ASUS Asus Maximus V Extreme vs EVGA Z77 FTW (Part 2)

Overclocking the Z77 FTW proved a little more taxing. While its EFI groups settings well, it looks positively old-school and feels more like an out-of­ date BIOS than the control system for a super-high-end board. We disabled C-states and vdroop, set the multiplier to 48xand base block to 100MHz, and pushed the CPU voltage to 1300mV (1.32V), only to find that our CPU frequently clocked down to 4.4GHz. The cause was the CPU power management settings; setting the 'IA core current max and power limits' to 2,040, 'long and short duration power limits’ to 255 and 'long duration maintained power limit’ to 120 resolved the issue and resulted in a stable OC.

While both CPUs were running at similar frequencies, the Extreme proved the faster board in our Media Benchmarks. An overall score of 2,865 was close to 100 points clear of the Z77 FTW’s 2,770, with the Extreme holding a 5 percent advantage in the video encoding test alone. InCrysis2, both were inseparable, though, with each producing an increased minimum frame rate of 32fps.

We also benchmarked both boards in a 3-way SLI setup, courtesy of three GTX670 2GB cards connected to a 5,760 x 1,080 Nvidia Surround display. There was little to distance the two boards, though, with both producing the same result in 63fps minimum in Battlefield 3, demonstrating an impressive 91 per cent scaling for the three-card setup. We found that the Z77 FTW was a little more power-hungry here, though, with our system pulling a peak of 640W in BF3 compared to the Extreme’s 633W.

Conclusion

While both boards delivered the crazy frame rates we expect from high-end multi-GPU setups, it’s tough to look beyond the Asus Maximus V Extreme when choosing between the two. Despite its $60 premium over the EVGAZ77 FTW, the Extreme offers many useful extra features, from WiFi and Bluetooth to a Thunderbolt port and bundled 4-way SLI connector. It was also consistently faster across our benchmarks - at least at 4.8GHz, which is the limit of our test CPU.

Despite its victory, though, there’s no award for the Maximus V Formula. Z77 boards are primarily limited by Intel’s Ivy Bridge CPUs when overclocking, and the Extreme performs almost the same as the $225 cheaper Asus Maximus V Gene in our benchmarks. Despite its epic feature set, most people will struggle to find a use for many of the extras, leaving 4-way SLI and CrossFireX as the only draw.

While we love the frame rates of multi-GPU setups, dealing with their heat, noise and power consumption, not to mention driver dependency, removes much of the shine, and you can still run a two-way GPU setup on the Gene anyway. If you absolutely must have the biggest, most capable Z77 motherboard around then the Maximus V Extreme is the one - otherwise, you can get a decent board for half the money.

Results

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·         Asus Maximus V: stock speed: 1,941; overclocked: 2,322

·         EVGA Z77 FTW: stock speed: 1,829; overclocked: 2,298

Handbrake H.264 video encoding

·         Asus Maximus V: stock speed: 3,463; overclocked: 4,312

·         EVGA Z77 FTW: stock speed: 3,289; overclocked: 4,098

Multi-tasking

·         Asus Maximus V: stock speed: 1,792; overclocked: 1,952

·         EVGA Z77 FTW: stock speed: 1,676; overclocked: 1,914

Overall

·         Asus Maximus V: stock speed: 2,399; overclocked: 2,865

·         EVGA Z77 FTW: stock speed: 2,265; overclocked: 2,770

Crysis 2

·         1,920 x1,080, High settings, no AA, no AF 26fps I 32fps I 26fps

·         81fps

·         82fps

·         Asus Maximus V: stock speed min: 26fps, stock speed avg: 81fps / overclocked min: 32fps, overclocked avg: 82fps

·         EVGA Z77 FTW: stock speed min: 26fps, stock speed avg: 81fps / overclocked min: 32fps, overclocked avg: 82fps

Battlefield 3

·         5,760 x 1,080, 3 x GTX 670 2GB in 3-way SLI, Ultra settings, 4x AA, 16x AF

·         Asus Maximus V: stock speed avg: 63fps / overclocked avg: 74fps

·         EVGA Z77 FTW: stock speed avg: 63fps / overclocked avg: 74fps

Scores: Asus

·         Speed: 42/45

·         Features: 30/30

·         Value: 10/25

·         Overall: 82%

Scores: EVGA

·         Speed: 38/45

·         Features: 25/30

·         Value: 11/25

·         Overall: 74%

ASUS Maximus V Extreme

ASUS Maximus V Extreme

Pros and cons Extreme: Faster; easy to overclock; great EFI; lots of extras Mundane: Pricey; little real-world speed advantage over cheaper boards   How much? Price: $468 inc VAT Manufacturer: http://rog.asus.com   In detail Chipset: Intel Z77 CPU support: LGA1155 Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Pentium and Celeron Memory support: 4 slots: max 32GB DDR3 (up to 3,200MHz) Expansion slots: Five 16x PCI-E3.0 slot (one at 16x or fiveat8x), one 1x PCI-E2 slot, one 1x mini-PCI-E2 slot Sound: Realtek ALC898 7.1 Networking: Intel Gigabit Ethernet, on-board Wi-Fi, on-board Bluetooth Overclocking: Base clock80 - 300MHz, CPU Multiplier 36- 63; max voltages, CPU 1.92V, RAM 1.92V, PLL2.5V Ports: 3 x SATA 3Gbps (Z77), 1 x mSATA 3Gbps (Z77) 2 x SATA 6Gbps(Z77), 4 x SATA 6Gbps (ASMedia) 1 x PS/2, 8 x USB2 (Z77), 4 x USB3 (Z77), 4x USB 3 (ASMedia) LAN, 4 x surround audio out, line in, mic, optical S/PDIF out, HDMI, Display Port, Thunderbolt Dimensions (mm): 305 x 272 (EATX)

EVGA Z77 FTW

EVGA Z77 FTW

Pros and cons Winner: $60 cheaper than the Asus; dual- 1Gb/sec LAN Runner-up: Slower at stock and overclocked speeds; outdated EFI; harder to overclock; doesn't include 4-way SLI bridge, WiFi, or Bluetooth   How much? Price: $404 inc VAT   In detail Chipset: Intel Z77 CPU support: LGA1155 Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Pentium and Celeron Memory support: 4 slots: max 32GB DDR3 (up to 3,000MHz) Expansion slots: Five 16x PCI-E3 slot (One at 16x, four at 8x), one PCI-E2.16x slot, one PCI-E21x slot Sound: Realtek ALC889 7.1 Networking: 2x Marvell 88E8057 Overclocking: Base clock 80 - 130MHz, CPU Multiplier 16­80; max voltages, CPU 1.99V, RAM 1.99V, PLL 2.6V Ports: 4 x SATA 3Gbps (Z77), 2 x SATA 6Gbps (Z77), 2 x SATA 6Gbps (Marvell 9182) 2 x eSATA (Marvell 88SE6121) 1 x PS/2, 10 x USB 2 (Z77), 4 x USB3 (Z77) 2 x USB 3 (ASMedia), 2 x LAN, 4 x surround audio out, line in, mic, optical S/PDIF out, mini­-DisplayPort Dimensions (mm): 305 x 263.5 (EATX)   Test Kit 3.2GHz Intel Core i7-3770K CPU, 8GB 1,600MHz Corsair DDR3 memory, 128GB Patriot Wildfire SSD, Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 2GB graphics card, 3x GTX 670 2GB for3-way SLI, Windows 7 64-bit