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

oc

 

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garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #34719 12 May 2014 19:41
We started off our Z97 coverage yesterday, today I take a look at a second motherboard. This time the Z97-A from Asus. Have a great day
Phreedom's Avatar
Phreedom replied the topic: #35722 28 Sep 2014 21:58
Hello...you stated, "I was a little disappointed in the network performance of the Intel NIC on the Z97-A...this is to be expected at a price point like the Z97-A’s though". I've been looking at getting the ASUS Z97 Deluxe which is almost twice as much as the -A version @ $275 and it uses the same Intel I218-V NIC. Even the $350 Z97 Deluxe NFC/WLC uses the same NIC as the Z97-A. Soooo...no matter what price point I'm at in this line of ASUS motherboards, I can't get very good network performance???
garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #35723 28 Sep 2014 22:08
Actually in later testing I found this to be a specific issue only with the model of switch that we do our testing on. You can find a little more information here

lanoc.org/review/motherboards/6927-asus-...uxe?showall=&start=8
Phreedom's Avatar
Phreedom replied the topic: #35724 28 Sep 2014 22:23
Awesome...thanks!
L0rdG1gabyt3's Avatar
L0rdG1gabyt3 replied the topic: #35725 29 Sep 2014 17:06
I built a CAD workstation on one of these boards last week, and the performance is very good.

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