ASUS Maximus VII GENE Z97 Motherboard Review

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Included Software

Included Software

Ai Suite III​

The foremost utility in ASUS' vast software suite is the aptly named Ai Suite III. Whereas ASUS used to have a handful of standalone apps for different functions, many were consolidated under the Ai Suite moniker back in 2011. This system management utility is the hub from which you can monitor system clock speeds, voltages, temperatures, and fan rotation but more importantly it allows users to do both automatic and manual overclocking from within Windows. The utility's third iteration was launched along with the Z87 motherboards, and now it once features a refreshed design and feature set with the launch of the Maximus VII GENE. Let's check it out.

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The 5-Way Optimization tab is where you will find the 5-Way Optimization automatic overclocking feature. You will also see very simplified information relating to the other five tabs, such as the Energy Processing Unit (EPU) power saving or performance profiles, Fan Xpert 3 fan speed optimization status, DIGI+ VRM optimization, awesome new Turbo App functionality, and some display-only information regarding TurboV Processing Unit (TPU).

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In the top-right corner of the Ai Suite utility is a downwards arrow that activates a dropdown screen when clicked. Here you will be features like Ai Charger+ and USB 3.0 Boost. When enabled, Ai Charger+ allows up to 3X faster charging of devices connected to USB ports, while enabling USB 3.0 implements the UAS Protocol (UASP) USB protocol that greatly enhances speeds while also lowering CPU utilization. The EZ Update tool allows users to update their motherboard's BIOS either directly from the internet or from a downloaded file. Ai Charger+ allows users to supercharge their USB ports, and enable up to 3 times faster charging of mobile devices.

System Information just contains a bunch of basic system information regarding your CPU, motherboard or RAM. You can also find you can find your serial number, BIOS version, etc. BIOS Flashback allows you to copy the content of BIOS1 to BIOS2, as well as force the use of BIOS1 or BIOS2.

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At the bottom is a static strip that displays information on CPU and DRAM frequency, real-time voltage and temperatures measurements, as well as CPU and case fans speeds. You can also set safe thresholds for voltages, temperatures and fan speeds as well as setting alerts to warn you of any serious fluctuations. It is essentially a replacement for the Probe II utility.

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Clicking on the 5-Way Optimization button reveals the coolest part of the whole Dual Intelligent Processors 5 utility. There is a certain level of fan optimization functionality in this section, but what's really interesting is the automatic overclocking feature. You have the option of 3 different overclocking levels depending on whether you have an unlocked processor or not. We don't want to reveal too much here, so go check out the Overclocking Results section to see how well this auto-overclocking feature worked.

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The TPU (TurboV Processing Unit) tab is where you can manually adjust the BCLK frequency or CPU strap (100/125/166/200MHz). You will also be able to change the CPU multiplier, either per core or as a group. There are also an impressive eight adjustable system voltages. You can adjust all these settings on-the-fly without having to reboot the system, except for the CPU strap since it does cause such a dramatic increase in all system frequencies.

In the Graphics Cards section, the Fan Tuning feature will - as you might have guessed - automatically optimize the fan speed of any installed ASUS graphics card(s).

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The EPU (Energy Processing Unit) tab is you will be able to fine-tune the various selection of power saving or performance profiles. This is a versatile feature for those who truly care about maximizing energy savings.

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The DIGI+ Power Control tab is where you will find the power options for the CPU, System Agent/Memory Controller, and RAM. There are adjustable settings for load-line calibration, current capability, voltage frequency, and phase control. There are different power controls for each memory channel since they are independently powered.

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The Fan Xpert 3 tab is, as you might expect, where you can fully manage and optimize your CPU and system fans. While there are now a series of four fan presets (Silent/Standard/Turbo/Full Speed), you can also manually adjust the full fan speed curve to your preferences, or simply use the fully automated Fan Tuning feature.

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The Turbo App section allows you set custom system configurations for any applications that you want. For example, if you know that your processor can withstand a higher clock speed in a lightly threaded application, you can see this utility to automatically adjust your system overclock every time you open that app, as well as tweak network priority and audio settings.

 

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Included Software pt.2

Included Software pt.2

ROG CPU-Z

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ROG CPU-Z is a special edition of CPU-Z especially created to match the aesthetics of ASUS Republics of Gamers motherboards. It is kept as up-to-date as the regular version, and is available at the same place: CPUID.com

MemTweakIt

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MemTweakIt is memory tweaking tool which allows for modification of just about every primary and secondary memory timing within Windows, and without having to reboot the system. It's a joy to use and a great tool for overclockers.

GameFirst III

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After a short setup - including SpeedTest.net test - GameFirst III is a utility designed to help reduce latency courtesy of cFosSpeed traffic-shapping technology. This utility provides users with a lot of control and monitoring capabilities over every application that is accessing the network. It displays CPU usage, NPU usage, ICMP and UDP average ping, and the network utilization of every system process and program. This tool also allows you give priority to certain applications, and throttle or block others to free network resources for other applications. It is your one-stop tool for monitoring and controlling all network traffic.

Sonic Radar II

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The idea behind Sonic Radar II is simple enough, once configured in the above utility, it is basically a radar overlay that shows the positional location that sound is coming from in games. It is essentially a gaming aid, or a really useful tool for those who are hard of hearing or those who just can't have sound enabled in a given scenario (gaming at work anyone?).

KeyBot

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On each Republics of Gamers model you will find a KeyBot button on the top of the board, and a KeyBot microprocessor on the rear. ASUS is dubbing KeyBot as a free, instant keyboard upgrade. Users plug in their existing keyboard to the dedicated USB port on the rear I/O shield to engage the KeyBot chip, and a user-friendly utility allows for the easy programming of macro keys, assigning of function keys, or creation of shortcuts for everything from launching any of any application with a single press to multimedia playback control. Users will also be able to create and share their KeyBot profiles with friends, which should be great for games with complex macros. KeyBot also functions with the S5 sleep mode, so users can wake their PC and boot directly into the UEFI BIOS or enable/disable CPU Level Up with just one tap.

RAMDisk

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The GENE comes with the familiar RAMDisk utility. For those not familiar with what a RAMDisk is, it basically acts as a virtual drive that is much faster than even the fastest high-end solid state drive. The reason for this is that it makes use of unused system memory (ie: RAM), and turns a chunk of it into an OS-level storage partition that can be used to accelerate the performance and response times of installed or cached applications.

Boot Setting

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ASUS Boot Setting allows users to boot directly into the BIOS without having to repeatedly hit delete during the POST screen. It is a pretty hand tool when you are rebooting as often as overclockers tend to do.

 

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Test Setups & Methodology

Test Setups & Methodology

For this review, we have prepared eight different test setups, representing all the popular platforms at the moment, as well as most of the best-selling processors. As much as possible, the four test setups feature identical components, memory timings, drivers, etc. Aside from manually selecting memory frequencies and timings, every option in the BIOS was at its default setting.

Intel Core i7 LGA1150 Haswell Test Setup​

For all of the benchmarks, appropriate lengths are taken to ensure an equal comparison through methodical setup, installation, and testing. The following outlines our testing methodology:

A) Windows is installed using a full format.

B) Chipset drivers and accessory hardware drivers (audio, network, GPU) are installed.

C)To ensure consistent results, a few tweaks are applied to Windows 7 and the NVIDIA control panel:

• UAC – Disabled
• Indexing – Disabled
• Superfetch – Disabled
• System Protection/Restore – Disabled
• Problem & Error Reporting – Disabled
• Remote Desktop/Assistance - Disabled
• Windows Security Center Alerts – Disabled
• Windows Defender – Disabled
• Screensaver – Disabled
• Power Plan – High Performance
• V-Sync – Off

D) All available Windows updates are then installed.

E) All programs are installed and then updated, followed by a defragment.

F) Benchmarks are each run three to eight times, and unless otherwise stated, the results are then averaged.

Here is a full list of the applications that we utilized in our benchmarking suite:

• 3DMark Vantage Professional Edition v1.1.0
• 3DMark11 Professional Edition v1.0.132.0
• 3DMark 2013 Professional Edition v1.2.362
• AIDA64 Extreme Edition v3.00.2536 Beta
• Cinebench R11.529 64-bit
• SuperPi Mod v1.9 WP
• MaxxMEM² - PreView v2.01
• Sisoft Sandra 2014.SP2 20.28
• Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark v1.0.0.0
• wPRIME version v2.10
• X3: Terran Conflict Demo v1.0

That is about all you need to know methodology wise, so let's get to the good stuff!

 

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Feature Testing: Onboard Audio

Feature Testing: Onboard Audio

Since there has been so much talk about the audio sub-system with this new generation of motherboards, we figured that it was appropriate to take a closer look at just how good the analog signal quality is on the three Z97 motherboards that we have on-hand. We are going to do this using both quantitative and qualitative analysis, since sound quality isn't really something that can be adequately explained with only numbers. To do this we have turned to the RightMark Audio Analyzer, basically the standard application for this type of testing. Since all the three motherboards support very high quality 24-bit, 192kHz audio playback we selected that as the sample mode option. Basically, what this test does is pipe the audio signal from the front-channel output to the line-in input via a 3.5mm male to 3.5mm male mini-plug cable, and then RightMark does the audio analysis.

When it comes to actual listening with a mix of Grado SR225i and Koss PortaPro headphones, Westone UM1 IEMs, and Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers, the sound quality was terrific. Having said, that there was no discernible difference in output quality between the three motherboards. Now we aren't experts in this area, but we again suspect that your average user will likewise be perfectly content with this motherboard's bundled audio capabilities. We can't wait to test the SupremeFX 2014 audio found on the larger Republic of Gamers motherboards.

 

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Auto & Manual Overclocking Results

Auto & Manual Overclocking Results

It wouldn't be an HWC review if we didn't include some overclocking results, so we thoroughly tested out this motherboard capabilities, especially with regard to its auto-overclocking functionality. Though it features a new chipset, the Z97-A is still fundamentally an LGA1150 motherboard, and as a result there is nothing new to report on how to overclock on this motherboard. Therefore, if you want to read some really in-depth information regarding how to overclock Intel's Haswell processors, take a look at what Eldonko comments in his comprehensive review of the ASUS Z87 Deluxe motherboard.

Auto Overclocking

Unlike the Channel Series - like the Z97-A - the Republic of Gamers series motherboards only feature one type of automatic overclocking. The idea behind this is that RoG buyers are more likely to want to do their own manual overclocking, so more thorough automatic capabilities aren't really needed. This is a rather poor justification in our eyes, since it wouldn't actually add extra cost to add the intelligent 5-Way Optimization auto-overclock feature to RoG boards. As a result, RoG models make due with the a preset-based feature named CPU Level Up that can be engaged from within the UEFI BIOS or the Ai Suite III utility.

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CPU Level Up is a multiplier-only tuning mode. It was extremely quick - the time it takes to save & exit the BIOS or reboot the system if done within the OS - and it produced very solid results. You have three preset choices (4.2/4.4/4.6Ghz), and obviously we went straight to the most aggressive one. 4.6Ghz at 1.299V is a very respectable overclock, and we definitely appreciate that ASUS didn't go crazy with the voltage. We were equally impressed by the fact that it enabled our memory kit's aggressive XMP profile properly. Stability was a non-issue, so clearly all the settings and voltages that they are tweaking behind the scenes are well though out.

Overall, given how quick and easy it is to engage CPU Level Up, consider us impressed with its current implementation. However, obviously we want even better results, and that is were the intelligent software-based TurboV Processing Unit (TPU) approach would have come into play...if ASUS have actually included on this motherboard.

Manual Overclocking

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No big surprises here, we have long ago established the limits for this processor and memory kit combo. This is an identical overclock to the one we achieved on two previous GIGABYTE Z87 motherboards. We did not encounter any unexpected BSODs, nor did the MOSFET heatsinks get hot at all. However, we did have the occasional "Power Surge On Hub Port" error present itself while running Prime 95, but we suspect that it might be due to a misbehaving USB device on our end or just a bad manually-set BIOS setting. We will update this if needed.

Overall, the GENE has excellent manual overclocking capabilities, and a solid automatic overclocking feature. However, we would obviously like to see the intelligent 5-Way Optimization auto OC feature make its way to Republic of Gamers models.

 

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System Benchmarks

System Benchmarks

In the System Benchmarks and Gaming Benchmarks sections, we will show a number benchmark comparisons utilizing the Core i7-4770K and ASUS Z97-A at default clocks, with the TPU Extreme preset applied, and using own our manual overclock. This will illustrate how much performance can be gained by overclocking the i7-4770K using this motherboard. For full comparisons of i7-4770K versus a number of different CPUs have a look at the Intel Haswell i7-4770K & i5-4670K Review.

SuperPi Mod v1.9 WP

When running the SuperPI 32MB benchmark, we are calculating Pi to 32 million digits and timing the process. Obviously more CPU power helps in this intense calculation, but the memory sub-system also plays an important role, as does the operating system. We are running one instance of SuperPi Mod v1.9 WP. This is therefore a single-thread workload.

wPRIME 2.10

wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions, with f(x)=x2-k, where k is the number we're sqrting, until Sgn(f(x)/f'(x)) does not equal that of the previous iteration, starting with an estimation of k/2. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results. It then confirms that n(k)2=k to ensure the calculation was correct. It repeats this for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum. This is a highly multi-threaded workload.

Cinebench R11.5

Cinebench R11.5 64-bit
Test1: CPU Image Render
Comparison: Generated Score

The latest benchmark from MAXON, Cinebench R11.5 makes use of all your system's processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene using various different algorithms to stress all available processor cores. The test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects containing more than 300,000 total polygons and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights and shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. This particular benchmarking can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. The result is given in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

Sandra Processor Arithmetic and Processor Multi-Media Benchmarks

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. The software suite provides most of the information (including undocumented) users like to know about hardware, software, and other devices whether hardware or software. The name “Sandra” is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means "defender", "helper of mankind".

The software version used for these tests is SiSoftware Sandra 2013 SP4. In the 2012 version of Sandra, SiSoft has updated the .Net benchmarks and the GPGPU benchmarks have been upgraded to General Processing (GP) benchmarks, able to fully test the new APU (CPU+GPU) processors. The two benchmarks that we used are the Processor Multi-Media and Processor Arithmetic benchmarks. These three benchmarks were chosen as they provide a good indication of three varying types of system performance. The multi-media test shows how the processor handles multi-media instructions and data and the arithmetic test shows how the processor handles arithmetic and floating point instructions. These two tests illustrate two important areas of a computer’s speed and provide a wide scope of results.

MaxxMem Benchmark

Created by MaxxPI², the MaxxMem benchmark tests your computer’s raw memory performance, combining copy, read, write and latency tests into one global score. This memory benchmark is a classic way to measure bandwidth of a memory subsystem.

MaxxMem uses continuous memoryblocks, sized in power of 2 from 16MB up to 512MB, starting either writing to or reading from it. To enable high-precision memory performance measurement, they both internally work with multiple passes and averages calculations per run.

Further, the main goal was to minimize (CPU) cache pollution on memory reads and to eliminate it (almost completely) on memory writes. Additionally, MaxxMem operates with an aggressive data prefetching algorithm. This all will deliver an excellent judge of bandwidth while reading and writing.

 

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Gaming Benchmarks

Gaming Benchmarks

Futuremark 3DMark (2013)

3DMark v1.1.0
Graphic Settings: Fire Strike Preset
Rendered Resolution: 1920x1680
Test: Specific Physics Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score


3DMark is the brand new cross-platform benchmark from the gurus over at Futuremark. Designed to test a full range of hardware from smartphones to high-end PCs, it includes three tests for DirectX 9, DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 hardware, and allows users to compare 3DMark scores with other Windows, Android and iOS devices. Most important to us is the new Fire Strike preset, a DirectX 11 showcase that tests tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Like every new 3DMark version, this test is extremely GPU-bound, but it does contain a heavy physics test that can show off the potential of modern multi-core processors.

Futuremark 3DMark 11

3DMark 11 v1.0.5
Graphic Settings: Performance Preset
Resolution: 1280x720
Test: Specific Physics Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score


3DMark 11 is Futuremark's very latest benchmark, designed to tests all of the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. At the moment, it is lot more GPU-bound than past versions are now, but it does contain a terrific physics test which really taxes modern multi-core processors.

Futuremark 3DMark Vantage

3DMark Vantage v1.1.2
Graphic Settings: Performance Preset
Resolution: 1280x1024

Test: Specific CPU Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score

3DMark Vantage is the follow-up to the highly successful 3DMark06. It uses DirectX 10 exclusively so if you are running Windows XP, you can forget about this benchmark. Along with being a very capable graphics card testing application, it also has very heavily multi-threaded CPU tests, such Physics Simulation and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which makes it a good all-around gaming benchmark.

Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark

Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark
Resolution: 1680x1050
Anti-Aliasing: 4X
Anisotropic Filtering: 8X
Graphic Settings: High
Comparison: Particle Performance Metric

Originally intended to demonstrate new processing effects added to Half Life 2: Episode 2 and future projects, the particle benchmark condenses what can be found throughout HL2:EP2 and combines it all into one small but deadly package. This test does not symbolize the performance scale for just Episode Two exclusively, but also for many other games and applications that utilize multi-core processing and particle effects. As you will see the benchmark does not score in FPS but rather in its own "Particle Performance Metric", which is useful for direct CPU comparisons.

X3: Terran Conflict

X3: Terran Conflict 1.2.0.0
Resolution: 1680x1050
Texture & Shader Quality: High
Antialiasing 4X
Anisotropic Mode: 8X
Glow Enabled

Game Benchmark
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

X3: Terran Conflict (X3TC) is the culmination of the X-series of space trading and combat simulator computer games from German developer Egosoft. With its vast space worlds, intricately detailed ships, and excellent multi-threaded game engine, it remains a great test of modern CPU performance.

 

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Voltage Regulation / Power Consumption

Voltage Regulation / Power Consumption

Our voltage regulation testing will focus on the various voltages and the differences encountered between what is selected in the BIOS and what is measured by a digital multi-meter (DMM). Thanks to the onboard voltage measurement points we didn't have to go poking & prodding everywhere, since all the voltage read points are located in one convenient spot. Users can either take their measurements straight from the voltage read pads.

Now that we have established where the read points are, let’s have a look at the results. These measurements were taken at stock system speeds and with C1E, C-STATE, Enhanced SpeedStep, and Turbo Boost enabled in the BIOS. Here are our findings:

As you can see, the Maximus VII GENE has excellent regulation output. What you set in the bios is pretty much exactly what the board put outs when idling or under light loads. There is a normal amount of voltage droopage under full load, but it is well within reference specifications. Those who want no vDroop have the settings at hand to eliminate it completely via the various Load-line Calibration (LLC) settings.

Power Consumption

For this section, every energy saving feature was enabled in the BIOS and the Windows power plan was changed from High Performance to Balanced. For our idle test, we let the system idle for 15 minutes and measured the peak wattage through our UPM EM100 power meter. For our CPU load test, we ran Prime 95 V27.9 64-bit In-place large FFTs on all available threads for 15 minutes, measuring the peak wattage via the UPM EM100 power meter. For our overall system load test, we ran Prime 95 In-place large FFTs on all available threads for 15 minutes, while simultaneously loading the GPU with OCCT v4.4.0 GPU DX11 stress test at 1680x1050 with a 300 FPS Limit.

With our configuration, the Maximus VII GENE achieved better than average full load power consumption numbers. We did notice a spike in the idle numbers of the Auto OC configuration when compared to the Z97-A, but that's likely due to the fact that we had to use the "dumb" preset-based automatic overclocking feature on the GENE and the intelligent software-based feature on the Z97-A. With a manually overclocked system the power consumption is really in the hands on the user, and it can be easily managed by just paying close attention to the vCore level and making use of advanced features like optimized VRM phase control.

 

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Conclusion

Conclusion

The Republic of Gamers series needs no introduction, and that’s largely because of a well-earned reputation as products that don’t disappoint. These higher-end models are tasked with the dual duty of being the gaming-focused and overclocking-oriented models in the ASUS roster, and they have proven quite capable of balancing these distinct tasks. The Maximus VII GENE carries on this tradition.

For starters, despite its compact size, the GENE doesn’t have any of the usual shortcomings. It features the same 8-phase CPU power design and identical VRM components as the full-size Maximus VII HERO. It features similar connectivity features as well, with an M.2 slot, an impressive eight SATA 6Gb/s ports, four USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 headers, and one gigabit LAN port powered by an Intel I218-V NIC. Video output is limited to a sole HDMI port – no DisplayPort or VGA - since a lot of rear I/O panel room is taken up by RoG-specific Clear CMOS button and ROG Connect On/Off switch, as well as the large gap required by the mini PCI-Express slot. This Micro ATX model also features an onboard audio solution - SupremeFX Impact II audio module - should be every bit as good as the SupremeFX 2014 onboard audio found on the larger Republic of Gamers models (based on the specs anyways). Either way, it sounded great to us, and it topped our RightMark Audio Analyzer comparison table.

Now some will obviously be disappointed by the lack of a SATA Express port, but given the lack of SATAe devices for the foreseeable future, and the fact that the M.2 slot is just as fast (10Gbit/sec), we aren’t going to get too hung up on this omission. In fact, given that M.2 requires no additional cables, we expect it to be a big hit among those who want a build a compact system…which is what the Maximus VII GENE was designed for. It should also be pointed out that none of the current Republic of Gamers models support SATA Express due the designers prioritizing PCI-E lanes elsewhere.

When we reviewed the ASUS Z97-A we mentioned that although that model’s single-threaded CPU performance was excellent, its multi-threaded performance lagged behind the competition. This was because ASUS seemed to be using the reference Intel-specified Turbo Mode profiles, whereas other manufacturers had been tuning Turbo a bit to force the same maximum CPU multiplier no matter the workload. No content with this situation, ASUS seems to have tweaked Turbo to match the competition, and as a result both single and multi-threaded performance are now right up there with the best of them.

Despite its small dimensions the GENE proved to be as capable an overclocker as any of the full-sized Z87 and Z97 motherboards that we have reviewed in the last 12 months. We were able to achieve some sizeable performance increases by once again manually overclocking our i7-4770K to 4.8Ghz, further boosted by a 4.6Ghz Uncore and DDR3-2400 memory. This motherboard handled our overclocking endeavours flawlessly and we didn't experience any unusual BSODs or random reboots.

When it came time to test the motherboard’s automatic overclocking capabilities the preset-based CPU Level Up feature worked very well, and proved to be more aggressive (4.6Ghz vs. 4.3Ghz) than the similar OC Tuner feature found on Channel Series models. However, the Channel Series models – like the ASUS Z97-A that we reviewed earlier – also feature an intelligent automatic overclocking feature that does *not* rely on presets. It slowly increases the processor's clock speed and voltages, tests for stability, and repeats the process until it has found the sweet spot. We lament its absence on the GENE since on the Z97-A it managed to push our i7-4770K to a whopping 4.7Ghz…a mere 100Mhz away from our manual overclock. This cool feature is excluded from the RoG models for reasons that we don’t really comprehend since not everyone who buys RoG motherboards has the knowledge or skills to really squeeze out every last megahertz from their system.

Despite its small size, the GENE retails for around $210, which is surprisingly close to the larger Maximus VII HERO. This makes it by far the most expensive Micro ATX Z97 motherboard on the market, but frankly if you require some of the unique features that can only be found on this model, it is a reasonable price to pay. Overall, the Maximus VII GENE is another in a long line of excellent Republic of Gamers motherboards.