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.
62 Comments
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bigboxes - Monday, February 3, 2014 - link
My P6T Deluxe Version 2 says otherwise. Agree with tim851.Samus - Friday, February 7, 2014 - link
Ahh, P6T...I miss my Gen 1 i7 system. What a solid platform.warezme - Saturday, February 8, 2014 - link
Firestrike or any benchmark numbers are irrelevant without knowing what resolution and settings. The same benchmark run at 800x600 and Low settings will score totally different number when run at 1920x1080 Ultra settings.A5 - Monday, February 3, 2014 - link
Huh. Probably would've bought this if it were out when I built my Haswell system last year.willdeng - Monday, February 3, 2014 - link
There's an error in the article. "From left to write are four USB 2.0 ports, a DVI-D port...":D
Senti - Monday, February 3, 2014 - link
I currently use Asus Sabertooth x58 MB and it works quite well: 211 base clock, CPU 2.8 -> 4.0 with minimal overvolt, RAM 1333 -> 1700, good placement of extension slots, PCI slot (I use it!).The only complain is NB is really hot and I was not comfortable with designed passive cooling so had to stick cooler on it.
It may not have many fancy features of top boards but indeed looks solid. MB before that was Biostar TPower x58 which died exactly a month after warranty ended.
Flunk - Monday, February 3, 2014 - link
Luckily they've fixed this problem because north bridges no longer exist they can't possibly get hot.Deelron - Monday, February 3, 2014 - link
Same here, have been running a i7 950 @ 4.2 ghz in the Sabertooth X58, and except an Ethernet port failure (which I'm not sure when it happened, I was using a dedicated card for Ethernet early on but accident plugged it into the built in after a computer move and it refused to be recognized by windows) it still runs like a champ.Iketh - Saturday, February 8, 2014 - link
maybe because you still had it disabled in bios?aznxk3vi17 - Monday, February 3, 2014 - link
"it is worth noting that with arrangement""Left to write"
Edits!