Network
Going into my network testing on the Impact I was a little concerned. When I tested the Z87-A I did run into some slowdowns. Between then and now I had the chance to look into the issue more and what I found was that this issue was specific to the Trendnet switch that we use in the office, other Trendnet models as well as other manufactures didn’t have the problem. That said, when doing the Impact testing I did the testing using the same model switch as with all of our other boards. This time around though the Intel NIC on the Impact performed flawlessly. In fact if you look it came out near the top of all of the Z97 boards tested. Add to that Asus also gives you the option to prioritize gaming traffic on your NIC you shouldn’t have to worry about slowdowns in game or even with file transfers over the network, both things that are important at LANs.
Motherboard |
Average Network Speed |
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 |
820.0 |
Asus Z97-A |
678.1 |
MSI Z97I Gaming AC |
886.1 |
MSI B85M Gaming |
935.2 |
MSI Z97M Gaming |
902.6 |
MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC |
860.5 |
Asus Maximus VII Impact |
927.8 |