ASUS Z87-A Review

👤by David Mitchelson Comments 📅28-06-13
Conclusion

The new ‘golden theme’ which ASUS have brought to Z87 was met with mixed views upon launch back at the beginning of June.

After had first-hand experience with the Z87-A, we have to say that seeing it in the flesh, we aren’t too impressed by the aesthetics and styling. The gold heatsinks look good but the colour tone used on the ports and slots aren’t matched very well and thus resemble a yellowy, beige type colour. Stepping away from the norm and diversifying is a good thing but these colours used will limit hardware which can be coordinated with the motherboard.



On the performance front the Z87-A did well in a range of benchmarks we tested and overclocking only helped to obtain even better results. Overclocking was very easy thanks to the very well designed UEFI BIOS – which we have to say is one of the smoothest we have used thus far. Although on the surface many would think this board could hold back on its ability to overclock compared to more expensive offerings – this isn’t the case. We managed to push our Intel Core i7-4770K to 4.6GHz – just 100MHz below our best result.

For the princely cost of £115 the Z87-A is an affordable motherboard for anyone wanting a piece of Z87 pie. Furthermore, our ASUS offering comes with an assortment of handy features such as Mem OK!, direct key, EPU and TPU.

The Z87-A is a great choice for enthusiasts, system builders or even gamers who want a decent mainstream motherboard with an easy to use UEFI BIOS and handy onboard features. Moreover the price-point for this motherboard makes it affordable to all and it is our pleasure to give Z87-A our Silver award.

Pros
+ Good overall performance
+ Overclocks well
+ UEFI BIOS is nice and easy to use
+ ASUS unique features – MemOK! Direct Key, EPU, TPU
+ Affordable

Cons
- Questionable aesthetics – difficult to pair with hardware
- Only two SATA cables supplied



Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.


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