When Haswell replaced Ivy Bridge final year it came accompanied by Intel's 8-serial chipset. Codenamed 'Lynx Point', the Z87 flagship offered broader SATA 6Gb/s support, more USB 3.0 ports, and did so while consuming about 40% less ability.

It had been expected that the Z87 chipset would run into the Haswell range out, but this June delivered a Haswell refresh and along with some rebadged CPUs we got the new 9-serial chipset and a successor to the Z87. Codenamed 'Wildcat Bespeak', the new Z97 was virtually identical to its predecessor with a few exceptions.

The most noteworthy modify was back up for future Broadwell CPUs, which should arrive during the coming holiday shopping menstruum. In addition to compatibility with future processors, the Z97 brought SATA Express as well as the Chiliad.2 socket (briefly known every bit NGFF or the next generation class factor subsequently mSATA).

M.2 is a specification for internally mounted storage and add-in cards. First designed for mobile devices, the M.2 interface has constitute its mode into desktops and the new Z97 and H97 chipsets accept played a big office in speeding up its adoption as a replacement for mSATA, which uses the PCI Express Mini Card physical layout.

Having a smaller and more flexible specification together with more advanced features, the M.2 is better suited for solid-land storage applications in general, especially when used in small devices like ultrabooks or tablets.

SATA Express is less promising in our opinion every bit it doesn't currently have supporting SSD devices. Whereas the M.two socket is typically shared with one SATA 6Gb/south port, the SATA Express interface takes 2 SATA 6Gb/south ports and requires a 3rd smaller port which deals with PCI-Limited based communications.

With over 90 motherboards bachelor right now using the Z97 chipset, picking the right ane can be a difficult decision. Hoping to narrow the search down, we have taken seven pop boards and compared them in merely about every way possible.

We've included a total of seven boards from Asus, Asrock, EVGA Gigabyte and MSI in this roundup. Bank check out the comparisson table below for a quick glance at the features offered by each or skip to the corresponding folio for a more detailed rundown.

Asus Z97-
Deluxe		 MSI Z97
Mpower Max Air-conditioning		 Asrock Z97 Extreme9 Asus Z97-Pro WiFi/AC Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H-BK EVGA Z97
FTW		 Asrock Z97 Extreme6
Price $275 $250 $240 $210 $200 $170 $165
Dual PCIe x16 x8 / x8 x8 / x8 x16 / x16 x8 / x8 x16 / x8 x8 / x8 x8 / x8
Triple PCIe x16 x16 / x8 / x4 x8 / x4 / x4 x8 / x8 / x16 x16 / x8 / x4 x16 / x8 / x4 x8 / x4 / x4 x8 / x8 / x2
Quad PCIe x16 No Support No Support x8 / x8 / x8 / x8 No Support No Support x8 / x4 / x4 / x1 No Back up
mini-PCI Express Slot No Support No Back up x1 No Back up No Support No Support x1
SATA 6Gb/s x6 x8 x10 x6 x8 x8 x10
SATA Express x2 No Support x2 x1 x1 No Back up x1
M.2 ane 10 Thou.2 (NGFF) 1 x Yard.two (NGFF) ane 10 M.2 (NGFF)
1 ten Ultra M.2 Gen3 x4		 i 10 M.2 (NGFF) 1 x M.2 (NGFF) No Back up one x M.2 (NGFF)
1 10 Ultra K.2 Gen3 x4
M.ii Supported Length 60 and 80mm 42, 60 and 80mm 30, 42, 60, 80 and 110 mm sixty and 80mm 42, 60 and 80mm No Support 30, 42, 60, 80 and 110 mm
eSATA No Back up No Support x1 No Back up No Support No Support x1
Storage Interfaces 9 9 15 eight x 8 14
Maximum Usable 7 8 12 7 8 8 12
Audio Realtek ALC1150 Realtek ALC1150 Realtek ALC1150 Realtek ALC1150 Realtek ALC1150 Realtek ALC898 Realtek ALC1150
Network Dual Gigabit LAN
Intel I218V & Intel I211AT		 Unmarried Gigabit LAN
Intel I218V		 Dual Gigabit LAN
Intel I218V & Intel I211AT		 Single Gigabit LAN
Intel I218V		 Dual Gigabit LAN
Intel I217V & Killer E2201		 Single Gigabit LAN
Intel I217		 Dual Gigabit LAN
Intel I218V & Realtek RTL8111GR
WiFi Wi-Fi 802.11ac + Bluetooth 4.0 Wi-Fi 802.11ac + Bluetooth iv.0 No Support Wi-Fi 802.11ac + Bluetooth iv.0 No Support No Support No Support
USB 3.0 x10 (6 rear/iv onboard) x12 (8 rear/iv onboard) x8 (4 rear/four onboard) x8 (4 rear/4 onboard) x8 (6 rear/2 onboard) x6 (4 rear/2 onboard) x10 (half-dozen rear/four onboard)
ThunderBolt No Support No Support No Back up No Back up No Support No Back up No Support
Display Outputs DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI HDMI, DisplayPort HDMI, DisplayPort HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA, HDMI HDMI, VGA, DVI HDMI, DisplayPort HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI
Form Factor ATX 305 x 244mm ATX 305 10 244mm ATX 305 x 244mm ATX 305 x 244mm ATX 305 x 244mm ATX 305 x 244mm ATX 305 x 244mm