Layout

The Sabertooth Z97 Mark S comes in the typical military look, which ASUS provides their TUF series motherboards with. Nevertheless, in this case ASUS has decided to paint the entire PCB and and the Thermal Shield received a white camouflage design. Overall the looks of this board are simply stunning. As with the predecessors it's again ASUS's target to achieve a look that automatically suggests that this is a high quality and "tough" product. For that purpose some of the cooling blocks have been made from ceramic. Altogether ASUS succeeded in creating a beautiful looking motherboard.

ASUS provided their latest TUF-series motherboard with a digital power design, whereas the CPU gets eight phases and the memory gets two phases. Looking at the capacitors themselves you'll find Black Metallic Chokes, which offer excellent life durability. Other than that ASUS makes use of phases, which can take care of higher amperage than what you got from the predecessor. Also on another note: ASUS uses the same capacitors on their ROG motherboards.

Totally you'll find four DIMM-slots on the ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark S. Officially supported are DDR3 1866(OC) / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 MHz. There is engough space between the DIMM-slots and the CPU socket which means that you wont encounter compatibility problems with big coolers even when you choose to install RAM with big heatspreaders. Also supported are Xtreme Memory Profiles (XMP) in version 1.3.

The current converters are being held at adequate temperatures via a passive heatpipe cooling solution. There are two separate cooling blocks covering the area, which are connected via a heatpipe. The southbridge got a cooling block too, which has not been integrated into the heatpipe loop of the VRM. The fact that the cooling blocks around the CPU socket aren't too big, makes it comfortable to install a big aircooler. We also noticed the very high manufacturing quality of the cooling blocks.