ASUS TUF Z87 Gryphon Review
by Ian Cutress on February 3, 2014 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Asus
- Z87
- TUF
Gaming Benchmarks
Metro2033
Our first analysis is with the perennial reviewers’ favorite, Metro2033. It occurs in a lot of reviews for a couple of reasons – it has a very easy to use benchmark GUI that anyone can use, and it is often very GPU limited, at least in single GPU mode. Metro2033 is a strenuous DX11 benchmark that can challenge most systems that try to run it at any high-end settings. Developed by 4A Games and released in March 2010, we use the inbuilt DirectX 11 Frontline benchmark to test the hardware at 1440p with full graphical settings. Results are given as the average frame rate from a second batch of 4 runs, as Metro has a tendency to inflate the scores for the first batch by up to 5%.
| Metro 2033 | 1 GPU | 2 GPU |
| AMD | ||
| NVIDIA |
Dirt 3
Dirt 3 is a rallying video game and the third in the Dirt series of the Colin McRae Rally series, developed and published by Codemasters. Dirt 3 also falls under the list of ‘games with a handy benchmark mode’. In previous testing, Dirt 3 has always seemed to love cores, memory, GPUs, PCIe lane bandwidth, everything. The small issue with Dirt 3 is that depending on the benchmark mode tested, the benchmark launcher is not indicative of game play per se, citing numbers higher than actually observed. Despite this, the benchmark mode also includes an element of uncertainty, by actually driving a race, rather than a predetermined sequence of events such as Metro 2033. This in essence should make the benchmark more variable, but we take repeated in order to smooth this out. Using the benchmark mode, Dirt 3 is run at 1440p with Ultra graphical settings. Results are reported as the average frame rate across four runs.
| Dirt 3 | 1 GPU | 2 GPU |
| AMD | ||
| NVIDIA |
Civilization V
A game that has plagued my testing over the past twelve months is Civilization V. Being on the older 12.3 Catalyst drivers were somewhat of a nightmare, giving no scaling, and as a result I dropped it from my test suite after only a couple of reviews. With the later drivers used for this review, the situation has improved but only slightly, as you will see below. Civilization V seems to run into a scaling bottleneck very early on, and any additional GPU allocation only causes worse performance.
Our Civilization V testing uses Ryan’s GPU benchmark test all wrapped up in a neat batch file. We test at 1080p, and report the average frame rate of a 5 minute test.
| Civilization V | 1 GPU | 2 GPU |
| AMD | ||
| NVIDIA |
Sleeping Dogs
While not necessarily a game on everybody’s lips, Sleeping Dogs is a strenuous game with a pretty hardcore benchmark that scales well with additional GPU power due to its SSAA implementation. The team over at Adrenaline.com.br is supreme for making an easy to use benchmark GUI, allowing a numpty like me to charge ahead with a set of four 1440p runs with maximum graphical settings.
| Sleeping Dogs | 1 GPU | 2 GPU |
| AMD | ||
| NVIDIA |
Conclusions
Despite the deficit in the CPU department, the only manifestation that has in our gaming tests is using dual GPUs in Civilization V. All other tests are within statistical variation with other PCIe 3.0 x8/x8 based motherboards.
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Samus - Tuesday, February 4, 2014 - link
5thaccount, did it ever occur to you the reason you saw so many Asus returns is because they are the largest motherboard manufacturer in the world, and chances are if a noobie builder is buying a board, it's going to be...Asus?Eagle007 - Tuesday, February 11, 2014 - link
I am currently in litigation with ASus over a $350 motherboard they said was defective but have not returned to me. They have spent at least $5000 not to fight the suit and not return the board. They tortured me with emails, unanswered, and chat instructions for days before issuing a RMA. Do not buy a product from them with a five year warranty as it guarantees that you will be abused by them for 5 years rather than protected from failures.Hxx - Monday, February 3, 2014 - link
lol thats so dumb is ridicoulos. Asus makes excellent board, they have always done at least in the past 10 years since ive been building my own rig. Always use them Id rather get a lower specced Asus board than a higher specced msi or gigabyte. This is not just me speaking from experience, you can read forums upon forums of people expressing similar opinions. You're either trolling or got extremely unlucky. I just sold an x38 asus p5e board for over 100 bucks on ebay if that says anything.probedb - Tuesday, February 4, 2014 - link
Odd. I've had nothing but Asus motherboards since the days of Ahtlon XP processors and none have ever missed a beat.twtech - Friday, February 7, 2014 - link
I had a bad experience with an ASUS motherboard a few builds ago - which was actually something like 6 years now. The board was overvolting the RAM, so initially it would appear stable, and then degrade after a few months and start locking up with increasing frequency. I replaced the power supply, and the RAM twice before I figured out what was actually going on.Searching for information about the issue revealed that it was actually a relatively common problem, and that the voltages displayed in the BIOS couldn't be trusted. A workaround was to manually set the RAM voltage lower, to a number that appeared to be out-of-spec. I wasn't sure how much of an offset needed to be set though, and eventually the board destroyed that set of RAM sticks too. At that point I got rid of the board.
Since then, I have been wary about purchasing another ASUS motherboard. It was probably just that model that was problematic, but having other options, it's still hard to choose to go back to a manufacturer that shipped boards with an issue as significant as that. Especially when they typically want a premium for their boards, too.
Neo123 - Sunday, February 16, 2014 - link
hi i planned to buy PC..which brand motherboard is best..in service and relablityFractinJex - Monday, February 3, 2014 - link
Both obv. not to bright....I stated until I upgrade in 4-5 years did I state the board would only last that long....noAlso this board as a 5 year warranty unlike 90% of other boards that have 3 year warranty. This is currently one of the best mATX boards available...
djshortsleeve - Wednesday, February 5, 2014 - link
No kidding, I think I have used 10-15 year old MOBOs. Rarely do they ever die.drainplugofideas - Monday, February 3, 2014 - link
Oh cool! I made nearly the same build. Cooler master n2000, i5-4670k, gtx 770, corsair MX 650.Sabresiberian - Monday, February 3, 2014 - link
I have one, too, quite happy with it. My only "complaint" is that the armor kit comes separately for a rather expensive price too, so that made what I paid pretty high all total. Still there are other premium small form factor mainboards in that price range (board+armor kit) - and with a 3 year warranty in stead of 5.The lower priced sound solution is a plus for me because I don't use mainboard sound, so the less it adds to the cost of the board the better for me. :)