Overclock
Asus may not have designed the Z97-A for overclocking, but they did include their TPU chip that when paired with their software allows the board to automatically overclock itself and test for stability over and over to give you the highest benchmark. After letting the software run the benchmark that we ended up with was an impressive 4.5 Ghz, a half of a Ghz higher than what the MSI did using its OC Genie. This is in line with that I have experienced with past Asus motherboards as well. With the ability to slowly overclock and test after each overclock they are able to get you much closer to the limit of your individual CPU. Standard overclock buttons that don’t test can’t do this because they have to overclock to the lowest possible CPU.
Motherboard |
Highest Auto Overclock |
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 |
4.0 Ghz |
Asus Z97-A |
4.50 Ghz |