Review: asus maximus vii ranger

Asus and its Replubic Of Gamer line has been a huge success. Involvement, careful design and a great will to attract professional players and the most Siberian. There are currently two ROG ranges: Maximus and Rampage. This time we are going to immerse ourselves fully in the Maximus VII range of the recent Z97 chipset. Specifically, in the first Asus Maximus VII Ranger ideal for overclockers and professional Gamers. It has some very interesting features: 8 + 2 digital phases, 6 native SATA 3.0 ports, NVIDIA SLI / Crossfire support, SupremeFX 2014 sound card and the new Gigabit LAN port from Asus. Product ceded by:

Main improvements of the Z97 chipset to its predecessor Z87

There are hardly any differences between the Z87 and Z97 chipset on paper. We have few such as the incorporation of the SATA Express block with 10 Gb / s of bandwidth (40% faster) compared to the 6Gb / s of the classic SATA 3. How is there so much improvement? It is because they have taken one or two of the PCI Express lanes, so be careful when doing dual configurations or with multiple graphics cards. One of the most important improvements is the incorporation of the M.2 connection with NGFF support natively, thus replacing the well-received mSATA ports. This technology is the future of computing, since it will allow us to connect large, fast storage devices without occupying places in our box. During this year and 2015 we will see the increase in sales of this connection. Finally, we see the possibility of overclocking RAM memories up to 3300 mh. Well, this reaches the limit of mhz that we can reach with DDR3 memories.

Frequently asked questions to consider

- My heatsink is compatible with socket 1155 and 1556. Is it compatible with socket 1150? Yes, we have tested different motherboards and they all have the same holes as in socket 1155 and 1156. - Is my power supply compatible with Intel Haswell or Intel Devil Canyon / Haswell Refresh ? There are no Haswell certified power supplies. Most of the manufacturers have already released the list of compatible sources: Antec, Corsair, Enermax, Nox, Aerocool / Tacens and Thermaltake. Giving 98% absolute compatibility.

Technical characteristics

Asus Maximus VII Ranger

As in the entire Republic of Gamer series that we have analyzed we find a red box with large letters with the name of the product. We see all their logo certifications in the lower left corner: Intel Z97, 4K capacitors, Windows 8.1 compatibility, Nvidia's SLI and ATI's CrossFire.

It has a flap where comes a map of the motherboard and all its news. Already eager to see this preciousness, I open the lid and we find a bag to avoid static electricity. What do we have inside?

We find the fantastic Asus Maximus VII Ranger and a very complete bundle, which consists of:

• Asus Maximus VII Ranger.Manual and instruction guide.CD with installation.Rear hood. 2 x SATA cable sets.SLI cable.USB adapters and control panel.Details to identify SATA cables.ROG sticker.Don't pass poster (DO NOT DISTURBE).

As expected, the motherboard is loaded with the traditional corporate colors of the range: red and black. What's more, it reminds me a lot of the Asus Maximus VII Hero , what's more, I could tell you that the difference in three details. The Asus Maximus VII Ranger is format ATX 30.5 cm by 24.4 cm. At first we will not have problems mounting on any box on the market today. I also leave you some pictures of the back, where you can see all the circuitry and heatsinks in the rear mosfets, greatly improving temperatures and especially the potential for overclocking.

Asus Maximus VII Ranger overview

Rear

Heatsinks in the Mosfets.

The good layout that this motherboard offers us for mounting systems of various graphics cards calls my attention. It supports both Nvidia's SLI and ATI's CrossFireX. We have a total of 3 PCI Express 3.0 x16 connections and 3 PCI Express x1 connections. The latter are ideal for connecting SAS, SATA controllers and dedicated sound cards.

• 1 x PCI- Express 3.0 (Works @ x16) 2 x PCI- Express 3.0 (Works @ @ 8 / x8)

The Asus Maximus VII Ranger uses an 8 + 2 power design with Extreme Engine Digi + III technology to support the fourth and fifth generation of Intel LGA 1150 processors. It uses the best capacitors and component set: 10K Black Metallic Caps and its new high-performance Chockes. On paper it will offer us one of the best overclocks and above all stability with this magnificent motherboard.

High quality heatsinks.

Extreme Engine Digi + III

LGA 1150 socket view

Support 8EPS connection.

I have noticed some improvement in the cooling, thanks to the heatsinks used. Especially because of a greater thickness and with greater weight than the one dedicated in the previous generation. Refrigerates both the feeding phases, mosfets and the chocks. Already on the south bridge it is larger and the lines are incredible. The only thing missing is a bright LED, although that function is in the new Hero VII. Excellent cooling!

The board has four DDR3 slots with a capacity of up to 32 GB of memory @ 3200 mhz applying overclocking (OC). In the following image we can also see the MemOK button! which guarantees memory compatibility and a successful boot. We also have a power button, a Debug LED for the diagnosis of any problem in the startup of the equipment, USB 3.0 connection to get the maximum speed, 24-pin connection and a 4-pin fan head (CHA_FAN2).

This time we have a sound card recreated by Asus. It is the SupremeFX 2014 of the first category worthy of mention that includes an encapsulation with many new features. Incorporating Premium ELAN capacitors, top-notch components, EMI shield and the following features:

• DTS ConnectOptical S / PDIF on rear panel.Sonic SoundStageSonic SenseAmpSonic StudioSonic Radar II

The trend for the new 9 series motherboards is to combine SATA, SATA Express and M.2 connections for storage. In this ROG line we start with the SATA ports and end with the M.2 connection. On this board we have six SATA III 6 GB / s ports and an M.2 connection between the first two PCI Express at x16. I have put the second photo because we have the connections of the control panel, USB 2.0, the ROG extension, Clear CMOS and a button called KeyBot. This button allows you to assign macros and special functions to a standard USB keyboard (€ 5 to € 10). When activating this button from the motherboard, it recognizes the keyboard and allows us to customize a wide variety of commands to be applied through proprietary software included on the CD. This type of feature is very useful for users who do not want to spend money on a keyboard from € 80 to € 150.

Regarding the connections of the rear panel we have:

• PS / 2.2 x USB 2.0.4 x USB 3.0.HDMI digital output.Digital audio.DVI and D-SUB.Clear CMOS.LAN Gigabit.AUDIO connections.

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And finally, a versus between the Asus Maximus VII Ranger and the Asus Maximus VI Hero that we have in our laboratory. I like the Ranger much more…

Bios

As it has already shown us in the Z97 Deluxe they have renewed the design of their new BIOS. For my most beautiful taste, with an almost perfect translation into Spanish and very intuitive when making any modification. The menus are very similar to the previous range, without major changes in that regard. As always, it incorporates a basic EZ MODE interface and another one for which the bug is raised: Advanced Mode. In it we find the menus for overclocking (Ai Tweake r), monitoring and regulation of voltage and / or fans, disk preference and optical drives at startup.

Test bench and tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel i7 4770k
Base plate:	Asus Maximus VII Ranger
Memory:	G.Skills Trident X 2400mhz.
Heatsink	Noctua NH-D15
HDD	Samsumg EVO 250GB
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 760
Power supply	Antec HCP 850

To check the stability of the processor and the motherboard, we have made an extreme OC of up to 4600 mhz with Prime 95 Custom by liquid cooling. The graphics we have used is a Gigabyte GTX780 Rev 2.0. We go to the results:

TESTS
3dMark Vantage:	P48029
3dMark11	P14741 PTS
Crysis 3	42 FPS
CineBench 11.5	11.3 fps.
Resident EVIL 6 Lost Planet Tomb Raider Metro	1350 PTS. 135 FPS. 68 FPS 65 FPS

conclusion

The Asus Maximus VII Ranger is the motherboard designed for gamers with an excellent quality / price ratio in the Z97 series for fourth and fifth generation processors. It incorporates 8 + 2 power phases supported by Asus Extreme Engine Digi + III technology that will offer us great potential for overclocking and stability to our system. Its format is ATX Standard: 30.5 x 24.4 cm and its design predominates matte black and red colors in the heatsinks, PCBs and expansion slots. What graphics card configurations does it allow us? For starters we have a total of 7 PCI Express expansion slots. Two of them work at x16 (red), black at x4) and allow us two multiGPU configurations:

• 1 graphics card to x16.2 graphics cards: x8 - x8.

The rest of the slots are x1, ideal to incorporate any sound card, complementary network card or television capture. We are going to notice a better sound experience, since it includes the magnificent SupremeFX 2014 sound card , compatible with gaming headsets, surround sound and a clear and pleasant tone. Regarding its performance it has left us very good feelings, since we have been able to overclock 4600 mhz at 1.28va our i7-4770k with really good results in synthetic tests and an incredible gaming experience in titles like Metro 2033, Tomb Raider, Lost Planet and Battlefield 4 accompanied of course by a GTX 780. I was very happy to see a more improved aesthetic in its new BIOS: better functionality, simplicity and speed in its menus. From 10!. In short, if you are looking to configure a new PC and want a gamer motherboard with the best of the best, but your pocket is limited to € 155. the Asus Maximus VII Ranger must be among the chosen ones. Good overclocking, great performance and an excellent gaming experience.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ AESTHETICS	- ONLY 6 SATAS.
+ 8 + 2 POWER SUPPLY PHASES AND QUALITY COMPONENTS
+ ALLOWS MULTIGPU.
+ M.2 CONNECTION.
+ NEW NETWORK CARD.
+ EXCELLENT PRICE.

The Professional Review team rewards Asus Maximus VII Ranger with our best Platinum medal: