# ASUS GRYPHON Z87 (Intel LGA 1150)



## cadaveca (Jun 10, 2013)

Like the mix of lion and eagle of legend, the ASUS GRYPHON Z87 is ready to fight over air or water with a giant wingspan of features that cover a broad range of users. A warrior of The Ultimate Force, it also has a suit of fortified GRYPHON ARMOR to back it up when things get rough.

*Show full review*


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## erixx (Jun 10, 2013)

Sweet sweet review+overwhelming pics+background info.


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## nickbaldwin86 (Jun 10, 2013)

if it came with armor I would buy it... but brown gross... $50 for armor... no thanks. I will see what the ROG board mATX has to offer. which I know will be more anyways.


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## Frogger (Jun 11, 2013)

As usual Great review Dave  Planning on rebuilding the home theater this year so will be watching the mATX and mITX form factors with interest. Hope to see more SOON


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## Delta6326 (Jun 11, 2013)

Fantastic review!!! This board is very sweet indeed, I find the color scheme ugly, but once you put the armor on it looks great and would go with my color scheme I'm looking to do. To bad it cost$50! To much for me to pay out for it, which then makes the whole board a no go...

I was actually surprised the MSI GD65 beat it in many test. To bad MSI don't have a M-ATX gamer board. I'm only going to buy M-ATX or smaller, if your going to have only 1 GPU like most people do there is no point in a large board.


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## cadaveca (Jun 11, 2013)

Delta6326 said:


> I was actually surprised the MSI GD65 beat it in many test.



Honestly, I'm not. THE MSI Z87-GD65 really has a far different target audience, so it's features are a bit different, including the Turbo profiling it uses, something that is more about catering to gamers. With the whole "GAMING" thing being part of the board's SKU, even, clearly MSI has specific design targets in mind. That boost in CPU performance is due to this profiling, while ASUS uses the reference Intel scheme, or one of their own that is more focused on power savings. There is an option in the GRYPHON Z87 BIOS that can give similar performance.

And yeah, 1-card fun for this, runs two cards fine, but heat is naturally going to be a concern. This isn't a budget product by any means(hello, 5-year warranty), so isn't exactly meant to be used with anything other than high-end cards, although it's still capable, of course.

I might have a few more smaller boards to cover, too. hoping to get the ASUS ROG mITX, too, that one looks awesome. Would need to get that directCUII670 mini too though :


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## VulkanBros (Jun 11, 2013)

Solid review - as always 

So the Z87 Gryphon is the Micro-ATX of the Z87 Sabertooth ATX? or....

They could have included the Armor Kit for free - so users could decide for themselves....but hey its still a decent board


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## Delta6326 (Jun 11, 2013)

Do you have a spare key to your house it will only take me 1min. To grab what I need 
do you know when or where you can buy the armor kit? I can't find it anywhere.


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## drdeathx (Jun 11, 2013)

Colors are mehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...


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## cadaveca (Jun 11, 2013)

Delta6326 said:


> Do you have a spare key to your house it will only take me 1min. To grab what I need
> do you know when or where you can buy the armor kit? I can't find it anywhere.



There are a couple of smaller US retailers that have it for sale now, but yeah, it's a rare item it seems. That should improve in the coming weeks. I think every brand has like 40 models for this platform, so that's a lot of stuff to get shipping all over the planet.



VulkanBros said:


> Solid review - as always
> 
> So the Z87 Gryphon is the Micro-ATX of the Z87 Sabertooth ATX? or....
> 
> They could have included the Armor Kit for free - so users could decide for themselves....but hey its still a decent board



Given the reaction about it, and the lack of users I see with "TUF" products, I understand why ASUS did it this way, as I said in the review. I like the dust shield idea, myself, always have.



drdeathx said:


> Colors are mehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...


Kinda, but they grew on me. I mean, look at my install pictures...colours? Where? You barely even see the armor..


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## m1dg3t (Jun 11, 2013)

Excellent review! I expect nothing less  

I'm no longer an Asus fan, but they manage some good performance/expansion in this SFF. I'm also interested to see what the ROG iTX will bring  Hopefully we'll see some iTX reviews here 

Would be nice to see all the accessories included, this is a premium mATX afterall...

Re colour scheme: Surprised we don't see more "Mil Spec" theme builds


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## de.das.dude (Jun 11, 2013)

that was a lengthy review  well written.


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## rzepa10 (Jun 12, 2013)

Great review. 
Hope to see asus hero soon.


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## Animalpak (Jun 12, 2013)

hope to see the mATX Maximus too !!


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## aeolus (Jun 13, 2013)

*TUF Board Owner*

I own this board and I'm currently on my second defective board. RAM slots A2/B2 have malfunctioned on two boards. I'm awaiting stock to get another RMA. I've tested the processor with the Intel Processor Testing utility so I don't think it's the memory controller. Very frustrating. It won't even post with memory in those slots. The MemOK light stays on and that's it. I've done a lot of troubleshooting so no point in trying to troubleshoot the problem here. I just wanted to let you all know to wait a bit before purchasing.


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## Migelo (Jun 13, 2013)

Hi!

I'm in the process of buying a new Haswell PC (already have gtx780) and I'm in the process of picking the right mobo atm.

I've read both reviews, this one and MSI Z87-GD65 GAMING. Where I'm buying from (hoh.de), the MSI costs 172€ and the gryphon costs 127€. Am I missing smth or is going for the ASUS a no-brainer?

Are there any other microATX high performing motherboards out there I should check out?

I'm buying an i7 4770k.


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## cadaveca (Jun 13, 2013)

aeolus said:


> I own this board and I'm currently on my second defective board. RAM slots A2/B2 have malfunctioned on two boards. I'm awaiting stock to get another RMA. I've tested the processor with the Intel Processor Testing utility so I don't think it's the memory controller. Very frustrating. It won't even post with memory in those slots. The MemOK light stays on and that's it. I've done a lot of troubleshooting so no point in trying to troubleshoot the problem here. I just wanted to let you all know to wait a bit before purchasing.



Sorry to hear about your luck. I ran into similar behavior when memory overclocking, but clearing the CMOS fixed the problem for me. 



Migelo said:


> Hi!
> 
> I'm in the process of buying a new Haswell PC (already have gtx780) and I'm in the process of picking the right mobo atm.
> 
> ...



Yes, there are other mATX boards, but I am not sure they have hit the market yet. that sounds like a great price for the Gryphon to me, actually, I'd chose that one as well unless choosing dual VGA cards.


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## Migelo (Jun 13, 2013)

Yeah, it's a surprise that it's not just $->€ conversion 

I'm not planning on getting a second gpu. I also checked out the 33 haswell motherboards bencharked and the gryphon performs very well, so it's the one I'm going after it seems. I might even buy that gorgeous looking shield if the price is right. =)


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## cadaveca (Jun 13, 2013)

Migelo said:


> Yeah, it's a surprise that it's not just $->€ conversion
> 
> I'm not planning on getting a second gpu. I also checked out the 33 haswell motherboards bencharked and the gryphon performs very well, so it's the one I'm going after it seems. I might even buy that gorgeous looking shield if the price is right. =)



The ARMOR kit is a worthwhile addition, to me. The Gryphon is a tank, and the ARMOR is it's extra plating. The extra thermal probes can help the board manage the case environment a bit better, too, and the dust cover means less maintenance, at least for me.

And yeah, you CAN easily get better performance than what I did with a little bit of tweaking. I cover "out-of-the-box" performance, with all the software and such installed, too, and I have found that many times performance differences between motherboards is typically down to BIOS-level tweaks, and many times these options are adjustable.



rzepa10 said:


> Great review.
> Hope to see asus hero soon.





Animalpak said:


> hope to see the mATX Maximus too !!



I do have both boards already. Hero will be coming soon, for sure, trying to cover all the new SKUs that didn't exist before first.


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## Migelo (Jun 13, 2013)

Noted the performance tweaks, thx.

It seems that getting the armour might be a problem here in EU, not many shops have it and those who do, don't ship to Slovenia..... If anyone finds it in EU at a reasonable price, please post here.

Just another thing, what does that TUN stand for in the name I find around the internet? 
This is the same mobo as you reviewed, right?
http://www.hoh.de/detail/index/sArt...N Z87&exactc=21ccb379b5f3cdda8e5d8ccb146ecc4c


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## terveg (Jul 3, 2013)

*gryphon memory support*

Hi all,
i'm gonna buy gryphon mb + 4770k exactly as in the post.
But I have doubts about support 32Gb memory 1866Mhz 
Can anybody confirm that PC will start with such amount of memory? I need 32 GB
Thanks in advance for reply!
Jay


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## cadaveca (Jul 3, 2013)

terveg said:


> Hi all,
> i'm gonna buy gryphon mb + 4770k exactly as in the post.
> But I have doubts about support 32Gb memory 1866Mhz
> Can anybody confirm that PC will start with such amount of memory? I need 32 GB
> ...



The board is capable, yes. Will the CPU you get be able? I think it should....but the max supported by Intel is only 1600 MHz.


I have 32 GB kit incoming, but probably 1600 MHz only, and I am not sure when it will arrive. I don't have a matched set of 4x 8 GB sticks at the moment, other wise I'd quickly set up the board and let you know right away that it works.


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## terveg (Jul 3, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> The board is capable, yes. Will the CPU you get be able? I think it should....but the max supported by Intel is only 1600 MHz.
> I have 32 GB kit incoming, but probably 1600 MHz only, and I am not sure when it will arrive. I don't have a matched set of 4x 8 GB sticks at the moment, other wise I'd quickly set up the board and let you know right away that it works.


Good remark! probably, I'll buy 1600Mhz memory...seems it's more safe choice. Is it Kingston or Corsair?


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## cadaveca (Jul 3, 2013)

I'd go by price. Both brands offer great products, but both also have different product lines with similar specifications, leading to maybe 12-15 different choices, just from those two brands...XD

Kingston:

Value
Genesis
Beast
Black

Corsair:
Value
Vengeance
Dominator GT
Dominator Platinum


...and then the different models...


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## terveg (Jul 28, 2013)

So, I bought Corsair 
XMP is working on max 32GB !!! Stable!

 	Asus Gryphon iZ87, SATA600 RAID, USB3.0 	  	
  	Asus LED Monitor VE247H 23.6", DVI, HDMI, Speakers 	  	
  	Asus Video PCI-e Radeon HD7870 DCII V2 2GB 2xDVI/HDMI/DP 	  	
  	Cooler Master Mini Tower N200 mATX	
  	Cooler Master PSU B700 700W 	  	
  	Corsair 4x8GB, DDR3, PC14900, CL9, Vengeance  	
  	Intel Haswell Core i7 4770K 3.50GHz 8MB Box 	  	
  	Samsung DVD Brander SH-224BB/BEBE 24x, SATA Bulk 	  	
  	1xSamsung SSD 2.5", 128GB, SATA600, 840 Series Pro 	  	
  	RAID 0 on 2xToshiba Harddisk 3.5" 1TB, SATA600, 7200rpm, DT01ACA100

Crysis 3 is flying!


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