Asus Z97I-Plus

pavel said:
Any thoughts on the cpu socket placement of the ASrock board? What cooler are you planning on using?

I think I'll use a low profile air cooler or the H60 (*or H75??). So, maybe the location won't be an issue if I chose that board?
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Although offtopic, I used a NH-L12 on the Z87E-ITX in the Ncase M1 case, which is somewhat specific about compatible heatsink. It will depend on your case a lot. The Z97E-ITX/ac has the same socket placement as the Z87E-ITX.
 
The question is if an external DAC would help you more at FPS "sonar" or positioning audio abilities. Last I checked, having a good onboard sound card is pretty important for that especially when you don't have an extra PCIe slot for an audio card. All this I-have-an-external-DAC-for-SFF-PC-music is kind of, umm, I wouldn't say defeats the purpose, but I just don't get it... Wouldn't something like this Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi USB or this be superior for the purpose of a SFF gaming or HTPC machine? Or, hell, get a gaming USB headset...

As I understand it, CMSS-3D >= SBX > Dolby > THX >>>> None at all for FPS position awareness.

That said, I have an Onboard Audio (Realtek ALC898, ASRock Z77) + Astro A40 + Mixamp. I got the Astro stuff for the consoles, but I figure I'll use it for my PC as well. On the PC, I hardly get any positional awareness at all! The Realtek ALC898 supposedly supports Dolby Digital Live (DDL), but I haven't had time to fool with the drivers and setup yet. The dolby digital button lights up with optical and pure USB connectivity.
 
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CHANG3D said:
The question is if an external DAC would help you more at FPS "sonar" or positioning audio abilities. Last I checked, having a good onboard sound card is pretty important for that especially when you don't have an extra PCIe slot for an audio card. All this I-have-an-external-DAC-for-SFF-PC-music is kind of, umm, I wouldn't say defeats the purpose, but I just don't get it....
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Not everyone plays FPS...I listen to music way more than I game, so high quality audio is most important...and no level of on board could do that.

As far as positional awareness goes...nothing beats a 5.1/7.1 proper speaker setup.

If you are talking about headphones...I prefer Dolby headphone to all the others, but it tends to only work with DD/DTS sources (like DDL).

All they are though are algorithms to try to simulate 5.1/7.1 into a headphone...Astro mixamp uses Dolby Headphone to simulate 5.1/7.1...

And if you are crazy you can use a software layer to do that 5.1/7.1 into a headphone so it bypasses the need for any 'hardware' support for it.

Anyways, if you want to learn about headphones and gaming...

read here:
http://www.head-fi.org/t/534479/mad...e-4-17-2014-akg-k612-and-k712-pro-added-edits
 
Umm... get a good receiver... reason why I don't understand why people use a DAC and amplifier with a SFF PC. And you either didn't finish reading or just didn't quote me on external audio USB devices from Creative...

For your mobile device, yes, I understand that.
 
Aibohphobia said:
A pure DAC would require an amp for headphones or unpowered speakers. Most computer speakers have a built-in amp and would work just fine with a DAC.

There are combo units that combine a DAC and amp into one unit like the FiiO E10 or JDS Labs O2+Odac.

A combo unit with an amp should work just fine with powered speakers.
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Dumb question - back to this topic - but, where do you plug in the computer speakers? I notice all DACs and those that have the integrated amps have the headphone jack.

I noted that these are most popular for users who own laptops and it's obviously because of the poor sound hardware or amplification from laptops. It just can't generate the quality.

Some DACs have 'line in' or 'aux' or it's unlabelled so if you use computer speakers, you connect the jack there, right?

I know the other setups include using Audio AV Receivers and bookshelf speakers but for simplicity, (for now), I am just curious about a basic setup with crappy Logitech style computer speakers that have their own power.

I'll use headphones, also, but that part is straightforward.

I want to know what to look for if I shop for a DAC and amp.
 
I just plugged my Logitech speakers into my HRT Headstreamer when I didn't feel like using my headphones.

I sold my speakers a while ago but when I eventually get a bigger desk and some nice speakers my plan is to get a RCA switch box so I can switch the output from the DAC to either the speakers or to the headphone amp.
 
AFD said:
I was wondering this as well. Their product page shows the same large external ASUS Wi-Fi antenna, but that seems weird with the antenna connections not on the I/O.
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I just noticed this. So, does the antenna cable just 'hang' there?

Nice mobo except that it seems like Asus has cut a lot of corners on this board. Or is just me? VGA, ALC892 and an odd placement of the wifi antenna setup.
 
Read a review on the egg, person has this board and a Samsung m.2 and seems like either his m.2 is dead or incompatible, or the motherboard m.2 slot is defective/needs a bios update @_@
 
If a manufacturer isn't stepping forward soon and clearing this whole mess up*, I'm not seeying a bright future for M.2.
I myself am already doubting to use it and just stay with SATA for the time being, while I was really eager to get into M.2.

* products need be made easily compatible, not "oh your videocard isn't compatible with our storage". This shouldn't be this complex.
 
Just installed my one today, would seriously recommend keeping a good eye on the tabs for the DIMM slots, they're nowhere near as strong as on other boards I've had. Pressing a little too firmly has resulted in one of my tabs snapping in the middle, an obvious problem point AFAIC. Rather than a good solid H design it's a 1 split to two leg design which is easily stressed in the center, add weak or thin plastic and it's a recipe for disaster. Be wary.
 
Phuncz said:
If a manufacturer isn't stepping forward soon and clearing this whole mess up*, I'm not seeying a bright future for M.2.
I myself am already doubting to use it and just stay with SATA for the time being, while I was really eager to get into M.2.

* products need be made easily compatible, not "oh your videocard isn't compatible with our storage". This shouldn't be this complex.
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Yeah there is a similar workaround with Asrock M.2 models and non SATA SSDs...that it has to be in UEFI boot only and some other random stuff...so the guy had to install using a USB drive instead of a DVD...
 
Daemos said:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/Z97IPLUS/

This is Asus' entry into the Z97 ITX space!

The key specifications that set it apart from the ASrock version are:

1 x M.2 Socket 3 with M Key, type 2260/2280 storage devices support (both SATA & PCIE mode)

2 more USB ports

But no SATA express...which is the only downside :(
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I was reading about the M.2 sockets again and I don't think no SATA Expression is a downside. Reading all the reviews, there is a constant comment about SATA being a bottleneck to speed. Unless something changes, it's a gradual but super slow transfer to PCIe SSDs.

Since Asus chose to go with 2260/2280 in their mobo, they can accomodate most of today's M.2 SSDs. Now, that may change. I would suspect that the shorter PCB SSDs will eventually win out but who knows.

For this mobo, you can use these M.2 SSDs:
Samsung XP941 - 2280 (note: apparently, only in a RAID configuration? Or storage)
SanDisk A110 256GB - 2260
Plextor's M6e 256GB - 2280
Crucial M550 256 - 2280

As has been stated before, any M.2 SSD over 128GB seems to be either 60mm or 80mm in length - at least, at the moment.
 
just to say ive purchased this, will see what it can do with a 4770k and 16gb of kingston beast 2400mhz.

Needed a new pc sharpish and couldn't be bothered to wait for msi/giga to stock, or for DC lol. I've never really bothered with overclocking so should be a bit of fun.

Any queries or question anyone has i'll try and answer :)
 
gtx 570 and a H60. For now anyway! I presume the h60 will struggle to keep the 4770k anywhere near cool lol.

When funds allow I'll upgrade. Looking to get a parvum itx case and new cpu cooler next :)
 
HI,

I just got my ASUS Z97I-PLUS , and M.2 XP941.
However i cannot get it show up as Harddisk.
I had already tried the bios setting as mentioned earlier.
XP941 was recognized in the Intel Rapid storage,so it is not defect, however i just cannot get it list as hard disk.

Bios setting
SATA Mode :RAID
Pcie Nand config : Enable
CSM : Disable

SYSTEM
MB: Asus Z97I-PLUS Bios 0408
CPU : 4770K
RAM : Corsair Vengeance Pro 16G
SSD : M.2 Samsung XP941 256g
 
anyone know if this is supposed to be better than the z87i-deluxe or are we expecting a z97i-deluxe version too?
 
If you have the time to wait, wait. The Deluxe is expected to be announced later, because of the large price gap between this board and the Impact VII.
 
rontruong said:
anyone know if this is supposed to be better than the z87i-deluxe or are we expecting a z97i-deluxe version too?
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Think the ASUS boards are Plus < Deluxe/Pro < ROG.

The only secondary feature the Z97i-Plus has over the Z87i-Deluxe is the new "allow fan stop" feature.

I've spent the last week arguing with an ASUS support tech about porting this feature down to their other boards. He seems to believe that allowing 0% duty cycle for case fans when CPU temps are below a set temp is an option that will only work with Z97 :rolleyes:
 
AFD said:
Think the ASUS boards are Plus < Deluxe/Pro < ROG.

The only secondary feature the Z97i-Plus has over the Z87i-Deluxe is the new "allow fan stop" feature.

I've spent the last week arguing with an ASUS support tech about porting this feature down to their other boards. He seems to believe that allowing 0% duty cycle for case fans when CPU temps are below a set temp is an option that will only work with Z97 :rolleyes:
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I don't get "fan stop", all fans will stop if you run them at low-enough rpm, but Asus case fan minimum duty is still 60%, which is way too high. And their sys_fan is not PWM even though it has 4 pins, which means you cannot run it at low rpm even if BIOS allowed duty cycle to go down to 0%.
 
reb00tin said:
I don't get "fan stop", all fans will stop if you run them at low-enough rpm, but Asus case fan minimum duty is still 60%, which is way too high. And their sys_fan is not PWM even though it has 4 pins, which means you cannot run it at low rpm even if BIOS allowed duty cycle to go down to 0%.
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The 60% minimum is only if you are using their Fan Xpert software. The motherboards themselves doesn't have a lower limit. At least, on my P8Z77-I there's no problem setting 0% duty cycle in SpeedFan, and the resulting rpm seems correct according to the fan specs.
 
WiSK said:
The 60% minimum is only if you are using their Fan Xpert software. The motherboards themselves doesn't have a lower limit. At least, on my P8Z77-I there's no problem setting 0% duty cycle in SpeedFan, and the resulting rpm seems correct according to the fan specs.
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All ASUS Z87 boards have 60% minimum duty cycle for case fans. All of their Z97 boards are the same, but with the addition of the new "allow fan stop" option, that allows the case fans to shut off below a set temp (I'm assuming CPU temp).

While not a perfect solution, "allow fan stop" is much better than having my fans chug along at 1000RPM when the CPU is idle and below 50C. Would they rather I just remove all of my case fans? Buy another brand that allows sub-60% duty for case fans?

Their logic and attitude completely escapes me :(
 
Have you tried this in SpeedFan? First setting the Nuovoton controller to manual mode?

edit: Ah wait, just checked SpeedFan support site and the Nuvoton NCT6791D chip on the Asus Z87 range is not supported by SpeedFan :(

I wonder can OHW change fan settings? Or something else that talks to the sensor chips...
 
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WiSK said:
Have you tried this in SpeedFan? First setting the Nuovoton controller to manual mode?
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I've only tried BIOS options, and ASUS's FanXpert software so far. Haven't tried SpeedFan, as I've read a few reports of it not working at all with the ASUS Z87 boards. I'll give it a try tonight, and see if I can get it to work at all.

And by "setting the Nuovoton controller to manual mode" do you mean setting the case fans to "manual" in the BIOS (as opposed to "silent", "normal", and "full retard" profiles), or is this a setting inside SpeedFan? Thanks!
 
WiSK said:
The 60% minimum is only if you are using their Fan Xpert software. The motherboards themselves doesn't have a lower limit. At least, on my P8Z77-I there's no problem setting 0% duty cycle in SpeedFan, and the resulting rpm seems correct according to the fan specs.
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Check your manual again... and my photo-link on p.1 above.

Fan Xpert is crapware, Speedfan is ok for testing but if the software hangs your machine will fry. The BIOS doesn't crash that's why it's the most reliable way to control fans. In any case, I run Linux and Asus' bling-ware doesn't run there.
 
AFD said:
or is this a setting inside SpeedFan? Thanks!
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It's a setting inside the Nuvoton controller that SpeedFan could access. Manual mode is just for testing, you set a speed and it stays like that.

But unfortunately SpeedFan doesn't work for your board.

reb00tin said:
Check your manual again... and my photo-link on p.1 above.

Fan Xpert is crapware, Speedfan is ok for testing but if the software hangs your machine will fry. The BIOS doesn't crash that's why it's the most reliable way to control fans. In any case, I run Linux and Asus' bling-ware doesn't run there.
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If the software hangs: good point but depends how you've set it up. Athough SpeedFan can regulate fan speed itself with complex temperature collection, it also allows you to program the Nuvoton to react to temperatures from certain sensors.

So you could set the Nuvoton to Thermal Cruise mode, which aims to hold a certain temperature. E.g. you can set the Nuvoton to monitor the thermistor under the CPU and set all kinds of things like target temp, start temp, min temp, hysteresis, step-up delay. This mode is what the BIOS uses for it's silent/standard/turbo fan profiles.

Or you can set the Nuvoton to be in Smart Fan mode, which is what Fan Xpert uses. There you can set 5 temperature points and matching PWM/DC values.

My point is again, that it's Asus who is stopping you from putting your SYS_FAN less than 60%, and the controller itself allows 0-100% on any fan speed parameter. Whether you use SpeedFan, or something else that can talk to the Nuvoton.

About Linux. You may be in luck, there is a driver for the NCT6775 that should also work with the NCT6791D. But I don't know if Linux has any software available similar to SpeedFan that can program the controller.
 
WiSK said:
But unfortunately SpeedFan doesn't work for your board.
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Nope, just tried it, and SpeedFan does not recognize any of the fans. And as mentioned over at SPCR, the CPU temp is about half of what it should be.

Against my better judgement, I'm going to try reinstalling AiSuite again (w/Raja's AI3 Cleaner handy). Don't mind FanXpert too much, but man, the rest of AiSuite is just complete utter garbage.


EDIT: Well fuck that. New AiSuite III installer kept hanging at install, w/dozens of COM errors flashing up so fast I couldn't read them. Finally got it re-installed, and booted to an AiSuite crash.. and how nice, they installed Java for me! Uninstalled, and literally dozens more app and COM errors before it finished (launch permissions per Event Viewer), and to kick it off, it hung Windows during the reboot. Ran the AI3 Cleaner, all better. Seriously, WTF is wrong with these guys :mad:
 
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CHANG3D said:
Umm... get a good receiver... reason why I don't understand why people use a DAC and amplifier with a SFF PC. And you either didn't finish reading or just didn't quote me on external audio USB devices from Creative...

For your mobile device, yes, I understand that.
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A reciever? that's at least twice the size of the whole computer itself----likely more? Yeah, that totally defeats the point for a lot of people.

Sure, in a home theater setup, that makes sense. But not for the guy going to lan parties/friend's houses/living in a dorm/etc.

Also, people laughing about why Asus included VGA clearly have not been to many LAN parties or otherwise haven't taken their computer out of their house, away from all of your own gear.
 
If you have time to wait, the Asus Impact VII (August) or the ASRock Z97E-ITX/ac (now) might be good choices, with decent sound chips + OP-amp for headphone amplification. For LAN-parties, that's amazing, even at home I'm impressed with my ASRock Z87E-ITX which has about the same setup.
 
The Asus ROG Impact VII (Z97) doesn't, according to the specs. It uses PCIe 2.0 ports, which are the secondary PCIe lanes meant for LAN, audio, SATA, etc.
 
AFD said:
Think the ASUS boards are Plus < Deluxe/Pro < ROG.

The only secondary feature the Z97i-Plus has over the Z87i-Deluxe is the new "allow fan stop" feature.
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I know I'm replying to a post that is a few days old but I wanted to point out that they DOWNGRADED audio chips moving from one generation to the other.

I hope this links works since I could only find an open box Z87i-Deluxe: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=-1&IsNodeId=1&Description=asus%201150%20mini-itx&bop=And&CompareItemList=-1|13-132-122^13-132-122-TS%2C13-132-028R^13-132-028-Z01&percm=13-132-122%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24%3B13-132-028R%3A%24%24%24%24%24%24%24

Note that they went from a Realtek ALC1150 (Z87I-DELUXE) down to a Realtek ALC892 (Z97I-PLUS) which I consider a rather significant change.
 
kuhla said:
I know I'm replying to a post that is a few days old but I wanted to point out that they DOWNGRADED audio chips moving from one generation to the other.

Note that they went from a Realtek ALC1150 (Z87I-DELUXE) down to a Realtek ALC892 (Z97I-PLUS) which I consider a rather significant change.
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Yes, going from an ASUS Z87i-Deluxe to an ASUS Z97i-Plus is a downgrade imo.. that's why I ranked an ASUS Deluxe better than their Plus (regardless of chipset).

A true upgrade to the Z87i-Deluxe/Pro would be the Z97i-Deluxe/Pro (not even announced yet), or one of the ROG ITX boards (Z87 is out, Z97 is announced and coming soon).
 
AFD said:
Yes, going from an ASUS Z87i-Deluxe to an ASUS Z97i-Plus is a downgrade imo.. that's why I ranked an ASUS Deluxe better than their Plus (regardless of chipset).

A true upgrade to the Z87i-Deluxe/Pro would be the Z97i-Deluxe/Pro (not even announced yet), or one of the ROG ITX boards (Z87 is out, Z97 is announced and coming soon).
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Fair enough. There is no Z97i-Deluxe right now though. It's just ROG or Plus if someone wants Asus Z97 ITX. Either way, plus/deluxe is a dumb style branding imho, leads to a lot of confusion without having the spec sheets side by side. At least with ROG you know it's pretty much their top-of-the-line. I know I have posted this point before but ALC892 is a deal-breaker for me. I found ALC898 that I have now to be a huge upgrade from 892 I had previously and 1150 is supposed to be another rather large upgrade (at least on paper).
 
ASUS just released a new BIOS today (7/3/2014) for the Z97I-PLUS that allows for M.2 boot support of the XP941.

I just installed it and the BIOS can see the XP941 in AHCI mode now. :D
 
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