ASUS Z97 Pro Gamer Motherboard Review

tinytomlogan

The Guvnor
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Time to take a look at a seriously affordable motherboard from ASUS, the Z97 Pro Gamer.


ASUS Z97 Pro Gamer Motherboard Review
 
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can someone tell me the meaning of this: "Due to Intel® chipset limitation, DDR3 1600 MHz and higher memory modules on XMP mode will run at the maximum transfer rate of DDR3 1600 Mhz."?

Does that mean if i have a 2400Mhz memory it wont run faster than 1600Mhz?
 
can someone tell me the meaning of this: "Due to Intel® chipset limitation, DDR3 1600 MHz and higher memory modules on XMP mode will run at the maximum transfer rate of DDR3 1600 Mhz."?

Does that mean if i have a 2400Mhz memory it wont run faster than 1600Mhz?

Exactly that on H97 - Z97 its fine
 
Nice, I love the styling of this board. It is basically a carbon copy of the H97 but with the Z chipset instead and for the same price....
 
Exactly that on H97 - Z97 its fine

Pardon me, but I got confused now. If it is fine on the z97, why is it mentioned on the specification of both H97 and Z97?

Is there a difference between having an OC'ed mem from 1600 Mhz to 2400Mhz vs an original mem of 2400Mhz with regards to the specification limit using xmp?
 
If your memory is 2400Mhz out the box, it will not run any higher than 1600Mhz on the H97/Z97 as standard unless you overclock it to 2400Mhz, also you have to take into consideration the Memory controller on the Processor.. i.e I'm using the H97 and the G3258, the G3258 is limited by its memory controller which is 1333Mhz, the H97 is as standard upto 1600Mhz unless you overclock, I have currently installed 8GB 2133Mhz Corsair Dominator Platinum which only runs at 1333Mhz which is CPU and Motherboard restricted. It can be overclocked to 1600Mhz as shown in TTLs review of the G3258, I just have not had the time to get round to it fully.
 
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If your memory is 2400Mhz out the box, it will not run any higher than 1600Mhz on the H97/Z97 as standard unless you overclock it to 2400Mhz, also you have to take into consideration the Memory controller on the Processor.. i.e I'm using the H97 and the G3258, the G3258 is limited by its memory controller which is 1333Mhz, the H97 is as standard upto 1600Mhz unless you overclock, I have currently installed 8GB 2133Mhz Corsair Dominator Platinum which only runs at 1333Mhz which is CPU and Motherboard restricted. It can be overclocked to 1600Mhz as shown in TTLs review of the G3258, I just have not had the time to get round to it fully.


Crap, never new this stuff about ram before. Learning something new everyday I guess. That means I "wasted" my money on something I dont need atm. I bought the Kingston Savage 16GB 2400Mhz with the Asus z97 pro gamer. Im looking to buy the i7 4790k or i5 4690k and use them without OC for awhile and then OC them after maybe a year or so. That means they will be running on 1600Mhz for a while unless I OC them. However, why did Tom say "Exactly that on H97 - Z97 its fine" ? I thought he meant that it didnt need to OC after all :yelrotflmao:
 
Crap, never new this stuff about ram before. Learning something new everyday I guess. That means I "wasted" my money on something I dont need atm. I bought the Kingston Savage 16GB 2400Mhz with the Asus z97 pro gamer. Im looking to buy the i7 4790k or i5 4690k and use them without OC for awhile and then OC them after maybe a year or so. That means they will be running on 1600Mhz for a while unless I OC them. However, why did Tom say "Exactly that on H97 - Z97 its fine" ? I thought he meant that it didnt need to OC after all :yelrotflmao:

The boards are put into different Classes fella. (Which I like to think of as....)B is Business orientated, H is Home use, Z is Zee best with extra bells and whistles for overclocking etc. The B & H series mobos have had BIOS updates to cash in on the cheap Pentium K CPU. By allowing overclocking through adjusting the multiplier but you will not have much room to play with voltage adjustment which really really helps with OC'ing.....Z series is still Zee best :)

Look at any e-tailers spec sheet buddy, for the H series max speed shown is 1600Mhz. On a Z series higher speeds are shown with "(OC)" next to the speed. So H series tops out at 1600Mhz and Z series can use the full speed of the kit you have bought and maybe even push it further still.

Just remember that as you overclock the CPU this will start to eat into how high you can run your RAM. Enjoy your new build and all the tinkering fun ahead :D
 
I actually have the z97 pro gamer wiht i5 4690k and corsair 2x4 gb 1600 mhz ram. I havent oc and the memory is at 1300mhz. so there u go. i wasent aware of this until now.
 
I have been looking in the BIOS and the DRAM status says 1333Mhz, while I have two sticks of 1866Mhz.

CPU-Z says: 932.8Mhz *2 = 1865.6.

I don't get it, why is DRAM status always 1333Mhz although I changed the DRAM frequency to 1866Mhz?
 
I have been looking in the BIOS and the DRAM status says 1333Mhz, while I have two sticks of 1866Mhz.

CPU-Z says: 932.8Mhz *2 = 1865.6.

I don't get it, why is DRAM status always 1333Mhz although I changed the DRAM frequency to 1866Mhz?


Enamble XMP in the bios then press F10 and save the settings.
 
I really, really like this board. Did a build for my buddy with this MOBO and it looked great. I did minor OC on his CPU and RAM when we originally put everything together and it has been running OC for nearly 6 months now without any issues at all. Just my two cents.
 
I have been looking for a tutorial about the Pro Gamer Bios but can't find anything.

I'd like to learn how to tweak the pro gamer Bios. Not everything, just the basics.
 
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