Asus 970 Pro Gaming/Aura Motherboard Review

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amclaren4

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Nov 16, 2014
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It is nice to see something almost new. This looks good for the money. It would be nice to see how the M.2 preformed, as this is a new addition.
 
I'd like to know more about the M.2 slot also. Is it SATA, PCIe, or both? Are any other ports disabled when it is used?
Otherwise, this board appears to be quite robust in the range of ports and slots it provides. PCIe 2.0 vs. 3.0 is not yet an issue, and may not be for some time. You said it supports SLI? That's rare for the 970, so could be a big deal for some.
 

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
I think Asus have employed their T-Topology understanding from Intel to help get those ram slots closer to the socket space to help with the board produce better overclocking results.

Remember, Asus themselves had stated that these technology advancements see a tricking down over generations and revisions in their product lines.
 
G

Guest

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This is a motherboard review, where is the DPC latency?

I got my sabertooth 990fx in 2011. It's almost off it's 5 year warranty. Time machine is right, this board makes absolutely no sense.
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator
There's two questions I have:

1. Is that an ultra M2 slot on that motherboard? I didn't know 970 and 990FX supported ultra M2.

2. Is it really worth it to buy 970 / 990FX at this point when AMD is very close to releasing a new line of CPUs that will use a new socket?
 

TheTerk

Contributing Writer
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Nov 23, 2009
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I'd like to know more about the M.2 slot also. Is it SATA, PCIe, or both? Are any other ports disabled when it is used?
Otherwise, this board appears to be quite robust in the range of ports and slots it provides. PCIe 2.0 vs. 3.0 is not yet an issue, and may not be for some time. You said it supports SLI? That's rare for the 970, so could be a big deal for some.
I'm definitely interested in testing some M.2 if it's not already covered by the storage reviewers. this board looks like it's using PCIe 2.0 x4. SLI confirmed on ASUS website.
 

buzznut47

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Nov 9, 2015
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I own the Asrock 990FX Killer board, The selling point there is that it uses a Killer NIC for high speed internet gaming. And of course the Fatality moniker, although I'm not sure dude even plays video games anymore.

I thought it would be worth mentioning, That particular board has a notorious overheating problem with the Northbridge. As such I eventually had to buy an active cooler which added close to $20 extra.
It is operating at a very nice temp now, so I'm not sure what's wrong with the chipset heatsink. Its not cheap aluminum, it has a bit of heft to it; almost feels like Acetal. Temp issues were resolved immediately after replacing with an Evercool chipset cooler with a 60 mm fan.

Regardless, if you read up reviews on the Killer board you will certainly find the many complaints about the overheating Northbridge. Mine got hot enough to boil water @ 100C. So for the value portion, I think you could add the additional cost of a decent Northbrige cooler.

Had the ASUS board been available when I purchased the 990FX board, I likely would have gone with that. I may pick one up anyway, I like it.
 
It must be rough trying to find something new for review for AMD motherboards, I feel for you. This was like watching the SFI channel with to clay-mation Dinosaurs fighting each other. I too was curious about the M.2 support I saw this on the ASUS website:

AMD SB950 controller :
6 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), black,
Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10
1 x M.2 Socket 3, , with M Key, type 2242/2260/2280 storage devices support (PCIE 2.0 x4)
 

f-14

Distinguished
klev is terrible memory. 1600 memory was 8-8-824/27 i'd sooner use PNY before klev, and it's no wonder why it didn't over clock very well.
cpu cooler is terrible also, really sunbeam that's like 10 grades below PNY. that's the over priced cheapest grade parts they stuff into bulk grade school computers that don't do anything more than standardized testing and word documents.
even best buy sells better coolers and memory than this stuff.

nice to see despite the bad parts in some of the most crucial components the board was able to rise above the bad components.
 

ah

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Oct 29, 2014
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I think the benchmarks are pretty useless, because the figures are within the margin of errors and if you are to test them again, they all would give out different figures. Rather tom's Hardware should concentrate on the built-quality and reliability of the board, the feature of the firmware, its ease of use, its aesthetic and its robustness, the abundance and usefulness of the apps on offers, storage capability, and finally thermal and powers consumption.

These days, it's all about M.2 and SSD, an i6 6600 with a good M.2 will outperform an i7 6700k with a standard SSD.
 
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