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When we first fired up the Asus Z87 Sabertooth, the bios was a working engineering version and the voltage was set incorrectly for the Core i7 4770k.
Luckily we received an updated BIOS direct from ASUS and flashed immediately. This resolved the issues.
I have always preferred ASUS bios configurations to any of their competitors and I was able to immediately find my way around this BIOS without a problem. The user is immediately presented with a simplified version of the BIOS with some pre-configured options and a boot priority section along the bottom.
We opted for ‘advanced' mode – as the majority of enthusiast users will be using this section for finer configurations and to overclock. The ‘Main' menu highlights the BIOS revision, build date, the processor details and clock speed. We used the XMP profile to set up the Corsair Vengeance correctly to 2,400mhz.
The AI Tweaker section is the main overclocking panel and one you will be spending a lot of time within. Those of you who have used an ASUS bios before will find this immediately comfortable and intuitive. All the settings are in a long scrollable menu system. We will look at this closer shortly when we overclock.
Along the bottom of this section are the voltage details for the i7 4770k. The Asus Z87 Sabertooth defaults the processor to 0.992V.
The Advanced panel offers configuration options for various sections of the board, such as the SATA and USB controllers.
The Monitor and Boot panels allow checking of temperatures, voltages and fan speeds. You can configure the boot priority and fast boot options also.
Is the tuf armor not restrictive though? seems to block a lot of the spots id like to get access too.
THe previous generations of this board have been superb, ive owned a few. My last one failed when I spilt coke over the top of my case and a bit of it hit the pcb. my own fault.
Not got the cash right now for an upgrade but will be later in the year. this is top of my list.
Not really that exciting a board – but rock solid. I want to see the ROG versions.
ITs a great board, what are you talking about Anusha. Its a more laid back colour scheme, hardly matters, most of it will be covered in a system build.
I do want tsee the ultra high end asus boards though.
4770k is a bit of a let down unless I couldnt afford a graphics card.
overall nice board, but im happy with my 5.0ghz 3770k
4770k is a flop. Intel are clearly focused on the mobile platform now and power reduction rather than moving forward in the high end and giving people a huge step up. anyone with a 3770k wont need to move,unless for some reason they need onboard graphics !
disappointing CPU launch, but great motherboards from the guys. I like how they have ditched the old SATA standard now instead of 3 or 4 useless ports for SSD.
4770k isn’t that bad, but I agree, its not a huge step forward. it may help those peoplee who buy a lower end processor and cant afford a graphics card, but who the F*CK will want a 4770k for onboard graphics performance? its irrelevant really.
Ive seen a lot of reviews today and there seems to be a huge variance on the overclocks, which would suggest the new manufacturing process isn’t quite at the level it should be. ill stay with my 3570k for a while longer as its working well with the 7950 I have.
How can it support Quad-SLI with only three PCI slots?
@ Billy. some nvidia cards have two GPU’s, so two of them in a pairing – quad SLI.
Example…..:
2x GTX 690 = 2×2 GPU = Quad-SLI
4x GTX Titan = 4×1 GPU = 4Way-SLI
I guess the motherboard manufacturers will be really pi55ed about the “huge” sales coming their way lol. If I were them I’d play a little with Intel for the next chipsets. Intel is going down as they follow their ambitions rather the market. They should let ARM alone and focus on the categories that made them what they are.
It’s really scary reading about all that heat coming off and about that 100i that can hardly keep up at 4.5GHz+. What about the box cooler??!
A board packed for OC is an useless piece of cr0p when OC is impossible. Now it’s AMD move, if they have a single ace up their sleeve they’d better be pulling it. It’s time…