ASUS unveils its first Thunderbolt 2 motherboard, the Z87-Deluxe/Quad

Today, ASUS announced that it will support Intel's new Thunderbolt 2 technology and unveiled the first motherboard to feature the 20Gb/s interconnect. The Z87-Deluxe/Quad is a Z87-based motherboard that is compatible with Intel's fourth-generation Haswell processors. It boasts impressive features, including 10 SATA 3 6GB/s ports, eight USB 3.0 ports, and three PCIe-x16 slots.

"The Z87-Deluxe/Quad has been subjected to a tremendous amount of compatibility, BIOS, as well as video/audio and other tests to verify its quality and design," claimed Joe Hsieh, general manager for ASUS' motherboard division. "Being the world's first certified motherboard for Thunderbolt 2 technology also means setting the standard for all of the upcoming products, which is something that ASUS has always done."

Although the other specifications are cool, Thunderbolt 2 is what really sets this motherboard apart from the rest. The new interconnect standard works by combining two upstream and downstream channels of the original Thunderbolt standard into a pair of bidirectional channels that are both capable of running at 20Gb/s. The motherboard is able to support up to a total of up to 12 Thunderbolt devices, and the motherboard will be capable of supporting 3 4K ultrahigh definition displays from a single system by using the HDMI port with each of the two Thunderbolt 2 ports.