performance
- M.2 port location
- CMOS battery placement
- Gamer friendly integrated ports and features
- ASUS ROG-like appearance and quality
- NVMe device support
Weaknesses
- CMOS battery placement when using two or more video cards with the board
Finally a black and red z97
Finally a black and red z97 board that isn’t stabbing you in the eyes with the amount of red. Simple splashes of color do wonders!
I still don’t get for a
I still don’t get for a ‘gamer’ board why there is all the display options. Also a PS2 port really? If it’s a gamer board, no one should be using on board gfx.
I still use PS/2 for an IBM
I still use PS/2 for an IBM Model M keyboard. It’s not completely unheard of, and they aren’t exactly running out of space anyway.
As for the display options, it can be nice to have a few additional ports in case your video card doesn’t have enough or enough of the right ones. (This works with multiple discrete cards but I’m not sure if this works with integrated GPUs – maybe someone can confirm?) Certainly it’s not the most important feature, but keep in mind that people may have different needs than you.
What is the target market for
What is the target market for a gamer board with PCI and VGA connectivity? I cant understand the PS2, but VGA and PCI? That is getting old even in the server space.
Some gamers still have their
Some gamers still have their favored PCI cards, including sound cards, that they've been using for years. As for the other video ports, its possible to use them for secondary/terciary monitors…
The two PCI slots are
The two PCI slots are positioned in such a way that if you are running SLI/crossfire they are both covered by duel slot cards anyway. And you still have access to 2 PCI-e 1X slots and the bottom slot. So while some people are still holding on to a soundcard or something they still want a PCI slot for, they are not going to make a difference to most people. And if you are using enough add in cards that they are a problem, you should probably be looking at a higher end board anyway.
As for VGA, there is probably some oddball case where someone wants to use an old monitor as an auxiliary display, but other than that I don’t know what self respecting gaming enthusiast is still using a VGA monitor, let alone plugging it into the motherboard. Still, I’d prefer to see some more HDMI/displayports and some more USB replace that DVI/VGA block.
With all the new technologies
With all the new technologies coming out I am putting on hold building a new gaming machine for 6 months.
m.2, u.2, and NVMe or not.
DDR3 or DDR4
Skylake?
Another round of GPU updates (or rebrands in AMD case)
USB3 or 3.1 type C
Gsync/Freesync
4K or not.
Windows 10
The only thing I can be certain of is my old mechanical hard drives can be ditched – perfect for a NAS (particularly in 6+TB per disk), no longer needed for desktop machine [do we really need all those SATA sockets?]
I am a firm believer in “you can never have too much memory” but I do not wish to break bank to afford it.
Monitors for gaming – bigger is better but hate proprietary standards, and refresh rate fixed at max 60 MHz sucks.
Never been a big fan of multi-GPU set ups though
And I watercool the CPU and GPU
I just bought me a new case
I just bought me a new case for my skylake build I am on z77 and will me moving to skylake. I just upgraded to a 970 from a 570 that was a huge perfomance improvement.