The Z97 motherboards have launched ahead of the CPUs. So what’s new about Z97 vs Z87?
CPU Support
Z97 will support the new Haswell refresh processors launched next week, however we’d advise waiting for the top of the line “Devil’s Canyon” parts in early which are supposed to feature a better TIM connection to the IHS meaning more overclocking headroom. Power density may still mean that over clocking will be thermally limited however. Broadwell should also be supported by Z97 and will launch after Devil’s Canyon but probably before the X99 chipset and socket 2011-3 based Haswell E cpus.
The older Z87 motherboards will however still support the Haswell refresh with a bios update and ROG have already readied new bioses in preparation for launch.
It is not clear if Devil’s Canyon will be supported by Z87 but most rumors lean towards not being support. Broadwell however is expected to *not* be compatible with Z87 despite the same 1150 socket.
Sata Express and M.2
Sata Express is an advancement of the Sata standard that increases bandwidth by providing a pure pci express lane connection to the end drive. Current SSDs are in some cases maxing out the current 6GBPS standard and so this is a natural progression. The Intel Z97 chipset was supposed to support this as standard however as schedules slipped it was canned in Q4. However many motherboards will feature Sata Express support by using a non Intel controller (usually Asmedia). Legacy Sata AHCI modes will be supported by Sata Express so you can still use your old drive.
M.2 is the matching small form factor for Sata Express and was already available on some Z87 boards (though it did not support sata express). M.2 ssd drives are also available already though again they are currently using legacy sata modes rather than the new sata Express. Expect all new Sata Express SSDs in both normal connector and M.2 format soon!
So really all this tells us is that you might be better off waiting. We aren’t expecting much on the mainstream front until skylake launches in Q4 of next year with the 100 series chipset and most importantly ddr4 and by then sata express should be settled and new SSDs will be ready too.
Motherboard Roundup
So let’s take a look at what high end Z97 boards are available starting alphabetically with Asrock:
Asrock
Asrock used to be a very price competitive option. You usually got a high end board for substantially less than Asus. However what brought them popularity because of their prices also caused them to raise their prices and so their Z87 boards were less popular with those who hadn’t become fanboys. As Gigabyte and asus moved away from the blue theme, they decided to jump on that while keeping the red themed ‘fatality’ branded gaming boards and the yellow themed overclocking boards. So let’s start with the high end:
Like the Z87 board this features quad sli/cfx support, overclocking buttons and a beefy vrm. Sadly though if you’re running quad gpus you won’t be able to get to your overclocking buttons which are down by the 4th slot. Weird placement. Because of that I wouldn’t bother with this one unless you want that yellow theme.
The Fatality branded boards have two versions – the x version is the higher end and features normal placed sata connections unlike the stupidly placed ones on the regular board:
Although you don’t get quad GPUs you do get a power connector for the pcie slots if you are running high power cards such as 2 R9-295×2. The M.2 slot has a lot of clearance for a long ssd also which is nice. I still hate the fatality branding, but it’s finally getting more tasteful!
The mainstream boards so far consist of the extreme 4 and 6. The 4 looks like it has the same decent VRMs as the 6 and still has an M.2 slot so seems like good value for money. The 6 on the other hand has 2 M.2 and a mini pcie (although that clashes with the 2nd M.2 slot):
This then is by far the most interesting of the boards. Lastly we have the mini ITX:
This one disappoints a little. No upgraded sound, awkward 8 pin placement, no M.2 slot although there is still sata express at least. It is at least better than the MSI ITX though. Again unless you need to buy now or on a budget, we’d wait to see the impact board.
Asus
Asus have their regular product line and their more gaming and overclocking orientated ROG line. Let’s start with ROG…
The Maximus VII Extreme, Formula and Impact have not been pictured yet- usually ROG launch their top end boards a bit late once they’ve ironed out the kinks so that reviews are good! We expect the Extreme to feature quad sli/cfx support through the use a PLX lane splitter as the VI did. The formula and impact will probably be almost identically featured to the VI version but with the chipset change and Sata Express support.
We did get to see the M7 Gene (mATX) board:
As usual a decently sexy and full featured board from the ROG team.
The confusing part however was the launch of the Ranger board – essentially it’s the Hero with 2 more sata ports and a bit better VRM:
This is confusing because the price difference will be small and there’s just no need to separate the products. The hero made sense as a low end ROG board as the Formula was still quite pricey, but there is no point to buy the Ranger, either spend less because you don’t care about features or spend more and get a Formula or Extreme with more features. Here’s the Hero for comparison:
So how about regular Asus – well there are a ton so let’s focus on the top ones:
First off is the WS board – WS stands for workstation so don’t think this board is boring as it can handle your quad GPU needs as it uses a PLX lane splitter:
Sadly the old blue/silver theme of the old WS boards has gone. The other Asus boards match – here is the top of the line non-ws deluxe:
There is also an option for a Thunderbolt add on card:
Seeing as the impact is not out here’s the ITX offering:
Now if those two full product ranges weren’t enough, Asus also have their “TUF” range for people who can’t spell. There are three models – the full atx mark 1 and 2:
And the gryphon matx version:
Nothing special here, people only buy seem to buy these boards for the color scheme or the stupid “thermal” armor which can at least be easily painted to match your build theme.
EVGA
EVGA launched three boards – one thing we do like is the IO cover – Asus could learn from this, however the hints of brown really let the otherwise carefully thought out color scheme.
First up is the Classy:
As befits a top of the line board it can handle quad GPUs thanks to a PLX lane splitter. There are some nice touches here – EVGA have kept the rotated 20 pin connector and rotaated more of the other connectors. There’s also the usual power/reset and debug LEDs as well as probe points for measuring voltages during overclocking. Overall a nice looking board with almost everything you might want except for it lacking Sata Express (it does still have a M.2 slot though). Priced at $380 we expect it to offer a good benching platform for those who can’t wait.
Next up is the value proposition – the Z97 FTW
Although this looks like it can support quad gpus the price ($200) gives away that it doesn’t feature a PLX lane splitter and therefore doesn’t support Quad CFX or Quad SLI (unless you get a 2x dual gpu cards of course).
And for the ITX crowd- the Stinger Core 3D:
The longer name reflects the premium sound featured. However the VRM design is still not challenging what we expect the Impact to deliver. If you want a no compromises ITX board we’d suggest you wait. However if you want something pretty with only what you probably need then this will do the job.
Gigabyte
Gigabyte have carried over their Orange and Black theme for their OC board – except now it’s called Z97X-SOC Force. This is pretty hilarious because I’m not sure what it has to do with socks, unless your socks are black and orange.
Quad GPUs are suppported so we expect this to run around $400. As usual gigabyte have a ton of push button switches to manually tweak the OC on the fly while you bench. Like the other OC boards this will most make quite a few benchers happy. For those who don’t like to bench Gigabyte provide the G1 Gaming – moving to the popular red/black rather than the old green/black seems a shame though – why follow the herd:
Seems a bit ugly to me, but it does have sata express, m.2 and quad pci slots so we expect this to be awesome and expensive even though it is ugly.
Lastly there is the high end of the low end boards – the UD7:
Bizarrely now with a yellow theme, the board is very heavily featured with both thunderbolt and sata express, the only thing its lacking is quad GPU support.
MSI
MSI have kept their succesful product split into their dragon themed gaming series and yellow mpower overclocking series.
The Gaming series consists of three full size atx boards – the gaming 3, 7 and 9. The 9 is the 7 plus a Killer NIC, Wifi and a M.2 slot. The 3 is a budget board with weaker VRMs and different slots. We are surprised that none of the gaming series support quad SLI/CFX. Here’s the 9:
Nicely it has the IO cover like the EVGA boards, sadly this is the only one that does. The ITX has a very unusual component placement as the CPU has shifted below the south bridge:
This could definitely cause come cpu cooler interference problems.
The last board from MSI is the Mpower. The yellow and black theme has got a bit more in your face this time and it feels less classy now. Still no quad GPU support, we expect that to come on the Xpower based on Z87 that should arrive later:
So what should you buy?
Well to be honest unless you want ITX we’d hold out and see what X99 brings. Haswell refresh will be pretty snore, Devil’s canyon won’t be anymore exciting than delidding your regular haswell and broadwell is mainly a die shrink. Skylake will be interesting for the mainstream but thats still 18 months away.
But if you’re set on Z97 and do not want to wait
For ITX – the EVGA would be my choice today, but I’d strongly advise waiting for the impact as it will most likely…. make an impact.
For benching – The gigabyte socks board isn’t available today, which would be my first choice out of what we’ve seen, so by default the classified would be my choice if you can’t wait. We expect the Maximus VII Extreme to also be a great option though as we haven’t seen it it’s somewhat hard to comment.
For a “budget” enthusiast build – I would personally go with the maximus vi hero as it ticks all the right boxes.
For Quad GPU extreme builds – well if you’re impatient I guess the classified again wins this just by being available, but again EVGA’s early bioses usually need some work and waiting for something like the Max VII Extreme or G1 Gaming to release might be a better option.
I really expected more IO plate covers this time and was surprised that only EVGA and MSI got the memo!
