Whether or not you like the gold PWM heatsink will really depend on your tastes, but its style is certainly suitable. There’s not too much to see in this corner of the board except for the socket – and we’re all quite aware of what those look like. I do wish the CMOS battery was located a bit lower on the board so that you wouldn’t have to remove a GPU in order to get at it, but nowadays, chances of you needing to remove that is rather rare. And if you do have to, another option is to apply a jumper to the CLRTC header towards the bottom-right of the board. Moving along to the bottom-left, we find 3x PCIe x16 slots (usable as x8+x8 in dual-GPU or x8+x4+x4 in tri-GPU), and four PCIe x1 slots. This is one of the more hidden – but neatest – new features to ASUS’ Z87 lineup. Should you want your reset button to always result in a quick boot-to-EFI, you’re able to apply a jumper to the “DRCT” header directly above the chassis connectors to take care of that. The use here for overclockers is obvious, though it can also have use for the regular folk, too. I mentioned a “DirectKey” button – but what is it? Pushing it will immediately reset your PC and boot straight into the EFI, saving a bit of time. For the rest, two more headers are made available to the right of the DIMM slots (one is center, and one just below), and lastly, one is situated next to the USB headers and chassis connectors.Īlso seen in this image is the single USB 3.0 header to the bottom-right of the DIMM slots, the chassis connectors at the absolute bottom-right of the board (a preference of mine), four internal USB 2.0 headers, an onboard power switch at the bottom, an LED error code screen (another big plus), and the 8-pin power connector situated horizontally at the top – yet another preference, given it tends to be easier to route your cable in behind the motherboard tray when it’s in this position and not too far into the board.Ĭontinuing on, let’s take a brief look at all of the areas of the board.įirst up, the top-right of the board, where the 4x DIMM slots can be found (again, supporting up to 32GB of RAM DDR3-3000 speeds), the two fan headers, the single USB 3.0 internal header, and also the MemOK! button (helps with booting if incompatible memory is installed – a rarer case nowadays).Īt the bottom-right corner, from left-to-right, we have a power button, EFI error code readout, BIOS Flashback button, DirectKey button, 4x USB 2.0 headers, the lone bottom fan header, the chassis connectors, and above that, TPU and EPU modifier switches. This takes care of your CPU and back chassis fans. In the case of this EXPERT board, there are six fan headers at the ready: Two can be found to the top-right of the socket, while another can be seen to the bottom-left. There’s been a recent trend where vendors have begun putting at least five headers on their mainstream and above boards, and that’s great to see. The first thing I scan a motherboard for once I tear it out of the box is the number of fan headers made available, and their locations. Since ASUS has availed us a nice high-res top-down view shot of its Z87-EXPERT, I thought we’d start out taking a look at it to gain an easier understanding of what we’re dealing with – especially with regards to where all of the notable connectors are located.
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