ASUS SABERTOOTH Z87 Intel Motherboard Review

By David Ramsey

Manufacturer: ASUStek Inc.
Product Name: LGA1150 ATX Motherboard
Model Number: SABERTOOTH Z87
UPC: 886227487509 EAN: 4716659
Price As Tested: $259.99 (Amazon|Newegg)

Full Disclosure: ASUStek provided the product sample used in this article.

ASUS’ newest TUF motherboards are built on Intel’s new Z87 chipset, for the new Haswell-based LGA 1150 CPUs. The TUF line emphasizes reliability and durability rather than a cornucopia of consumer features or the ability to reach heroic overclocking levels. Can an enthusiast love the SABERTOOTH Z87? Benchmark Reviews checks this board out to see what makes it special enough to include in your next rig.

The “TUF” moniker in ASUS’ TUF motherboard series stands for “The Ultimate Force”, a perhaps strained marketing term. First introduced a few years back in Socket 1156 form, the original TUF boasted mil-spec components, ceramic-coated heat sinks, and an industry-leading warranty. ASUS seemed to be testing the waters, then– there was no TUF board for the then-dominant Socket 1366. But since then, the TUF line has spread so that there are now TUF versions for LGA1155, LGA2011, and LGA1150.

It’s a little hard to figure out who the target demographic is, though. It’s not a mainstream board, and at the same time it’s not ostensibly marketed to gamers like the Republic of Gamers series is.

Although the original LGA1156 and LGA2011 TUF boards didn’t have it, starting with the LGA1155 version, ASUS has started including its “TUF Thermal Armor” with these boards. The plastic cladding certainly gives the board a unique look, but there’s much more to the TUF “accessorization” than that, as we’ll see going forwards.

The first thing you’ll notice about the ASUS SABERTOOTH Z87 is the plastic shield over the top of the board. ASUS calls this “TUF Thermal Armor”, and claims that it is “…to prevent heat inside the chassis from affecting the operating temperature of onboard components.” Under-cover air flow is assisted by two small fans: one can be seen in the center of this image, while the other is housed in the bulge below the “Z87” on the cover over the I/O area. The use of these fans is optional; although both are included with the motherboard, it’s up to the user to install them. Given that there will be almost no airflow over the CPU power heat sinks otherwise, I’d strongly suggest installing them.

When you first pick up the SABERTOOTH Z87, you will notice that it’s quite heavy. That’s because of a new feature: the TUF Fortifier. This is a surprisingly thick metal plate screwed to the back of the motherboard that serves two purposes: one, it stiffens and reinforces the motherboard to guard against flexing caused by heavy components. Given the weight of modern air coolers, this seems like a good idea to me!

The second thing it does it act as a heat sink to six MOSFETs ASUS has placed on the back of the motherboard. Thermal tape is clamped to the MOSFETs when the Fortifier is in place.

The accessories package include manuals, a Certificate of Reliability, latching SATA cables, a driver and utility disk, two accessory fans, ASUS Q-connectors for the front panel and audio, a tiny dust filter for the rear intake fan, an I/O shield, an SLI bridge, and a slew of plastic components that look as if they fell out of a model car kit. These are dust shields: you plug them into your unused RAM and PCI-E slots, as well as unused rear I/O ports and internal SATA ports. I’ve never really had a problem with dust clogging my connectors, but these shields do give the board a very sleek appearance– check out the PCI-E slot shields in the first image in this section. Not shown below are three plug-in thermal probes that you can place anywhere in the system and connect to Thermal Radar 2.

After the removal of 16 screws, the Fortifier and Thermal Armor slip off, revealing the naked board. Since the power supply heat sinks are normally shrouded, they’re not as “decorative” as the heat sinks ASUS normally uses.

Let’s take a look at the details of this board in the next section.

The I/O panel has four USB 2.0 ports, a BIOS Flashback button, two blue USB 3.0 ports atop two red e-SATA ports, an optical audio port, HDMI and DisplayPort connectors, a gigabit Ethernet connector, two more blue USB 3.0 ports, and an analog audio panel. That big empty area by the BIOS Flashback button is where the optional ventilation fan goes.

The covers on the two sides of the CPU socket that house the heat sinks for the power supply chokes and upper MOSFETs have vents that may be opened or closed via a silver slide switch on top. The upper image shows the vents open, while the lower image shows them closed. If you use a downdraft CPU cooler, leaving the vents open provides extra airflow to these components; otherwise, you can leave them closed and use the accessory fans. This shot also gives you a good look at the “10K TUF Ti-Capacitors”, which ASUS claims are more resistant to extremes of temperature.

That plastic shrouding can interfere with large heat sinks. The image below shows the upper mounting plate for the Thermalright Silver Arrow cooler I was using; I had to kind of work it in just under the edge of the shroud.

Third party chips include an ASMEDIA ASM1061 SATA 6G controller (for the two extra SATA 6G ports), an ALC1150 audio chip (which seems to be the successor to the venerable ALC898), the Digi+ power control ASIC, ASUS’ Turbo Power Unit, and a Nuvoton sensor/controller chip, which probably handles the Thermal Radar 2 functions.

Along the bottom of the board are the front panel audio connector, the Thunderbolt header, a 4-pin chassis fan header, the Clear RTC jumper, the mysterious LPC_DEBUG header, and a Trusted Platform Module connector.

Next are two USB 2.0 internal headers, three two-pin connectors for the included thermal probes, another chassis fan connector, the DirectKey button, and the front panel header. The DirectKey button drops you into the BIOS, which is handy if you have “Fast Boot” enabled, since the keyboard doesn’t work in Fast Boot. If you find reaching inside your case to press this button clumsy, ASUS included a two pin “DRCT” connector above and to the left of the button, which you can use to wire up an external button. The socketed BIOS chip is just below the “The” in “thermal Armor”.

Let’s check out the UEFI BIOS in the next section.

ASUS has always had one of the best UEFI interfaces, and they’ve added a whole raft of new features with their Z87 boards. The basic layout remains the same, but it’s been optimized and enhanced. Take a look at the main screen of the “EZ” interface: functionally, it’s divided into 5 “rows” of information and controls:

1. At the top you have the BIOS revision, CPU type, and amount of RAM.
2. Next is the “information row” showing CPU temperature and voltage, RAM speed and provisioning, and CPU and chassis (scroll the pane) fan status. The drop-down menus by the fan status area allow you to quickly select pre-defined fan profiles like “Silent”, “Turbo”, etc.
3. Next are large, simple buttons you can choose to optimize the system for power draw or performance.
4. Next are the available disks, which you can drag into the boot priority order you want.
5. Last are a set of useful buttons. For example, the Shortcuts button opens a selection window that can take you instantly to various parts of the BIOS…

…while clicking the “SATA Information” button displays all the devices connected to your SATA ports, as shown below. ASUS did miss a bet here, though: although you can assign descriptive names to your SATA devices (see the next screen shot), the names you assign don’t appear here.

One of the many “Why didn’t I think of that?” features is the ability to assign names to any connected SATA device. In this image, I’ve named the device at SATA6G_4 to “SABERTOOTH Z87 BOOT”.

Although the SABERTOOTH is not directly aimed at overclockers, ASUS’ Ai Tweaker feature is present and accounted for, in all its multiplier/base clock/clock strap/memory tweaking/power fiddling glory.

Ai Tweaker can be a little intimidating, but you can perform some simple overclocking at its upper menu levels without needing to dive too deeply into the details.

Of course, if you do like diving into the details, it’s all there. Here we see just some of the settings available for ASUS’ DIGI+ Power Control feature.

Here’s another new convenience feature: My Favorites. Almost any individual adjustment or setting, no matter how deeply buried, can be assigned to this screen for quick access.

One last, cool feature (there are many more): have you ever spent half an hour tweaking BIOS settings, then prepared to save them, and realized you’d changed so many things you couldn’t remember them all? Every time you save changes to the SABERTOOTH BIOS, you get a nice little summary screen like this.

Next, let’s take a look at some of the utility software ASUS includes with this board.

The SABERTOOTH ships with ASUS’ latest version of their AI Suite software. It doesn’t include the Turbo V Evo automatic overclocking features that ASUS’ more gamer-oriented boards do, but to make up for it we have Thermal Radar 2, the current iteration of the amazing Thermal Radar feature we first saw in the Sabertooth X79 motherboard. Along for the ride are our familiar friends USB 3.0 Boost, Network iControl, USB BIOS Flashback, EZ Update, USB Charger+, and a new System Information feature.

As before, Thermal Radar allows you to link fan speeds and ramp times to the readings of specific thermal sensors on the motherboard. New to Thermal Radar 2 is the Thermal Tuning feature. Clicking the Start button will initiate a sequence that looks at reported temperatures as the various fans in your system are cycled through their RPM range. Thermal Tuning automatically creates a custom fan profile based on temperature sensor readings and the determined capability of your fans.

You can of course examine and alter these automatically-created fan profiles. You can change the fan speed and ramp-up times based on temperatures by simply clicking and dragging on the dots in the temperature graph for the fan/sensor pair you’re interested in.

You can also look at AI Suite’s own assessment of your system temperatures. Thermal Radar 2 fan control is an amazing feature that makes even the fanciest third party fan controllers look like toys.

The ability to fine-tune your system’s network communications is becoming an expected feature on high-end motherboards: setting the network priority for specific applications so that (for example) a long download in the background doesn’t screw up the ping time for your online game. ASUS’ Network iControl is their take on the feature. Unique to ASUS is the ability to automatically change program’s network priorities based on the time of day. In this example, Internet Explorer is set to low priority between 6:30PM and 10:00PM

ASUS also provides a fast-charging capability for USB-chargeable devices that require more than the 0.5A standard. It’s not clear to me why you’d need to specify which device you’re plugging in, though.

There’s more in the next section…

Although Turbo V Evo isn’t part of the version of AI Suite included with the SABERTOOTH, you can still tweak the Digi+ Power Control settings.

ASUS was the first vendor to create motherboards whose BIOS you could update even if there was no CPU and no RAM installed. This new version promises to check for new BIOS updates periodically, and download them when found for automatic installation. Sounds cool, but clicking “Check for new BIOS update” merely showed a dialog saying “Checking, please wait”, that didn’t change even after half an hour, so I’m guessing the servers supporting this feature aren’t running just yet.

A comprehensive System Info panel shows everything you’d ever need to know about your motherboard, CPU, and RAM.

There’s also USB 3.0 Boost, a feature which can dramatically improve the data transfer performance of some USB 3.0 devices. You can read about the performance benefits of USB 3.0 Boost in my review of the ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe motherboard.

While Turbo V Evo isn’t part of the SABERTOOTH utility software suite, ASUS does include an overclocking utility they call Turbo V Core. It’s a basic control panel for adjusting some of the system clocks and voltages. There is no automatic overclocking feature; it’s entirely manual. It has an odd, unfinished appearance, lacking the “skin” used on the AI Suite utility. It also lacks the Digi+ Power Control adjustments, which means that for real overclocking-from-Windows, you’ll need to keep both Turbo V Core and AI Suite open at once. I’d prefer to see this functionality bundled into AI Suite.

Let’s check out the performance of this motherboard in the next section.

After a few years of testing motherboards, I’ve noticed that motherboards based on the same chipset tend to have very similar performance. This wasn’t always the case, but now that the memory controller’s in the processor, and the PCI-E lanes are in the chipset, it’s not surprising that everyone’s “Y22” chipset motherboard performs pretty much alike…at stock settings, anyway. Haswell collapses the field even further by moving voltage regulation circuitry onto the CPU. Say goodbye to those exotic 24-phase CPU power supplies of yore…

So testing motherboards, unlike testing CPUs or video cards, is more about examining the proprietary features that make one different from another, as well as testing a board’s overclocking ability, especially if it’s marketed to the enthusiast community.

I tested the ASUS SABERTOOTH Z87 board with a Core i7-4770K CPU at both stock and overclocked speeds. For the overclock, I used the auto overclocking feature built into the BIOS as well as the highest manual overclock I could achieve. I included the benchmark results from the stock-clocked MSI Z87 MPOWER MAX motherboard with the same CPU, memory, video card, and disk for comparison.

• Motherboard: ASUS SABERTOOTH Z87 with BIOS 1007
• Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K “Haswell” CPU
• System Memory: 8G (2x4G) Kingston HyperX Genesis DDR3-1600 KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX at 9-9-9-27 timings
• Video Card: AMD Radeon HD6850
• CPU Cooler: Thermalright Silver Arrow
• Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium x64

• AIDA64 v2.99.2446 (Beta version for Haswell CPUs)
• SPECViewPerf 11
• x264HD 5.0

I’ll start with synthetic benchmarks in the next section.

AIDA64 is a full 64-bit benchmark and test suite utilizing MMX, 3DNow! and SSE instruction set extensions, and will scale up to 32 processor cores. An enhanced 64-bit System Stability Test module is also available to stress the whole system to its limits. For legacy processors all benchmarks and the System Stability Test are available in 32-bit versions as well. Additionally, AIDA64 adds new hardware to its database, including 300 solid-state drives. On top of the usual ATA auto-detect information the new SSD database enables AIDA64 to display flash memory type, controller model, physical dimensions, and data transfer performance data. AIDA64 v1.00 also implements SSD-specific SMART disk health information for Indilinx, Intel, JMicron, Samsung, and SandForce controllers.

All of the benchmarks used in this test- Queen, PhotoWorxx, ZLib, and hash- rely on basic x86 instructions, and consume very little system memory while also being aware of Hyper-Threading, multi-processors, and multi-core processors. Of all the tests in this review, AIDA64 is the one that best isolates the processor’s performance from the rest of the system. While this is useful in that it more directly compares processor performance, readers should remember that virtually no “real world” programs will mirror these results.

The Queen and Photoworxx tests are synthetic benchmarks that iterate the function many times and over-exaggerate what the real-world performance would be like. The Queen benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and misprediction penalties of the CPU. It does this by finding possible solutions to the classic queen problem on a chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores.

Like the Queen benchmark, the Photoworxx tests for penalties against pipeline architecture. The synthetic Photoworxx benchmark stresses the integer arithmetic and multiplication execution units of the CPU and also the memory subsystem. Due to the fact that this test performs high memory read/write traffic, it cannot effectively scale in situations where more than two processing threads are used, so quad-core processors with Hyper-Threading have no real advantage. The AIDIA64 Photoworxx benchmark performs the following tasks on a very large RGB image:

• Fill
• Flip
• Rotate90R (rotate 90 degrees CW)
• Rotate90L (rotate 90 degrees CCW)
• Random (fill the image with random colored pixels)
• RGB2BW (color to black & white conversion)
• Difference
• Crop

ASUS’ automatic overclock buys us 11% more performance in Queen, while my manual overclock returns 18.5%. As usual, PhotoWorxx performance is relatively unaffected by CPU overclocking.

The scaling of the ZLIB results makes the overclocking improvements appear minimal, but auto overclocking gains 11% while manual overclocking returns a 21% improvement. In the Hash benchmark, the results are 11% and 22%, respectively.

The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation is “…a non-profit corporation formed to establish, maintain and endorse a standardized set of relevant benchmarks that can be applied to the newest generation of high-performance computers.” Their free SPECviewperf benchmark incorporates code and tests contributed by several other companies and is designed to stress computers in a reproducible way. SPECviewperf 11 was released in June 2010 and incorporates an expanded range of capabilities and tests. Note that results from previous versions of SPECviewperf cannot be compared with results from the latest version, as even benchmarks with the same name have been updated with new code and models.

SPECviewperf comprises test code from several vendors of professional graphics modeling, rendering, and visualization software. Most of the tests emphasize the CPU over the graphics card, and have between 5 and 13 sub-sections. For this review I ran the Lightwave, Maya, and Seimens Teamcenter Visualization tests. Results are reported as abstract scores, with higher being better.

The lightwave-01 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workloads generated by the SPECapc for Lightwave 9.6 benchmark.

The models for this viewset range in size from 2.5 to 6 million vertices, with heavy use of vertex buffer objects (VBOs) mixed with immediate mode. GLSL shaders are used throughout the tests. Applications represented by the viewset include 3D character animation, architectural review, and industrial design.
The maya-03 viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the SPECapc for Maya 2009 benchmark. The models used in the tests range in size from 6 to 66 million vertices, and are tested with and without vertex and fragment shaders.

State changes such as those executed by the application- including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes- are included throughout the rendering of the models. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application.
The tcvis-02 viewset is based on traces of the Siemens Teamcenter Visualization Mockup application (also known as VisMockup) used for visual simulation. Models range from 10 to 22 million vertices and incorporate vertex arrays and fixed-function lighting.

State changes such as those executed by the application- including matrix, material, light and line-stipple changes- are included throughout the rendering of the model. All state changes are derived from a trace of the running application.

SPECviewperf tests actually comprise code from real-world applications, so their results are more indicative of total system performance than the pure CPU performance metrics we see from synthetic tests like AIDA64. Overclocking brings the expected performance increases, although we seem to hit a ceiling of some sort with the TeamCenter Visualization test, in which manual overclocking doesn’t seem to buy much extra performance. One interesting thing to note here is that the MSI MPOWER MAX board has small but consistently better performance at stock clocks speeds than does the SABERTOOTH.

Tech ARP’s x264 HD Benchmark comprises the Avisynth video scripting engine, an x264 encoder, a sample 1080P video file, and a script file that actually runs the benchmark. The script invokes four two-pass encoding runs and reports the average frames per second encoded as a result. The script file is a simple batch file, so you could edit the encoding parameters if you were interested, although your results wouldn’t then be comparable to others.

This is another example of a useful benchmark that’s based on real-world code. I like encoding benchmarks since they’re one of the few tests that can measure a real-world use of the power of modern multi-core processors. I like this particular benchmark since it’s the best “overclock killer” I’ve seen: systems that will run most stress tests all day long with a given set of overclock settings will crash on this benchmark.

Results scale as expected with this purely CPU-bound benchmark. Auto and manual overclocking boost results by 12% and 22% in Pass 1 and 11% and 21% in Pass 2.

I describe my overclocking experience with this board in the next section.

The SABERTOOTH Z87 isn’t marketed as an overclocking motherboard– if you’re really interested in overclocking, you should look at ASUS’ Republic of Gamers line.

Although it lacks dual EPS power connectors and Turbo V Evo, the BIOS of this motherboard has most of the manual adjustment features you’d find in a Republic of Gamers board. A simple auto overclocking feature is built into the BIOS in the A.I. Tweaker section, called OC Tuner. You can set it to try overclocking with “Ratio First” or “BCLK First”. I selected “Ratio First” and started the process. After a couple of reboots, the board settled in at 1.2 volts for the CPU, with multipliers of 43x for one or two loaded cores, 42x for three loaded cores, and 41x for four loaded cores.

Every reviewer has a different idea of what they want from an overclock, and how they define “stable”. Some prefer to go with the highest overclock on a single loaded core; some like the Intel strategy of ratcheting down the multiplier as more cores are loaded. I prefer the highest overclock I can run on all loaded cores, which in this case was 45x. This is one bin higher than I was able to achieve with the mATX-sized Gryphon, also a TUF-series motherboard.

My definition of “stable overclock” is “one that can complete my benchmark suite”. I’ve discovered that overclocks that easily pass various synthetic stress tests like AIDIA64’s “System Stability Test” will nonetheless crash under some benchmarks. Right now, my favorite “overclock killer” test is x264HD 5.0, so these overclocks represent the highest frequency I could set and still complete a run through this benchmark. For what it’s worth, this board was stable at 4.6GHz under AIDA64’s stress test.

My 4.5GHz overclock on all cores required 1.3v to the CPU to make it through an x264HD 5.0 run. This is exactly the same multiplier and voltage I was able to hit when overclocking a previous Z87 motherboard that’s specifically designed to be a good overclocker. I suspect with Haswell’s integrated voltage regulation, we’ll see less of a difference between motherboard overclocking abilities than we have with previous generation CPUs.

This means that the performance differences between motherboards, which are already small, will be even smaller. Of course, it’s possible that larger differences in performance will be visible under extreme overclocking with bespoke liquid cooling systems, or acetone/dry ice or LN2 cooling.

I’ll give my final thoughts and conclusion on this motherboard in the next section.

ASUS’ TUF line of motherboards started with the relatively obscure LGA1156 platform, but they’ve expanded it since then. Unlike the Deluxe series, the TUF boards don’t come with features like mSATA sockets or built-in WiFi and Bluetooth. Unlike the Republic of Gamers series boards, they don’t have voltage test points, extra EPS-12V power connectors, or POST code displays. The point behind the TUF series is reliability, and ASUS backs its claims up with a five-year warranty.

Although full-sized ATX motherboards almost seem like dinosaurs these days, they still have their place in enthusiast systems. If you’re running an SLI or CrossFireX setup, an ATX board gives you some extra space between your cards, which can help keep them cooler. Extra USB and SATA ports are available, which are nice to have if you need them. And having a few extra slots for a third-party sound, NIC, or PCI-E SSD card is nice, too.

The newest version of ASUS’ AI Suite utility bundled adds some nice new features, especially the Thermal Radar 2 auto-fan profiling. This is an excellent example of the type of innovation ASUS brings to the market, along with the schedulable network program priority.

In my recent review of ASUS’ micro-ATX version of this board, the GRYPHON, I wondered what extra features the ATX version would have. The answer is: more slots, more ports, marginally better overclocking, and the standard inclusion of the ASUS Thermal Armor kit.

Bereft of features like on-board start and reset buttons, POST code displays, integrated wireless, and so forth, the ASUS SABERTOOTH Z87 seems almost ascetic in its minimalist approach. But as we know, this board trades on the earned reputation of previous generations of TUF motherboards. “The Ultimate Force” may sound like a cheesy marketing term (because it is), but there’s no denying the thought and design ASUS has put into this board.

Of course the feature everyone notices first is the Thermal Armor. ASUS deserves kudos for their innovative approach to the problem of managing thermals down at the board level, instead of just slapping some big heat sinks on and depending on case airflow to keep everything cool. The one thing that concerns me is that overheating might be a possibility (especially for the CPU power supply area) if you don’t install the two small optional fans. I installed the helper fans for my overclocking runs and I could hear them ramping up and down as tests ran.

ASUS continues the khaki-schemed colors of previous TUF boards on the SABERTOOTH, although it’s mostly hidden under the Thermal Armor. I understand some modders have painted the Thermal Armor upper panel. Not a bad idea, and it opens up some new ideas for system customization.

ASUS uses many mil-spec components on their TUF boards. Capacitors, chokes, and MOSFETs pass tests for thermal shock, salt spray, vibration, and mechanical shock– you know, the type of stuff your rig goes through every day. Well, not really of course, but it’s nice to know that there’s something backing up that 5 year warranty. The construction quality of the board, as might be expected, is immaculate.

Like its little brother, the GRYPHON, the SABERTOOTH forgoes many enthusiast features, as I mentioned at the start of this section. There’s plenty of board real estate to add such features, but don’t hold your breath, since that’s not the demographic they’re trying to appeal to. The TUF series is all about reliability, and while long-term reliability is impossible to evaluate in a standard review, ASUS is confident enough to give their TUF series the their longest warranties.

The value proposition for this board isn’t clear-cut. For $259.99 (Amazon|Newegg), the ASUS Z87 SABERTOOTH is an expensive ATX motherboard, and for the same or a lower price you can get other Z87 ATX motherboards that have more (obvious) features, such as onboard WiFi/Bluetooth or POST code displays. The benefits of the TUF lineup are not those that can be easily discerned in a review like this; rather, it’s a statement of durability and reliability that you pretty much have to take on faith. So it boils down to function over flash, and you’ll have to decide how important either is for yourself.

+ Thermal Armor and Fortifier
+ Mil-spec components backed by 5 year warranty
+ Three extra thermal probes to work with Thermal Radar 2
+ Excellent and innovative UEFI BIOS
+ AI Suite continues to impress

– Turbo V Evo not included
– Rather light on features, given the price

• Performance: 9.50
• Appearance: 9.25
• Construction: 9.75
• Functionality: 8.50
• Value: 8.50

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

COMMENT QUESTION: Which motherboard manufacturer do you prefer most?