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The new ASUS black and gold colour scheme has split opinion. Some people love it, and others loathe it. I can't say it appeals to me, I much prefer their Black and red Republic of Gamers schemes. That said, at £100 we doubt too many people will be complaining about a colour scheme if the motherboard delivers the goods.
Internal I/O ports:
- 1 x USB 3.0 connector(s) support(s) additional 2 USB 3.0 port(s) (19-pin)
- 3 x USB 2.0 connector(s) support(s) additional 6 USB 2.0 port(s)
- 1 x COM port(s) connector(s)
- 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connector(s)
- 1 x CPU Fan connector(s) (1 x 4 -pin)
- 2 x Chassis Fan connector(s) (2 x 4 -pin)
- 1 x S/PDIF out header(s)
- 1 x 24-pin EATX Power connector(s)
- 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector(s)
- 1 x Front panel audio connector(s) (AAFP)
- 1 x System panel(s)
- 1 x Clear CMOS jumper(s)
This board fits within the ATX Form Factor sizing, but it only measures 30.5cm x 20.8cm. It would be ideal for a space restricted chassis.
Due to the budget nature of the Z87-K there are no heavy duty heatsinks around the CPU socket to cool the VRM's. There is one gold heatsink between the CPU socket and the backplate.
The Asus Z87-K can accept four DDR3 memory modules in dual channel, up to a maximum of 32GB. It supports 2933(O.C.)/ 2800(O.C.)/ 2666(O.C.)/2600(O.C.)/ 2400(O.C.)/ 2200(O.C.)/ 2133(O.C.)/ 2000(O.C.)/ 1866(O.C.)/ 1600/1333 MHz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory configurations.
One of the particular weak areas of this board is the lack of SLi certification. The board however supports AMD Quad CrossFireX.
There are:
- 1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 mode, yellow)
- 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, dark brown)
- 2 x PCIe 2.0 x1
- 3 x PCI slots.
There are six SATA 6GBps ports on this motherboard all of which are vertically mounted to the board. Two of them are positioned close to the memory slots (above right), but they do clear the top PCIe graphics slot, thankfully. We normally only see these on budget motherboards as they can cause a little extra work in regards to routing, but its not a huge issue. We feel most people saving money buying a budget board are likely to accept this without a problem.
Back I/O Ports:
- 1 x PS/2 keyboard (purple)
- 1 x PS/2 mouse (green)
- 1 x DVI
- 1 x D-Sub
- 1 x HDMI
- 1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s)
- 2 x USB 3.0
- 4 x USB 2.0
- 3 x Audio jack(s)
The gold has always surprised me, it really is ugly on a board. Gigabyte nailed it this generation.
That said, its a minor point when the product is t his good. one to not miss IMO. I know a lot of UK system builders are using them recently and it seems with good reason.
Excellent – was wondering if this was any good or not.
I can live with the gold colours, even if it is fugly
Id like to see a review side by side of the gigabyte £100 board too.
Nice, but I think id get the 4670k right now as the price is much lower, 4770k is very costly.
I note none of these reviews seem to cover the included software the 87-k along with a lot of asus other boards have a problem and random crashing in win8.1 with aisuite 3 installed. asus seem to either dont know or wont answer the problem. This board is currently being rma’d to be replaced by a gigabyte z87 board
I picked up one of these last year, I’m very happy with it. The price of this no-frills mobo meant I could spend more where I needed it most: i5-4670K, 32GB, GTX 760, runs sweet on a 3-monitor setup. And why is everyone obsessed with the colour? It doesnt matter if you have a green mobo with yellow spots, purple RAM cards, and a GPU with red and blue stripes – once the sides are on the case you can’t see it anyway!