Product Showcase Z97A
Product Showcase Z97A
The Z97-A is what I consider to be a mainstream to high-end class product. It is has some nice features yet will rest in an affordable segment.
The Z97-A has been updated to support Intel Haswell 1150 socket and has a Z97 chipset. The packaging includes the standards like SATA cables, manual, driver CD, IO rear backplate and so on. ASUS's motherboards will fall into one of three ranges: the standard Z97 , there's TUF (The Ultimate Force) and finally ROG (Republic of Gamers). For the Z97-A ASUS is showing off a new colour scheme and that works with subtle gold and black. ASUS will deliver six models in this range, the Z97-Deluxe, Z97-WS, Z97-Pro, Z97-Pro (WiFi ac), Z97-A and Z97I-plus.
- 4x DDR3 DIMM slots
- SATA Express connector
- 4x SATA 6GB/s ports
- M.2 PCIE slot for NGFF SSD
- 3x PCIE 3.0 x16 slots
- 2x PCIE 3.0 x1 slots
- 2x PCI slots
- Crystal Audio 2 with EMI shielding
- A number of USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports and headers, and more
When we take a closer look at the rear I/O back panel it reveals two USB 2.0 ports with another four USB 3.0 ports. The motherboard features three 16x PCI-E 3.0 slots, two mini PCI-E and one PCI slot. A Realtek ALC892 high definition audio codec is the source for audio and we spot fast Ethernet (Intel I217-V). There is also a PS/2 combo port that can be used for either a keyboard or a mouse, a still much preferred connection over USB. You'll see one optical SPDIF in/out port and six audio jacks. For the graphics we have one HDMI connector and one DisplayPort AND a DSUB/VGA and DVI-D connector.
The Z97-A is basically the entry level product on the ASUS Z97 and if this is entry level ... then I must admit that hardware really has evolved alright. If you look at the CPU area heatsinks, you'll noticed that they have changed in terms of shape. All ASUS motherboards based on Z97 have Dual Intelligent Processors 5 with 5-way optimization, an extension of the 4-way one from the Z87 motherboards. The five pillars of it are the TPU, EPU, DIGI+ Power, Fan Xpert 3 and Turbo App, which is the latest addition. The Z97-A will get one 8-pin power header and has eight CPU power phases with another two for the memory sub-system. New for the motherboards is Fan Xpert 3 this software can detect and control all of your system fans (both PWM and DC models).
