Intel Pentium G3258 20th Anniversary Review with Asus ROG Z97 Ranger

Test Motherboard

Whilst we’re discussing what great value for money the G3258 Pentium is, it’s worth taking a moment to look at the Maximus VII Ranger, which is the motherboard we’re testing on today.

Normally we run all of our benchmarks on identical test setups to ensure the most comparable results, but when the CPU is only £50 it seems crazy not to use the cheapest ROG motherboard yet, the £125 Maximus VII Ranger.

       

One would imagine that for such a low price, whilst keeping the premium ROG branding, the Ranger is bound to be a bit of a minger, or perhaps ASUS have done a slash and burn job on the features. Not so at all. Everything we loved about the Hero is still here. Great looks, as anyone would expect from the red and black colour scheme. The excellent Intel GameFirst III LAN. It even has the ASUS SupremeFX audio which includes the Sonic Radar, ensuring that you can pinpoint a gunshot no matter what the situation.

With plenty of SATA ports, two PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots and 13 total USB ports, this really does tick all the boxes despite it’s bargain basement price point.