in 2020 Asus and I usually call it aZeus (because you can now buy the god of thunder on a motherboard) but you guys are telling me look
Bryan you've got to get with the times it's Asus and they have sent in two
motherboards here the top gaming Z490 plus Wi-Fi which is coming in at $200
USD and includes at this price point 14 phases but we'll get onto that soon as
OOOs like to call it 14 power stages but it's also coming in with an option to
not have the Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 on it for 20 dollars cheaper 180 then we've
got the Maximus 7 formula which is pretty much a hybrid between people who
want the latest and greatest highest end motherboard and also potentially want to
put water cooling on not just their CPU but also their motherboards vrm where
they're using what they call a cross chill design where EK have given the
option to insert water cooling if you want to cool that VR em down and coming
at a half a thousand dollars this thing definitely better perform for the money
and if there's anything wrong with these boards I'm gonna let you know in today's
review but without a side let's go through the vrm details the most
important part of any motherboard with the tough gaming Wi-Fi where as a 12
plus two-stage design here using vishay si c63 9 50 amp solutions on the MOSFETs
and then for the chokes we've got 45 amp chokes and then we've got 5 K capacitors
and the PWM controller is the asp 1 9 0 0 b and all that leads us to the testing
now with this vr m and i use a 10 900k and out of the box this thing was
boosting up to 4.9 gigahertz all cause the temperatures were absolutely fine
here coming in with 36 degrees on the heatsink and 50 degrees on the vrm
itself though keep in mind this was in 19 degree ambience and I am used to
testing in 22 degree a minutes so I will Delta adjust these for the graph and
then once we started overclocking the 10900 K it did fall a hundred megahertz
shy of what I'm used to getting with this ten nine hundred K and that's 5.2
gigas this could only take it up to five point one gigahertz no matter how much
extra voltage I gave it it just would not respond it and will crash out so the
V R M is D and the temperatures are very good
coming in with 48 degrees on the heating and 78 degrees on the vrm but we will a
delta adjust them again just mainly because if you watch a heap of my other
z4 90 motherboard reviews then that way you'll get an apples to apples
comparison but for what it's worth the power consumption was absolutely fine
testing out a hundred ninety five watts on the ten nine hundred k out of the box
which is very high but that's normal for this ten core at four point nine key
gets all core when we did take it a five point one gigahertz it did start to ramp
up roughly around 250 watts and that is pretty high again but if you want to
overclock this thing it will start using a lot more power though that being said
out of the box there is one critiquing point with the tough gaming Wi-Fi and
that is out of the box with the bios automatic settings even if you lock in
XMP profiles i found even after a BIOS update that I had to change the auto
optimizer Zeus setting down to the unrestricted limit setting and that then
enabled us to get the results that we've got in these graphs here because if you
leave it on the auto optimize setting it did drop the CPU down to 125 watts power
usage and with that unfortunately it dropped the CPU down to 4.4 gigahertz
all core so I'd like to see a sous optimize that with another BIOS update
and fix that little problem I came in to of course it's easy to fix if you've got
this board then you just go into the BIOS and change it to the third setting
and you can lock in your XMP profiles and you get really good performance off
this motherboard there continuing on with the tough gaming Wi-Fi and it's
onboard audio they're using the realtek 1200 DAC here and this has a -3 decibel
roll-off on 0 to 10 Hertz and then from I found the higher frequencies and
onwards there was a very slight bit of shake there but the crosstalk was also
really good at - 89 decibels the mic input did show that this is best suited
at a volume level of 50 plus 30 dB so the onboard audio is decent I've
definitely seen better I've seen worse I mean the good points are about it that
the crosstalk is really good however the frequency response curve could use a
little bit of work having that slight shake in there
not the best option when I have seen cheaper boards come in with better
onboard audio here at the studio that the mic import it will do the job if you
are a gamer and you want to get a budget set of headphones there testing out
everything else on this motherboard the USB 3 speeds will find the one gigabit
per second Nick was also fine too and the m2 shield did a really good job of
cooling down the m2 and I was stress testing that an nvme drive and going
through the tough gaming Wi-Fi bias it's got everything there you would want and
then some especially if you're overclocking on air or water and you've
also got your cue fan control where you can individually control the five
different PWM fan headers on this board to the fan speeds you want you've also
got two 12-volt RGB head as one at the top and one at the bottom and then in
the middle of the board you have an addressable RGB controller which you can
in the bias turn the RGB on and off but you will have to install software if you
want to calibrate the RGB with different components on your system
the moving over now to the ROG Maximus 7 formula this here has an OLED display
which you can use to readout CPU temperatures and also put your own logo
on if you want that but it's also got RGB on the bottom which comes in a sort
of subtle styling which I will say is a really cool design but you would expect
this to be a design like this on a 500 USD board and the surface of this
motherboard has highly reflective bits coupled in with semi-gloss bits coupled
in with matte bits especially on the heatsink you do get a power and reset
button up at the top as well as a BIOS debug code readout as well to 12 volt
and also to 5 volt addressable RGB headers you've also got 8 PWM fan
headers which you can control just like the tough gaming in the bass itself now
quickly speaking about the BIOS it is absolutely fine I didn't come into any
problems when I was tuning the 10900 K on this board even leaving it on the
auto zeus optimized or changing it to the no limits we got the same results
here and also overclocking the memory 240 400 megahertz on both the tough
gaming and the Maximus formula presented no problems however moving over to the
VR m 16 power stages and this one definitely has a high quality vrm the
pedo and controller here is the asp one 4:05
and then for those MOSFETs we've got the Infineon TD a 2 1 4 7 2 7 TM MOSFETs and
then for the chokes they're using micro-fine 45 amp all alloy chokes and
then for the cap so we've got 10k Japanese made solid caps derivative the
temperatures here we had 49 degrees in software 52 degrees on the PCB and 34
degrees on the heatsink clocking that to 5.2 gigahertz which presented absolutely
no problems even on the auto settings and this is one good thing that I've
seen with the Maximus formula verse all the other z4 90 boards I've tested I
whacked in 5.2 gigahertz and this board did the rest on everything else and it
did so very well scoring 58 degrees in software on the vrm 62 degrees on the
PCB and 58 degrees on the heatsink so that heat sink is definitely starting to
soak up a lot of that heat and speaking of the heatsink itself it weighs 380
grams and on the tough side of things it's got 132 grams on the heatsink
that's mainly cooling the power stages that supply voltage to the CPU but in
total you get two different heats things on the tough gaming totalling 226 grams
so the vrm on the Maximus 7 formula is doing an extremely good job though I
will critique this is the only critique I have for the Maximus 7 formula and
that is the power consumption even though it's looking really good in
hardware info from the wall it is starting to juice a bit more power both
on the 4.9 and the 5.2 gigahertz and now what this gives me an indication of is
everything else on the board is juicing a bit of power so that OLED screen we've
got all that extra RGB lighting that is starting to add to your power
consumption as opposed to a board with none of these features on board but a
really good vrm that will give you the same effect but it will use less power
at both out-of-the-box settings and overclock settings there moving through
the audio on the Maximus 7 formula azuz call this the supreme FX solution and it
did do a supreme job on the numbers with the roll-off being only 1.7 decibels
from 0 to 10 Hertz and then the crosstalk was negative 91 decibels which
is a really good number right there at the top of the chart and for that
frequency response curve after that 10 Hertz that was pretty much flat
perfectly flat the whole way through and then for the
mic import you'd want to keep this at a level of 80 volume and plus 30 DB max
though keep in mind they're not using any noise suppression on this mic input
as opposed to the tough gaming solution so that means if you've got a good mic
that doesn't need a whole lot of power from a separate solution you could use
this for professional recordings they're going through some of the other features
here on the board the m2 heat shield does a very good job of cooling down
your mo to drive though testing out USB 3 speeds and also the NIC speeds they
were absolutely fine as those include a 10 G NIC and a 2.5 g NIC as well as
Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 now testing out the Wi-Fi 6 signal that was I have seen
stronger here in the studio but it is doing a pretty good job I mean this is
going through 20 centimeter thick concrete to my router upstairs and it's
still giving out a three signal sign which is doing a good job but as for m2
temperatures they were also really good and one thing I will point out is I do
like how they've got the readout here on this board to tell you what
compatibility that m2 slot will support whether it's nvme or solder itself
though that being said the last feature to go through here is the input and
output and the tough gaming has only on the back 6 USB ports and one of those
being a Type C and then you've got your display in HDMI outs then your Wi-Fi 6
connections that you get at the antenna included in the box then you've got 5.1
manual and optical out so if anything I would like to see two more USB ports
you'll also need to install your own IO shield as opposed to the Maximus 7
formula here which has a phenomenal input/output design with your BIOS
flashback in the nuclear CMOS buttons at the top followed by a healthy 10 USB
ports one of those being a Type C and then you get 10 and 2.5 g NICs ps2
support combo if you want to hook up a ps2 mouse or keyboard your Wi-Fi six
connections 5.1 manual out and your optical output as well and the i/o
shield is integrated into the motherboard and with all that out of the
way it's now time for a conclusion and of course the big question
you will want answered is are these boards worth the money and the first one
we're going to start off here with is the tough gaming plus
and this has the Wi-Fi so if you need the Wi-Fi 6 in the Bluetooth 5 then that
extra $20 over the tough gaming non Wi-Fi is a no-brainer in my opinion but
at $180 for just the board without the Wi-Fi it is giving some really good
value in the Z 490 realm especially since it could handle a 10 900k both out
of the box absolutely fine but even overclocked and the vrm temperatures
were really good of course they haven't used the best of the best components and
you can't expect them to at this budget and so that only enables it to take a 10
900k to 5.1 gigahertz there that being said everything else checked out on this
motherboard except that BIOS setting which if you get this board you will
want to change that in my opinion the onboard audio was decent the m-dot to
shield worked fine memory overclocks were fine on this board so overall
they've done a really good job of offering a good value board for Z 490
mainstream and lastly what about the formula the 500 USD monster in Australia
it is 999 ozzie so we would like to see the Aussie pricing come down but with
that said if you're after the best of the best for a motherboard you want the
best overclock so you want to add water and you want that vrm giving you the
best results supplying voltage to that CPU you want really good onboard audio
tangi nic Wi-Fi six all the bells and whistles and even an OLED screen on your
motherboard then this is going to be one to get it passed all the tests here
there was really nothing wrong with this board except for the extra power
consumption for the RGB the OLED screen the debug light and also all the extra
sensors on board but I'm sure you're going to want that if you want the best
of the best of the best of the best of the best
motherboard out there for z4 90s so overall these two boards here in today's
review as zeus have done a really good job I couldn't find anything glaringly
wrong with these motherboards and without a sight if you guys enjoyed
today's double review then be sure to hit that like button for us and let us
know in the comments section below what you think of
in 2020 love reading your thoughts and opinions just like this question of the
day here which comes from marshmallow wolf and they ask you never really
explained why 18 amps in 12 volt was a bad thing but 37 emp'd and 12 volt is a
good thing what is a good number to look for what's the relationship between them
in terms of power supplies so basically the relationship between those two is
the wattage the power supply can put out and a good number to look for would be
around at least 37 MP and higher if you are building a gaming PC with a decent
graphics card but the 18 amps and 12 volt isn't always a bad thing it's not
always a bad thing it's just most of the time especially on power supplies from
brands you've never heard of before it is a bad thing because they don't put
good components in and that's why the amp rating is very low however that
being said if you've got a delta in a small business form-factor power supply
that can actually be a decent power supply it's just not rated to go and
power a gaming computer with higher wattage requirements anyway hope that
answers that question and I'll catch you guys in another tech video very soon if
you've stayed this far and you're enjoying that content and you want to
see at the moment it drops be sure to hit that sub button and ring that Bell
on the way out and I'll catch you in the next one very soon peace out for now bye
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