Motherboards - Page 26

Today, ASUS officially posted a BIOS update for its socket LGA2011 motherboards that ushers in support for Intel's Core i7 Ivy Bridge-E processors. To install the update, users need an old LGA2011 processor, or they can choose to use the ASUS USB BIOS Flashback utility which requires no CPU or RAM to flash the BIOS. Just a 24pin ATX connector.

The P9X79 series, ROG Rampage series, and TUF Sabertooth X79 series are all supported and Ivy Bridge-E support is denoted by the following BIOS Versions:

To download your corresponding BIOS update, head over to Source #1 below.

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.

Computex Taipei 2013 - ASUS were showing off their TUF motherboards at Computex 2013, with four boards in the range. The first of which is the Mecha TUF, which uses the TUF Sabertooth Z87 motherboard with a striking design that is very robotic.

Moving on, we have the Thermal Universe Finder, which again uses the TUF Sabertooth Z87 motherboard and was designed by Tod's Factory Custom Studio and has loads of gears, rocket exhausts and all sorts of tank-themed goodies. The next board is the MATX Ranger, which uses the TUF Gryphon Z87 motherboard, Gryphon Armor kit and was designed by Lee Han-Sheng and Han-Sheng Environmental Art.

The final board in the range showed off at the show was the Winger Charger, which uses the TUF Gryphon Z87 motherboard with the Armor Kit and was designed by Tod's Factory Custom Studio.

Computex Taipei 2013 - Having found ourselves already impressed with the upcoming ASRock Z87 OC Formula/AC we today got a chance to test one of the features that we really wouldn't get to test ourselves. While not something that we would really make use of as we deal with just standard cooling setups. The new Waterproof by Conformal Coating is a really cool feature that protects the board from moisture when it comes to the most extreme overclocking.

While we were actually at the event today we heard from an overclocker that a couple of boards had died today due to the humidity in the air. When the benchmarking was finished the board was just dripping in water. Thanks to this new feature from ASRock it's really something overclockers won't have to worry about.

They had on display the board running with water running down it. Above they had a video showing the process of how it's done. Speaking to ASRock they told us just five motherboards can be coated an hour so as you can imagine it's not a quick and easy process. It's great to see ASRock mixing it up, though, and offering us something different.

Computex Taipei 2013 - Going hand in hand with all the memory that is being shown off this year we've got a ton of motherboards that support the latest chipset from Intel. We headed over to the MSI booth this afternoon to have a look at what is exactly on offer.

One board that really took our eye is the upcoming Z87 XPOWER which is due in the coming weeks. Sporting the PLX chip for faster 4-Way GPU support the upcoming board which isn't quite ready yet looks good. Along with the PLX chip we've got the Sound Blaster X-Fi3 HD audio chip.

We've also got a bunch of buttons on the board helping overclock on-the-fly. One set controls the multiplier, the other controls the BCLK. There's also a toggle switch that lets us adjust the BCLK by 1 or .1 depending on the kind of tuning you want to do. We look forward to seeing a sample in the coming weeks.

Computex Taipei 2013 - This morning we got the chance to head over to the EVGA Suite at the popular Grand Hyatt to check out some of the latest offerings that the company was going to be offering us in the coming months. Working hard recently to become a competitor in the extremely tough motherboard segment we saw EVGA show off a number of upcoming motherboards based on the new Z87 chipset that was just released by Intel over the past weekend.

The first board we saw was the upcoming Z87 Stinger based on the Mini-ITX form factor which we saw sitting in the new Mini-ITX barebone system that EVGA had just launched. In Typical Mini-ITX fashion there's not a whole lot to the motherboard due it's small nature. Looks wise it's pretty nice, though, with the black PCB and red highlights which is very typical EVGA.

Moving away from the Mini-ITX based board we had a look at two of the larger options from the company which include the Z87 FTP which is the more mainstream board while users looking for something a little more powerful will indeed be eyeing off the Z87 Classified.

Computex Taipei 2013 - GIGABYTE has added a new LGA 1150-based motherboard to its gaming line of motherboards. The G1.Sniper 5 is designed for gamers making use of Intel's latest Core CPUs. Sniper series motherboards come with features that gamers care about.

The new G1.Sniper 5 comes with the Killer E2200 Series gaming networking platform, providing the best possible network connection for gamers who need that extra few milliseconds. The G1.Sniper 5 also comes with a front headphone jack amplifier for gamers using a headset plugged into the front audio jack.

The G1.Sniper 5 features four PCIe-x16 expansion slots, spaced every other expansion slot. The remaining expansion slots are all PCIe-x1, perfect for that sound card or other expansion device. The G1.Sniper can easily support four-way SLI and Crossfire thanks to the layout of its expansion ports.

Computex Taipei 2013 - Yesterday we were kindly invited to the GIGABYTE headquarters here in Taipei, Taiwan where we got a full introduction to its line-up of new Intel Z87 Express "Haswell" based motherboards, ahead of Computex Taipei 2013 which begins next week.

We got a look at its new gaming, overclocking and mainstream boards. Stew from GIGABYTE was kind enough to run us through the range. We get a look at the G1.Sniper 5, G1.Sniper M5, Z87X-OC, Z87X-OC Force, Z87X-UD5H and more.

It was clear from our visit that GIGABYTE has focused heavily on audio for this range of boards with some pretty amazing features such as its O-AMP Premium audio system. My first impression of all the boards was that they all look great. It's not unusual to have a couple good looking boards in a series, but when they all look good, it was a big surprise, in a good way.

ASRock has announced that their top-of-the-line Z87 Extreme9/ac is the first Intel 8 Series motherboard to be awarded Thunderbolt certification from Intel. The Z87 Extreme9/ac is ASRock's highest performance motherboard designed for Intel's upcoming Haswell CPU's.

We expect to see the Z87 Extreme9/ac at Computex during the first part of June. It, along with Intel's Haswell CPU's, should be one of the main highlights of the show.

We're seeing more and more details from motherboard manufacturers and their upcoming Haswell-capable motherboards, with ASRock walking into the spotlight today with a bunch of details on their entire Z87 lineup of motherboards.

ASRock will be releasing 11 motherboards in the Haswell range, with top three of these boards featuring the Z87 Express chipset: the Z87 Extreme11, Z87 Fatal1ty Professional and Z87 OC Formula. The Z87 Extreme11 is available in the /ac option, which is on-board 802.11ac Wi-Fi for some seriously high-end wireless networking. This is ASRock's best board, and features everything you'd need - Thunderbolt, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, SLI/CrossFire compatibility, and more.

There are a few other boards in this series: the Z87 Extreme 9(/ac), Z87 Extreme6(/ac), Z87 Extreme 4, and the micro-ATX Z87M Extreme4.

PC & Tech Authority have just posted a bunch of pictures of their exclusive look at Gigabyte's Z87X-UD3H motherboard, and boy does it look good. The Haswell-capable board features a slick color scheme consisting of black, grey and blue.

The Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H comes with three full-sized x16 PCIe slots, three x1 PCIe slots, and still, a PCI slot. There's eight SATA ports, 4 DIMM slots, on-board power/reset/CMOS clear buttons, and a SATA power connection that will give the motherboard more power if needed. Gone are the usual molex connectors for some more power, thankfully.

We should know more about this board in the coming weeks leading up to Computex in Taipei.

We had a very nice look at Gigabyte's Z87 G1-Killer motherboard yesterday and now we get to have a glimpse at their UEFI DualBIOS, which is looking absolutely gorgeous. It features the orange and black theme that we know and love from Gigabyte's high-end boards, which looks amazing.

There seems to be something I think Gigabyte should patent here, something along the lines of 'everything but the kitchen sink' when it comes to BIOS options. The new UEFI DualBIOS looks incredibly detailed, and should cater perfectly to enthusiasts and power users. I can't wait to get my hands on a few of these bad boys.

Gigabyte have pushed out a bunch of teaser images on their upcoming Haswell-capable Z87 G1-Killer motherboard. Gigabyte's G1 Killer series is the company's top-tier motherboard, which offers some high-end on-board solutions from companies like Creative and Bigfoot Networks.

What makes this tease very interesting is that the Z87 G1-Killer sports an internal liquid cooling solution, something that has been featured on ASUS' Maximus V Formula. Gigabyte's solution offers both air cooling through the heatsink and liquid cooling through an internally built water channel which transfers the coolant through all-copper made heatpipes. Gigabyte will be offering the board some serious Ultra Durable components, such as IR3550 PowIRstage, 2X Copper PCB, High Capacity Ferrite Core Chokes and more.

Gigabyte's Z87 G1-Killer includes 8 VRM phases on one side of the board, and if we're lucky, we could see 8 more VRMs on the other side of the board, providing a total of 16 VRMs. We should expect the Z87 G1-Killer to ship with Intel XMP profile support, pushing DDR3 right up to 3200MHz. This will be on top of the usual slew of crazy overclocking features that this motherboard is set to include.

We haven't even had our hands grace the next-gen CPU that is Haswell yet, but Intel are already talking about their chipset destined for 2014 - Intel's 9-series chipsets.

These chipsets will support Serial ATA Express, which is based on the PCI Express protocol and will pave the way for some seriously high-bandwidth storage devices. Intel's 9-series chipsets will include core-logic sets such as Z97 and H97, and will support SATA Express by default. There will also be an all-new Intel device protection technology with boot guard built into the chipset, enhancing the security against low-level malware attacks on the upcoming next-gen platform.

What can we expect from SATA Express on Intel's 9-series motherboards? Well, we should see a cost-effective means to deliver interface speeds between 8Gb/s and 16Gb/s compared to the 6Gb/s maximum that the SATA III specification allows now. The specification will define new device and motherboard connects that will support both the current SATA devices, and the new SATA Express devices.

If you've been looking to build yourself a NAS (network attached storage) system, then you might want to stop by Giada's new motherboard, the Giada N70E-DR. The motherboard packs an integrated Celeron C1007U processor, which chews on just 17W of power.

The motherboard can handle native RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 with data security protection and some high-performance Intel 82583V gigabit ethernet ports for some great networking speed and reliability. Also included are some smart hardware monitoring and management capabilities, which allows customers to keep a check on the health of their system.

There are six SATA ports, with two of them being of the SATA 3.0 standard. Two USB 3.0 ports are featured on the Giada N70E-DR for some speedy external connectivity. There's one DDR3 DIMM slot, and a PCI-Express x16 port for some speedy graphics if that's what you want your NAS to be capable of.

We've already seen what ASRock are working on, but what about Gigabyte? They haven't been sleeping by the looks of things, with the new Z87 range of motherboards, built for overclockers, being noticed at CeBIT.

The best of the bunch, the GA-Z87X-OC, is built with a full 8 Phase Solid VRM using DRMOS, International Rectifier MOSFETs, which should give some crazy stability when pushing that overclock. The Z87X-OC includes that sexy orange and black design we've come to know and love from Gigabyte, as well as the usual buttons for enthusiasts on the board - BCLCK, Turbo, Gear, Power switches at the side of DIMM slots, Voltage measuring points, Debug LED and a Dual BIOS switch.

We should expect to see more from Gigabyte at Computex in June, where more consumer-ready boards should be unveiled. There's more in the Z87 range from Gigabyte, with the GA-Z87X-UD5H, GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-UD3H and GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-UD3H being shown off at Gigabyte's CeBIT 2013 booth.

Yesterday we had a look at a few of ASRock's Haswell-based motherboard offerings, but the pictures weren't too shabby. We're back today with some much better pictures, where we can take a closer look at their upcoming motherboards.

The shots are in perfect detail, of each board - the B85M, H87 Pro4, Z87 Extreme6 and Z87 Pro4-M. We have shots of each, as well as the inputs on the back of each board, let's start with the B85M:

Next up we have the H87 Pro4.

CeBIT 2013 - We are still three months out from Intel's Haswell line of processors hitting retail shelves, but that is not stopping ASRock from unveiling four new LGA1150 motherboards.

The high-end ASRock Z87 Extreme6 is a standard sized ATX motherboard that is equipped with gold capacitors, can support dual channel DDR3 RAM up to 1600MHz, and features two PCI-Express 3.0 slots. It sports 14 USB ports of which six are USB 3.0, 8 SATA 6Gb ports and DVI, D-Sub, HDMI and Display Port.

The Z87 Pro4-M is a MicroATX board that features 100% solid capacitors, one PCIe 3.0 x16 slot, support for AMD CrossfireX, multiple monitor support through built in display connectors, and 12 USB ports (six USB 3.0) The Pro4-M also includes six SATA 6Gb ports.

Big news out of Intel today. They are looking to end their desktop motherboard business over the next 3 years. Intel will continue to provide chipsets for third-party manufacturers, but will no longer be producing desktop motherboards. This announcement isn't too surprising, though it was a bit unexpected.

The Intel staff will go to different projects, such as developing the NUC boards and reference boards. Reference boards are often the basis of many third-party designs. Intel plans to stop developing desktop motherboards after the Haswell launch, though all Intel boards will still carry a full warranty and will continue to be supported by Intel.

The socketed CPU design will continue to be available past Broadwell in 2014, though the cadence of release is said to be slower than what we are currently used to. Third-party motherboards should continue to be the high-quality specimens that most of us have come to love.

CES 2013 - Gigabyte is producing two new low-profile mini-ITX boards that are used in All-In-One (AIO) systems. These boards have lower clearance requirements than a normal board and utilize SO-DIMM like a laptop. The back I/O panel is also around half-height and Gigabyte has two identical boards, with the only difference being the chipset.

One board features the B75 and the other features the H77. Both boards are identical in looks, layout, everything, except for this small detail. Gigabyte says they are one of the few, if not the only, company making boards based upon the B75 chipset.

In other Gigabyte news, we reported earlier that Gigabyte is virtually the only motherboard maker putting two Thunderbolt ports onto motherboards. They are showcasing the benefits of this by driving four monitors to make up a 4K resolution output device. We managed to see their display in person and grab an image of it in action: