Asus Maxius VII Ranger. Asus introduced the Republic of Garners moniker back in 2006 with the Crosshair motherboard, which was a Ferrari in the Fiat range. Ever since then, ROG products have been supremely engineered with the very best components and were usually the first with new Asus innovations. As a result of their especially robust engineering, ROG boards were favoured by competitive overclockers, and Asus moved to leverage that by including more and more 0C-friendly features in ROG boards - from multiple thermal and voltage sensor points to LN2 support.
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| Asus Maxius VII Ranger |
This all served to add increased cost and complexity to ROG boards with each year's new models. Asus was waging a largely marketing-driven battle against Gigabyte to be the overlocker's board of choice, and leverage the perception of quality to help sell products more relevant to regular users.
Asus had boxed itself into a corner. ROG boards were expensive to R&D, expensive to manufacture, and expensive to buy. Now, finally, the company is cashing in on all that effort with the new Ranger motherboard, which is a genuine ROG-class board, but with dollars saved in areas that, Asus say, won't impact performance - unless you're a competitive overclocker, but even then the difference is marginal. This includes using plastic for component covers when metal would have been used previously.
What isn't skimped is the quality components used in more premium ROG boards, and that includes the newest revisions rolled out for the rest of the Asus Z97 chipset range. The Ranger features higher quality capacitors - an essential ingredient in a performance motherboard - as well as improved electrostatic protection covering the P52, USB, audio and LAN ports. The ports themselves are encased in stainless steel, with Asus claiming three times the usual lifespan for these items as a result. The rear port cover is also plated with black nickel, which is a concession mainly to aesthetics.
Another 2014 ROG features that made it onto the Ranger is the new KeyBot function. This allows a variety of smart keyboard functions that can be used with any old non-smart keyboard, all controlled with a dedicated IC on the motherboard. They include macro creation and control, keyboard shortcuts and a `Smart Login' feature which stores your Windows login and password to a single keypress macro. There are obvious security risks with this but it's up to the user top decide whether to use it.
Onboard network bandwidth shaping makes an appearance, thanks in large part to the new Intel chipset, which Asus claims to have tweaked. A set of network profiles can be applied for game, media streaming or, interestingly, file sharing. There's also a default general purpose setting. Effectively it's QoS on a motherboard. The LAN port itself is now better shielded against static electricity and lightning strikes. More shielding appears around the audio circuitry, which is fenced off in its own area of the motherboard as indicated by a very cool red illuminated trace line, which, unfortunately, will mostly disappear from view as soon as a graphics card is installed.
Audio is a strong suite in the 2014 Asus range, and the Ranger has the same chip and software as the rest. It's an updated version of the now established SupremeFX audio solution, which is built upon a Realtek chip. The software functions include a range of EQ settings as well as Asus' Sonic Radar H - an OSD that shows the location of sounds in a game, like gunshots. We think that's cheating, but the game community seems to have accepted it.
More impressive is a dedicated 'SonicSense Amp' that acts as a dedicated headphone amplifier - but is also able to detect the correct impedance setting for your particular model of cans. That's a genuinely useful function as mismatched headphones and headphone amps can seriously impact audio quality.
The Ranger is a very interesting arrival on the motherboard landscape, and should appeal to those to whom a motherboard should be a budget component. As of a couple of years ago we stopped benchtesting motherboards in the PC&TA Labs (apart from when we do major group tests) because the performance difference was becoming so slim it was largely irrelevant. Instead, the focus has shifted to features and the quality of the components, and hence, reliability, and here the Ranger presents a most compelling option for any type of system bar the most budget oriented. Ben Mansill
