ASUS Z97-A (LGA 1150) Motherboard Review

Software Overview

Home Screen

Moving into the software and as we mentioned the new focus is the Turbo App, the fifth pillar of the ASUS optimisations – in addition to TPU, EPU, Fan Xpert III and DIGI+ VRM.

Turbo App

Within the Turbo App you can pick your Applications (exe files) and set performance, audio and LAN profiles for them. For example you might pick Battlefield 4 and set a profile that gives it high LAN priority, a gaming audio profile and a CPU turbo.

TPU

With the TPU not much has changed although we’ve got a redesigned interface and the ability to tune each core individually which is pretty cool. This is useful for applications that are single threaded.

Fan Xpert III

Fan Xpert II has become III and it offers an extended fan tuning range to allow you to get even quieter operation. As usual there is an automated fan tuning wizard that gives you full control once it has calculated the capabilities of each fan.

EPU

The EPU has been given a little facelift and you can now integrate the Windows power plan controls into your EPU settings allowing you to control when the monitor gets turned off, when the system sleeps in addition to the other EPU controls on things like the CPU clock speed and hard drive activity.

DIGI+ VRM

The DIGI+ VRM now allows you to pick your CPU Power Phase control from within your OS which paves the way for better in-OS overclocking too.

USB 3.0 Boost

USB 3.0 Boost makes another appearance but their isn’t much that appears to have changed here. The main benefit here is still from having a UASP capable USB 3.0 device.

Turbo LAN

Turbo LAN is a joint ASUS-CFOS project that allows you to packet prioritise your applications.