Motherboards - Page 24

If you're looking to add a little safety to your rig and already have a surge-protection power-board installed, Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer BIOSTAR are now offering built-in LAN surge protection for their whole product range.

They've added an integrated chip to strengthen the electrical stability of their newest motherboards, said to prevent any damage from lighting strikes and electrical surges. BIOSTAR is the first manufacturer of its kind to offer such a service, with this features official name being "SUPER LAN Surge Protection" as laid out in their recently issued press release.

All motherboard models released by BIOSTAR in 2015 and onwards will have this protection by default, set to reduce the risk of electrical surges blowing up your PC or components through random surges.

It looks like ASRock is about to unveil a true beast of a motherboard, in the form of the X99 WS-E/10G, which will feature no less than four Ethernet ports. Yes, four.

This will be the first time a consumer motherboard has shipped with four Ethernet ports, two of which are GbE (1Gbps) but the other two are 10GbE (10Gbps). All four Ethernet ports are Intel made, with the GbE ports being based on the Intel I210AT chip, while the two 10GbE ports are the X540-BT2 for some super-intensive, high-speed networking transfers. On top of that, all four of them can be bridged together for an absolutely insane amount of networking bandwidth, hitting 22Gbps.

ASRock hasn't just made the networking side of the X99 WS-E/10G impressive, as we also have two PLX 8747 bridge chips, allowing for up to seven PCIe 3.0 x16 slots. This means you can have full x16/x16/x16/x16 quad SLI or Crossfire. If you wanted to go single cards the whole way, you can do x16/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8/x8.

Hardware maker ASRock introduced the X99 WS-E/10G motherboard, the latest X99 enthusiast and workstation motherboard supporting Dual Intel X540 10GBase-T LAN, quad LAN, Windows Server OS, and supporting PCIe Gen3 video cards (4-way SLI or CrossFire X).

ASRock included support for LGA 2011-3 CPUs that range from 18 core 160W Xeon E5-16000/2600 V3 CPUs to unlocked Intel Core i7 CPUs. The X99 WS-E/10G also has eight DDR4 memory slots with support for UDIMM/RDIMM memory modules up to 128GB capacity. There are 12 SATA3 ports, 1 SATA Express 10Gb/s connector, 1 PCIe Gen2 x4 M.2 slot, a SATA DOM and a USB DOM.

The motherboard supports the Intel X540 Ethernet controller, with the single chip able to support dual 10G BASE-T LAN ports, significantly faster than regular gigabit LAN. 10GBase-T can be easily integrated, but the 10GBase-T Ethernet card is pricing, along with a higher level of power consumption.

We don't see many water-cooled motherboards, but here we are: the iGame Z97 motherboard is a concept board that shows off a beautiful, sleek motherboard, cooled with liquid.

The company is closer to releasing the board, with a release date that is still "unknown" for the iGame Z97 Ymir X - a confusing name, but it doesn't take anything away from its beauty. We have 16-phase IPP high-profile power, a silver and all-metal look, with a brushed surface. We have four DDR3 slots, three PCIe 3.0 16x slots, four PCIe 2.0 single-land slots, eight SATA 6Gbps ports, mSATA and mPCIe, HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort, Killer NIC E2200, four USB 3.0 ports, and more from the front header, 8-channel HD audio, and more.

GIGABYTE has teamed up with EK Water Blocks, where they have collaborated on making some water blocks exclusively for GIGABYTE's X99 range of motherboards. The new EK-FB KIT GA X99 water blocks can be slapped onto both the X99 chipset, and the motherboard's power-regulation circuitry.

GIGABYTE explains it a bit better: "The EK-FB KIT GA X99 is a complete water cooling solution, made with a base of nickel-plated electrolytic copper while the top is made of quality POM Acetal or acrylic glass material (depending on the variant). Tailor designed for GIGABYTE X99 series motherboards, the coolers consist of two separate water blocks; one water block directly cools the Intel X99 chip while the other takes care of the power regulation area. Not only do the water blocks look amazing and are quieter than an air cooling system, they are actually as efficient as the GIGABYTE factory cooling solution. The screw-in standoffs are already pre-installed and allow for easy and trouble-free installation by utilizing original motherboard back plates".

The competition between GIGABYTE and ASUS is as fierce as ever, but ASUS is set to lower the prices of its motherboards, and spend considerable amounts of money on furthering its marketing reach according to DigiTimes' industry sources.

ASUS has reportedly planned multiple promotions, where it will sell bundles with its GPUs and motherboards, hoping to gain thousands more consumers with its impressive line up of GPUs. DigiTimes' sources noted "GIGABYTE's motherboard and video card businesses are separate units and the two departments hardly cooperate over sales and marketing. Although GIGABYTE's motherboard business has been performing strongly recently, Asustek's new strategy is expected to impact GIGABYTE's motherboard business group".

Just how much is ASUS planning to spend on marketing? According to DigiTimes' sources, the Taiwanese manufacturer has already prepared between $32 million and $65 million to boost its marketing. The company is expecting to see its profits for 2014 drop because of this, but the marketing should gain more sales going into 2015. The sources continued "GIGABYTE had profits of NT$3-3.3 billion from the motherboard business in 2013. Although the company's shipments in 2014 are unlikely to achieve the targeted growth of one million units, profits in the year are expected to stay at around NT$3 billion because of the rising proportion of high-end models".

Reports pointed out that AMD is strengthening its partnership with Asustek Computer, one of the tier 1 manufacturer of many components. In this case, AMD is apparently pairing itself with Asustek to boost the sales of its AMD-based products.

In exchange, Asustek gets an exclusive price cut of AMD products. According to sources, AMD's desktop processor currently holds 30% of the desktop processor market. While by theory it looks favourable for AMD, the amount of success from this partnership is something that only time will prove. It is also pointed out that AMD will be using the word 'Zen' to name its next-generation desktop APU that will be coming out in 2016. Of course, the popularity of these hardware components can only stand out if the performance justifies the price against its competition. AMD doesn't have any new architecture for their FX series lineup at the moment, but have been concentrating on APUs.

Of course, that would also mean that it might create issues with other motherboard manufacturers. It's not clear the amount of 'special discount' or what special services that Asustek gets from AMD, or how this would benefit AMD once their upcoming APU is released. That will simply create a friction between AMD and motherboard manufacturers, while other manufacturers may even start to reduce AMD-based projects, which defeats the purpose of having a special alignment with a single tier-1 motherboard manufacturer.

BIOSTAR has announced that it has launched its new Hi-Fi Z97Z7 motherboard, which features "cutting-edge features and innovative durability enhancements". As you can probably tell, the new motherboard is based on Intel's new Z97 chipset, which provides the usual PCI-Express 3.0, PCIe M.2 support, and more. What makes this board stand out from the rest, though, is BIOSTAR's exclusive Super Hi-Fi Audio technology.

The motherboard itself is an ATX board, with four DDR3 slots, HDMI out, SATA Express, and of course: the Super Hi-Fi Audio which provides power regulation upgrades like Hi-Fi Power and Hi-Fi AMP. The HDMI output offers HDCP, paving the way for full video and Hi-Fi 7.1-channel Blu-ray audio support, even through the standard DVI port.

BIOSTAR has driven its durability and stability even higher, offering Super Durable Solid Caps, which the company explains "are the best quality solid state capacitors with ultra low ESR design, which doubles the lifespan. Another feature is 8-phase power design which gives unparalleled overclocking ability and the lowest temperature to reach maximum performance levels". The new BIOSTAR Hi-Fi Z97Z7 also features the new Super Durable Ferrite Choke, which provides higher current capacity, lower energy loss, and better power stability to the electric current across the board.

TYAN, an industry-leading, server platform design manufacturer, and subsidiary of MITAC Computing Technology Corporation, launched its full array of platforms supporting the latest Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family. With 5 products and 10 SKUs in total.

Albert Mu, Vice President of MITAC Computing Technology Corporation's TYAN Business Unit today said "TYAN's new product portfolio was designed with the latest Intel technology and supports the newly launched Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family. With superior efficiency, higher performance, stronger scalability, and lower costs, TYAN's product line offers multiple solutions that meet the critical demands of HPC, SMB, cloud computing, storage, and other complex applications. Further, TYAN's new product lines are compatible with Intel SSDs, as well as Intel Cache Acceleration Software, which allows companies to process and store massive amounts of data in an easy and intelligent way".

Product Portfolio includes:

ASRock Rack announces its latest offerings of motherboards that support the new Intel E5-2600 v3 processors and DDR4 memory. These motherboards are more than just simple upgrades to their existing line of boards, they offer major feature upgrades in some cases.

The new motherboards continue ASRock Racks build quality that includes:

Stable - Robust Design, Quality Parts

ASRock has unveiled its new X99-based motherboards, with one of the top-end boards being the new X99 Extreme 11 motherboard which features an insane 18 SATA ports.

The ASRock X99 Extreme 11 motherboard is built on the same Super Alloy design that has been deployed on the rest of ASRock's X99 motherboards, with the PCB being built on a high-quality design and components, with the XXL aluminum alloy heat sinks being placed across the board. In order to cool down the extra storage and PCI-e controllers near the PCH, ASRock has provided an active fan cooling solution, bringing back memories of yesteryear.

Up to 128GB of DDR4 memory can be installed onto the X99 Extreme 11, at up to 3300MHz for the overclockers out there. Power requirements sit at the usual 8-pin EPS and 24-pin ATX connectors, but let's get to the 18 SATA ports. 10 of the SATA ports are powered through the PCH, while the remaining 8 are powered through a separate SAS controller, but each and every SATA port is of the SATA 6Gbps variety. We also have two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 headers at the bottom of the board, too.

The X99 chipset tease continues, with GIGABYTE now offering its X99 Gaming G1 Wi-Fi motherboard up to gander at. GIGABYTE has used a truly gorgeous black-and-red theme on its X99-powered motherboard. There's also some hints of white, grey and green across the board.

The company is using a full 4-way PCIe layout, with 8 DIMM slots, 10 SATA 6Gbps ports, two of the SATA feature SATA Express capabilities, which goes hand-in-hand with the M.2 slot smack bang in the middle of hte PCIe slots. There's also a mini-PCIe slot which looks like it contains the Wi-Fi module, with an antenna that is connected through the rear panel near the audio ports.

At the bottom of the motherboard, it looks like there are two USB 3.0 headers, two USB 2.0 headers and a Thunderbolt header. The X99 Gaming G1 Wi-Fi also looks like it has a Sound Core 3D audio chip with filter caps, PCB separation, an EMI shield on the codec, an audio gain switch and switchable op-amp. Up in the top right, we have multiple buttons and switches for the usual dual BIOS/selectable BIOS functionality, and much more. We should expect the GIGABYTE G1 Gaming Wi-Fi motherboard to be higher up on the X99 food chain for GIGABYTE, with more boards to be unveiled in the coming weeks.

GIGABYTE is already breaking various records with its LN2-only motherboard, the Z97X-SOC Force LN2. Today, the company has announced that the new SOC Force LN2 motherboard has broken the DDR3 memory world record, not once, but twice.

Once at launch, hitting 4.5GHz, and then just three days later, the motherboard was used for another world record. The second time was at the Kingston HyperX OC Takeover World Finals, where a team of overclockers breached the massive 4.56GHz speed. If you thought this was the end, you were wrong. After a bunch of reports hitting the Internet of suspicious memory overclocks, GIGABYTE took it upon itself to pull out the big guns with its Z97X-SOC Force LN2 motherboard.

Using this motherboard, the GIGABYTE overclocking team smashed the DDR3 memory world record once again, reaching a gigantic 4.62GHz. This was achieved using Kingston's HyperX Predator DDR3 RAM. It looks like these days, posting a score with clear pictures of your work on HWBOT.org isn't enough for these super overclocks. To make sure nothing was left out, and that the public could see the overclocker's work, they uploaded everything onto YouTube.

Computex 2014 - USB 3.1 isn't something we've heard a ton about yet but with its eye clearly set on destroying Thunderbolt MSI has jumped to the party early showing off a motherboard utilizing the upcoming technology. While we don't have much in the way of the model or anything like that, putting the pieces together we can see this upcoming Z97 motherboard which will fall under the GD series offers us USB 3.1 technology via the ASMedia ASM1142 controller.

Looking above you can see the next generation USB connectivity will offer up to 10Gbps; twice as much as the current generation USB 3.0 connectivity. Along with the massive boost in performance the technology will continue to support USB 3.0 devices with no issue.

As for the actual board you can see we've got all the standard Z97 features with an M.2 slot sitting in the middle along with SATA Express support towards the bottom right of the board alongside two SATA III connectors. We're not quite sure when we'll see this board as USB 3.1 devices aren't something that are being promoted too heavily at the moment.

Computex 2014 - While being spoken about a little; the upcoming X99 platform continues to be quiet around the show with few companies showing it off. Over at the MSI booth, though, we got a chance to take a look one of their upcoming boards based on the chipset. The blue and black color scheme is fairly common and we'll indeed see it fall under the GD naming scheme.

Taking a look at the specification sheet next to the board you can see a number of the main features including support for HSW-E or Haswell-E 8-Core Extreme Edition processors utilizing the 2011 socket design. 8 DIMM slots give us support for up to 64GB of DDR4 at speeds going too 2666MHz DDR via overclocking.

You can also see that we've got four PCIe x16 slots, two PCIe x4 slots, M.2, SATA Express and SATA III slots along with 12 USB 3.0 ports and Gigabit networking via the I218-V chip. As for MSI specific features you can see Military Class 4 and OC Genie 4 is being offered on the model.

Computex 2014 - ASUS had a huge section dedicated to the Republic of Gamers line at Computex this year; a series that has become extremely popular over the last few years combining quality and performance. Sitting at the top of we have the Maximus VII Formula for people wanting something that truly stands out.

Moving through the rest of the boards we've got the Hero and Ranger version of the boards for people wanting an ATX motherboard but don't quite need the features that are associated with the Formula. It was towards the middle of the cabinet that our attention was drawn, though, with two smaller boards being shown.

In the middle and to the left we have the mean looking GENE version of the Maximus VII which of course translates into a mATX motherboard. If that's still too big for you, though, the mean looking Impact version might be just what you're after. Keep an eye for reviews of some of these ROG boards in the coming weeks and months as ASUS sample us.

Computex 2014 - Taking the elevator up to the 36th floor of the beautiful Taipei 101 building we headed to the GIGABYTE suite to see what was being offered by the company. Inside we were greeted with an absolute wealth of motherboards with a large amount of the focus being on the new Z97 chipset from Intel.

Split into three sections we had the Gaming series showing off boards based on the Intel Z97 and H97 chipset along with an AMD A88X based motherboard. Looking at the huge line up of motherboards we can't deny that two particular boards stole our focus. The first based on the H97 chipset. The MATX designed H97M-Gaming 3 looked great with its small foot print. With a strong lineup of features including Killer E2200 networking and support for both SLI and CrossFire this board is no doubt going to be an attractive option for people wanting something that's not too big.

Scanning the rest of the boards the awesome looking MITX Z79N-Gaming 5 was a board I knew instantly I must have. Organizing a sample on the spots the Z97 based motherboard carries with it Killer E2200 networking along with Bluetooth 4.0 and Wireless networking up to 802.11 AC. Keep an eye out for this board as GIGABYTE shoot it over to us after Computex.

Computex 2014 - With everything continuing to be under wraps on the upcoming X99 chipset from Intel due out later this year. The folks over at EVGA where showing off a motherboard with no name what so over. Asking if it was the upcoming X99 the "We're not allowed to mention anything about it" was more than enough to let us know just what was in front of us.

While we don't have any official information we can simply only work off what is in front of us. Looking at the board below you can see we've got eight DIMM slots across the top of the board which will house DDR4. On the right side you can see we have a power and reset button, LED Debug and our main 24-Pin ATX power connector to the right.

Across the bottom of the board you can see we've got five PCIe x16 slots along with a single PCIe x4 slot. The bottom right hand corner also shows off 10 SATA slots; six of which we can assume run off the X99 chipset. While EVGA couldn't confirm; based on the color design and the naming scheme, it's safe to say that this will be the EVGA X99 FTW Motherboard. They did let us know that it hasn't been finalized yet, though, so we could see some changes. Keep an eye out for more on X99 as we draw closer to its late Q3 / early Q4 launch.

Intel's Devil's Canyon CPUs are the next thing to be excited about, but most thought they would require an upgraded motherboard for the new CPUs to work - an upgrade to Z97. Well, that isn't the case for ASUS at least.

ASUS has pushed back at Intel, providing support for Devil's Canyon-based CPUs on its Z87 motherboards - something that was posted on the XtremeSystems forums. The post says: "Most, if not all of their Z87 boards have received a BIOS update allowing the use of Intel's devil canyon processors. This is also backed up on their Cpu support lists".

This is a good thing for owners of Z87-based motherboards who were waiting on the new CPUs, or would like to upgrade to the new CPUs, without having to upgrade to a new motherboard, too. Especially when you may have plunked down $400+ on a high-end board.

ASRock has just unveiled its new Ultra M.2 PCIe Gen3 x4 connection interface that is said to double its transfer speed bandwidth, and blow SATA 3 6GB/s out of the water. The new Ulra M.2 interface is much faster due to a direct connection to the CPU, whereas older M.2 interfaces passed through the chipset before being routed to the CPU. This means that the latency is much lower and faster transfer speeds are the result.

"The theoretical speed of Ultra M.2 is 32Gb/s, which is 6X faster than PCIe x1 M.2, and 3X faster than PCIe x2 M.2. As for Ultra M.2 vs. normal M.2 comparison, we tested the read speed of Samsung XP941 PCIe x4 M.2 SSD on Ultra M.2 socket and reached 1.16GB/s, 46% faster than PCIe x2 M.2 socket. We also tested a PCIe x2 M.2 SSD on Ultra M.2 socket. Benefited from the direct linkage between Ultra M.2 interface and CPU, the PCIe x2 M.2 SSD read speed on Ultra M.2 socket is 8.8% faster than on normal M.2 socket. As shown in Chart 3, the lower latency of Ultra M.2 design does matter," ASRock said in a release.

ASRock says that for now, the new Ultra M.2 interface will only be available on the new ASRock Z97 Extreme 6 motherboard which features other high-end features such as; ASRock Super Alloy technology, 12 Phase Power Design, Purity Sound 2, Dual LAN, SATA Express interface, and ASRock Cloud.