| ASUS GRYPHON Z87 mATX Intel Motherboard |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Motherboards | |
| Written by David Ramsey | |
| Tuesday, 11 June 2013 | |
ASUS GRYPHON Z87 mATX Motherboard Review
Manufacturer: ASUStek Inc. Full Disclosure: ASUStek provided the product sample used in this article. 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.
With its "camo" military-themed color scheme, the idea behind the TUF motherboards seems to be that they're, well, tough. ASUS backs this up with a five-year warranty. Let's take a look at this board in the next section. Closer Look: Z87 GRYPHONThe Z87 GRYPHON seems to sport the same ceramic-coated power heat sinks as previous members of the TUF family. I say "seems" because although the heat sinks have the same rough texture, ASUS doesn't mention "ceramic" or "Ceramix" (the original term they used to describe the heat sinks) anywhere in the marketing or review materials for this motherboard. Since this is a micro ATX motherboard, there are only four PCI-E slots. The top two PCI-E x16 slots will split the 16 lanes available from the CPU as x8 and x8 if you have two graphics cards.
The accessories include a certificate of reliability, which details the military specification tests the various components have passed; four latching SATA cables, an SLI connector, an I/O panel, ASUS "Q Connectors" for quick front-panel hookup, a manual, and the warranty information.
At the front of the board are the USB 3.0 header, the main ATX power connector, a chassis fan connector, and the "MemOK" button. This handy button will reset memory timings should you render the system unbootable while overclocking memory.
The I/O panel has four USB 2.0 ports, a dual-link DVI port, HDMI port, optical audio port, four USB 3.0 ports, an Ethernet jack, and a standard analog audio panel. Missing is a PS/2 port, another sign that this board isn't aimed at gamers.
There's not much going on at the back of the board, but you might notice what seem to be some oddly-placed screw holes. These are for the TUF Fortifier component of the optional $49.00 GRYPHON Armor kit. The "Fortifier" is a rather thick metal plate that attaches to the bottom of the motherboard to keep it from flexing under the weight of video cards and giant CPU coolers. Considering how many CPU coolers are much heavier than the Intel recommended maximum, this probably isn't a bad idea.
Let's take a look at the details of this board in the next section. Z87 GRYPHON DetailsAt the bottom left edge of the board is the SPDIF OUT digital audio connector, below which is the front panel audio connector. Just to the right of that is a connector for ASUS' optional Thunderbolt add-in card, followed by a fan header, the Trusted Platform Module connector, and an LPC_DEBUG connector...whatever that is. 
Moving to the right, we see two USB 2.0 connectors (four ports total), three thermal sensor connectors (plug-in thermal sensors are included with the optional GRYPHON Armor kit), the BIOS Flashback button, a fan header, the "DirectKey", and last the front panel connector. Just above the front panel connector is the socketed BIOS chip. The "DirectKey" button forces the system to drop into the BIOS at boot time, handy if you've enabled "Fast boot", which speeds up boot times but ignores the keyboard. And yes, it's inconvenient to reach inside your case to do this, so ASUS provides two pins (to the left of the BIOS chip) for wiring up an external DirectKey button.
Like any motherboard, the GRYPHON Z87 uses a number of third-party chips: the venerable Realtek ALC892 audio chip makes an appearance, as does an ASMEDIA USB 3.0 controller. The Nuvoton NCT7802Y hardware monitor chip provides (probably) voltage/temp and other measurements, and the Probe chip...well, that one's a mystery. 
Another, much larger Nuvoton chip, the NCT6791D, provides additional hardware monitoring facilities, while ASUS' own custom TurboV Processing Unit (TPU) chip allows some automatic performance enhancements. The EPU power-use tuning processor doesn't appear on this motherboard...probably because they ran out of space. 
As part of ASUS' TUF family of motherboards, The Z87 GRYPHON is built extra tough: those pretty black metallic capacitors have passed MIL-STD tests for thermal shock, moisture resistance, salt spray, "solderability", vibration, and mechanical shock, while the chokes and MOSFETs in the power supply have pass vibration, temperature, and thermal shock tests. ASUS even took pains to ensure the traces to the memory DIMM slots are all equal length, a feature they call "T Topology". ASUS claims this can give you an extra 5% in memory overclocking. Let's check out the UEFI BIOS in the next section. ASUS Z87 UEFIASUS 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:
...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 renamed the device at SATA6G_4 to 'ASUS Gryphon Test Disk".
Although the GRYPHON 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 assign 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 GRYPHON 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. ASUS GRYPHON SoftwareThe Gryphon 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 start 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 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... Bundled Software ContinuedAlthough Turbo V Evo isn't part of the version of AI Suite included with the Gryphon, 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 dramatic performance benefits of USB 3.0 Boost in my review of the ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxemotherboard. While Turbo V Evo isn't part of the GRYPHON 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. Motherboard Testing MethodologyAfter 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 CPU and chipset, it's not surprising that everyone's "Y22" chipset motherboard performs pretty much alike...at stock settings, anyway. 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 Z87 GRYPON 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. Test System
Benchmark Applications
I'll start with synthetic benchmarks in the next section. AIDA64 Benchmark ResultsAIDA64 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:
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 15% while manual overclocking returns a 24% improvement. In the Hash benchmark, the results are 11% and 19%, respectively. SPECviewperf 11 Tests ResultsThe 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. LightwaveThe 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. MayaThe 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. Siemens Teamcenter Visualization MockupThe 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 consistent performance advantage over the GRYPHON at stock clocks speeds. x264HD 5.0 TestsTech 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 19% in Pass 1 and 16% and 18% in Pass 2. I describe my overclocking experience with this board in the next section. mATX Motherboard OverclockingThe Z87 GRYPHON isn't marketed as an overclocking motherboard-- that's what ASUS' Republic of Gamers line is all about. If you were still unsure, the lack of the Turbo V Evo utility for Windows should be enough to convince you. Still, at the BIOS level, this motherboard has most of the manual adjustment features you'd find in a Republic of Gamers board. While Turbo V Evo isn't here, there is a simpler auto overclocking feature n the A.I. Tweaker section of the BIOS called OC Tuner. You can set it to "As Is" (the default), "Ratio First", or "BCLK First". I set it to "Ratio First" and let it run. According to the explanation in the BIOS, OC Tuner "Automatically overclocks the CPU and DRAM frequency and voltage for an enhanced (sic) system performance." Turning it loose in my Core i7-4770K-equipped system set the ratio to 42x (for 4.2GHz) and bumped the CPU core voltage to 1.2v. It also selected the XMP profile on my memory. Interestingly, these are almost exactly the same settings the "Gear 2" OC Genie setting made on the MSI MPOWER MAX motherboard I reviewed recently. Now, 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 manual overclock was a multiplier of 44x at the same 1.2v. This is 100MHz lower than I was able to achieve on the MSI Z87 MPOWER MAX motherboard, which I ran at a multiplier of 45x. As with the MSI board, attempting to add a few MHz by bumping the BCLK a megahertz or two (recall that the BCLK is multiplied by the multiplier, so at these settings taking the BCLK from 100MHz to 101MHz would increase CPU clock speed by 44MHz) resulted in crashes. 
It's not surprising that a motherboard specifically designed to support overclocking would result in a better overclock than one that wasn't, but the 100MHz difference is less than 3%, so the real-world performance implications aren't going to be noticeable. Many people don't seem to realize that Intel's quoted maximum boost multiplier of 39x for the 4770K only applies to one core under load-- load down all four cores, and you're looking a only 37x (3.7GHz). Yeah, that's conservative, and many motherboards (including this one) offer "Turbo Enhancement" features that run all four cores at the maximum multiplier under load. That's the way I like to run, but since Haswell seems to suffer from the same heat-related overclocking limits as Ivy Bridge, you'll need a really good cooler to be able to sustain a high multiplier under load for any amount of time. Haswell runs very hot under load, 22nm low-leakage transistors notwithstanding. The best I was able to do was 4.4GHz on all cores at 1.2v. I'll give my final thoughts and conclusion on this motherboard in the next section. ASUS Motherboard Final ThoughtsASUS' 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. As a micro-ATX motherboard, the Z87 GRYPHON makes do with four PCI-E slots, and fewer SATA and USB ports than you might see on a full-sized ATX motherboard. However, for most users this won't matter. After all, with six SATA 6G ports, six USB 3.0 ports, and eight USB 2.0 ports, how many more do you really need? Still, there's no doubt you're giving up some functionality and expandability as compared to some ATX motherboards. Enthusiasts love features, even if we don't use them. I think on-board mSATA ports are cool, even though I don't have any mSATA SSDs or even plans to buy one.
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. One might reasonably ask what you give up with the Z87 GRYPHON as oppose to its full ATX big brother, the Sabertooth Z87. That's an excellent question, and one I'll answer soon as the Sabertooth is the next board in line for a review! Z87 GRYPHON ConclusionASUS has made a practice of building high-end features into smaller-than-ATX motherboards. Examples include the well known "Gene" series of micro ATX motherboards, and newcomers like the mini-ATX P8Z77-i Deluxe. It's good to see ASUS bring their TUF technologies down to the mATX world. Along with the expected reliability and five-year warranty, there's the optional GRYPHON Armor kit that adds a reinforcing back plate, dust/ventilation shield, dust covers for slots and connectors, and extra thermal probes that can be utilized by the Thermal Radar 2 feature. AI Suite continues to sprout new capabilities and features, and the enhanced UEFI BIOS is (note to other vendors: reviewers really, really like being able to do screen captures of BIOS screens.) just keeps getting better, with "Why didn't I think of that?" features like a list of the settings you changed when you're ready to save and reboot. ASUS continues the khaki-schemed colors of previous TUF boards on the GRYPHON. It's not hard to visualize of stack of these boards sitting in a military warehouse somewhere. It's an attractive, if unusual, look. If you want more, the GRYPHON Armor kit offers modders the option of painting the upper dust/ventilation shield. 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. The GRYPHON forgoes enthusiast features like power and reset buttons, voltage check points, or a POST code display. You might think thus is due to the limited real estate on an mATX motherboard...but ASUS doesn't include these features even on the ATX-sized TUF boards, 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. For $170 (Amazon|Newegg), the board priced in the mid-range of ASUS' mATX offerings, and comes in about $20-$25 under the Gene series boards (but remember you'll need to pony up another $49 for the Gryphon Armor kit). Enthusiasts may want to pay a little extra for the Genes, but unless you're overclocking with liquid or more exotic cooling systems, you're not going to reap any benefits from your extra expense. Pros:
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Comments
I'm interested in knowing exactly what it does do if anybody is certain...
It seems the T-Probe ASP 0911 is the replacement for that, as shown on page four of the review in a screen shot of the UEFI.
It is shown as the CPU power duty control.
Sadly weve had to return several of these as there is a significant bios issue which Asus appear to be either unable or unwilling to rectify. Such a shame for what is otherwise an outstanding board.