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ASUS Z87I-PRO (Intel LGA 1150)

cadaveca

cadaveca

My name is Dave
Joined
Apr 10, 2006
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We continue our foray into mITX motherboards by taking a look at an high-end enthusiast option from ASUS, the P87I-PRO. Featuring a huge 12+2 VRM design, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, plus all Intel Z87 features, the ASUS P87I-PRO also carries the standard high-level ASUS experience we've all come to expect.

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Truely amazing how small things can get... precious analysis Dave. The big towers we loved and love so much are turning into dinosaurs...

Complete fan control of any kind of fans (be they 3 or 4 pins) is still a feature not available on all boards? It is always a lottery when you buy a board (unless you read this level of reviews :)

Would be great if full fan control could be done in UEFI without AI Suite (particularly to set some fans to stay totally off until needed, not just changing speeds).
 
Many PWM-based headers provided by certain SuperI/O chips aren't capable of scaling voltage for 3-pin fans. Some allow adjust of voltage (50-100%), so you can adjust 3-pin fan speed, but yeah, many headers do not work perfectly, and it's not a problem by design by the board maker...it's about the parts available to them.

On this board, you CAN control fanspeed in the BIOS alone without AISuite, but if you have AISuite installed, it will over-ride anything you put in BIOS. Secondary fan headers only offer limited customization, compared to the CPU_FAN header. That said, It is better than most mITX boards I have played with so far(still two more reviews to be published, at least, looking for more boards now).
 
I thought Master Dave's reviews were done for but Im glad to see things are still being reviewed.

Nice little board but why is the memory XMP so lame?
 
fullinfusion said:
Nice little board but why is the memory XMP so lame?
Click to expand...


I dunno, man, I see this from time to time with certain boards, usually boards, of the same sort of "caliber", too. With Haswell, differences in board performance can easily be rectified in most cases...could be something as simple as having a low NB multi profile, lower Turbo profile, etc, etc, and pretty much all of these options are user-adjustable.

What I can say for sure is that there's no problem with any of the other hardware, since I've done other testing on multiple boards since then.. that performed as you'd expect.
 
What are your thoughts of the daughter boards in comparison to other brands? Specifically the power board.
 
Please, review Rampage IV Black Edition. :)
 
Got a list of countries that doesn't allow 802.11ac as you put it in the review? It's the first I've heard about it as it's 5GHz Wi-Fi and the card that comes with this board is clearly dual-band...
 
james888 said:
What are your thoughts of the daughter boards in comparison to other brands? Specifically the power board.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure it's needed, really, except if you want to OC in low-air environment. The cooling and how it's designed hints at that too much. That said, It's nice to have if you want to minimize cooling fans and have a small silent build.

BorisDG said:
Please, review Rampage IV Black Edition. :)
Click to expand...

Review is done, will go live next week.

TheLostSwede said:
Got a list of countries that doesn't allow 802.11ac as you put it in the review? It's the first I've heard about it as it's 5GHz Wi-Fi and the card that comes with this board is clearly dual-band...
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It's about specific channels, not just the frequency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

Locally, certain channels just don't work. The Wi-Fi provided with this board is NOT a/c, but there ARE boards available @ Newegg with a/c (the Deluxe version).
 
Thanks for the review, I wish I had read it prior to ordering the ASUS Z87I PRO. Do you know if ASUS are aware of the poor memory performance (and hopefully looking into a solution)?
 
cadaveca said:
It's about specific channels, not just the frequency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

Locally, certain channels just don't work. The Wi-Fi provided with this board is NOT a/c, but there ARE boards available @ Newegg with a/c (the Deluxe version).
Click to expand...

Yeah and that would be the same regardless of Wi-Fi card you install, be it 2.4 or 5GHz. I'm sorry, but I have to say that you're wrong about this one. This is a driver issue if anything, but as I'm sure you're aware, you can unlock most routers quite easily by changing the firmware to get access to additional frequencies. Yes, it's technically not legal to do, but it'd be the same in this case, as long as you use the allowed frequencies where you live, it's not an issue.
 
Doesn't explain why ASUS has two boards, identical in every way BUT...the Wi-Fi.

:p

What is your point, exactly? ASUS sell both the DELUXE and the PRO because of driver issues? I am confused...
 
Because they can charge more for one than the other?
 
Best ASUS mini-ITX boards? I say it is. Might get this for my gaming rig since I'll be going Haswell in a few months' time.
 
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