Asus Z87-K Motherboard Review – £100 budget friendly

1. Introduction2. Asus Z87-K Motherboard (Packaging & Bundle)3. Asus Z87-K Motherboard (Board Layout & Features)4. Corsair Vengeance Pro 2,400mhz, HX750 and H100i5. Asus Z87-K Motherboard (The Bios and Overclocking)6. Asus Z87-K Motherboard (Super High Res Gallery)7. Testing Methodology8. System: Unigine Heaven Benchmark9. System: Unigine Valley Benchmark10. System: 3DMark 1111. System: 3DMark12. Processor/Memory: SiSoft Sandra13. Processor: CineBench R11.5 64 bit14. Processor: 3D Rendering15. Processor: Media Encoding16. Motherboard: USB 3.0 Performance17. Motherboard: SATA 6 Gbps performance18. System: Alien V Predator (DX11)19. System: Sleeping Dogs (DX11)20. System: Tomb Raider (DX11)21. System: Dirt Showdown (DX11)22. System: Metro Last Light (DX11)23. System: GRID 2 (DX11)24. Closing Thoughts25. View All Pages

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)

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