ASUS SABERTOOTH Z87 Motherboard

Conclusions

The ASUS SABERTOOTH Z87 is a motherboard targeted to the enthusiast user who wants to build a gaming PC using one of the new “Haswell” CPUs (fourth-generation Core i5 or Core i7 processors). It is actually an ATX version of the ASUS GRYPHON Z87, that we analyzed recently, with two more SATA-600 ports, and a better audio codec.

The main highlight of this motherboard is its thermal management, with a thermal armor that prevents air that was heated by the motherboard from going inside the computer case, where it would heat other components. This thermal armor comes with two fans that remove this hot air from the motherboard. The motherboard also comes with three thermal sensors, allowing you to monitor the temperature of three points inside your computer.

Other nice features of this motherboard include the presence of six USB 3.0 ports, eight SATA-600 ports, two PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots, a good voltage regulator circuit with high-end capacitors, and more. The audio codec is a highlight of this motherboard, offering signal/noise ratios that allow the user to work professionally with analog audio.

There is, however, one drawback with this motherboard, but it should not affect most users. It is regarding the PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot, which works at x4 speed and you can not use it with SLI and CrossFireX configurations.