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Asus Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 Motherboard Review

SATA

For SATA 6Gb/s testing we use a Kingston HyperX 3K (SandForce SF-2281) SSD.

SATA

SATA-Z97 sata-ASM1061

Z97 SATA performance on the Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 is limitless for a modern SATA 6Gbps SSD. The pair of ports provided by ASMedia's ASM1061 chipset are significantly slower than the Z97 connections, although they're also considerably faster than Gigabyte's Marvell choices.

The ASMedia ports will be fine for operating older SSDs that aren't as fast as current devices, or mechanical storage drives when the Z97 connections are used up.

SATA Express

We use an engineering sample of the Asus Hyper Express SSD to test the SATA Express connector's speed.

SATA Express

SATA-E

Using a 2GB transfer length to allow the Asus Hyper Express to flex its muscles, the Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 delivers strong throughput numbers over its 10Gbps SATA Express connection with SRIS.

We don't have comparison data collected from the same test platform, although the numbers from our recent SATA Express article can be used as a basic reference. We will build up our database of SATA Express performance as we review more Z97 motherboards.

USB 3.0

We tested USB 3.0 performance using the Kingston HyperX 3K SSD connected to a SATA 6Gb/s to USB 3.0 adapter powered by an ASMedia ASM1053 controller.

USB 3

usb-3-z97 usb-3-ASM1042

USB 3.0 performance is where Asus' board really shines. Being the only vendor in today's chart to offer a UASP-activating software tool for our Windows 7-based test system, the Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 tops the USB 3.0 speed chart by a considerable margin.

Another positive is the strong performance of USB 3.0 connections running from the ASMedia ASM1042AE host controller. Even Asus' ‘secondary' USB 3.0 connections are faster than the offerings from MSI and Gigabyte, who both lack a Windows 7 UASP tool.

Audio

We use RightMark Audio Analyzer (RMMA) to analyse the performance of the motherboard’s onboard audio solution. A sampling mode of 24-bit, 192 kHz was tested.

audio

audio

The Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 uses a Realtek ALC1150-based audio system. Signals are sent along the discrete pathway, with separated left and right tracks, to avoid interference between each audio channel as well as the rest of the board.

Strong audio performance is displayed by the Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1. The magnitude of the noise level rating, at 103.2 db(A), is particularly impressive. Strong crosstalk performance is likely to be a by-product of the separated audio tracks for either channel.

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5 comments

  1. Luke, brilliant review and so much detail, took me 30 minutes reading it this morning. I love Kitguru’s motherboard (and GPU) reviews! This is top of my shortlist when the new K series come out.

  2. What is going on? Why is everyone copying the ASUS red and black board designs? Nice to see ASUS (who started it all) using different colours.

    Sabretooth are my favourite boards. always have been. ill be getting this one soon

  3. I think thermal armor is a gimmick in regards to temperatures, but I like the dust protection and protection over the capacitors. I can be rough on the boards when installing them. Nice looking board – interested in SATA express too, as I have a lot of large files I move around often

  4. based on your reviews I included the sabertooth mark 1 in my new build, also your reviews let me decide my gpu, gigabyte GTX770OC, psu seasonic X-Series 650W KM3 gold and now my ram, G.Skill ARES 16 g kit. Cheers for taking the stress out of my build

  5. May I turn-off the small fans? Or just remove them? It is
    going to have some significant impact in the performance or will the MB get
    overheated?

    Thanks!