MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC Motherboard Review

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Product Showcase

 

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Here you can see the three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots; three PCI-Express x1 slots as previously discussed. Just drop them graphics cards in there for a weird sexy combo, the lowest it'll drop to is a x4 gen3 lane configuration, meaning you have excellent bus bandwidth for current generation graphics cards. 

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Here we can get a better look at the heatsinks the board uses. Very subtle, very nice and working really good. When powered up it lights up in a very subtle fashion. The Gaming 9 makes use of a standard ATX form factor.

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In-between and above the PCIe slots (close to the PCH) you'll see this cute small connector, this in fact is a M.2 PCIE SSD port. Mind you that if you use it you will lose the SATA5/6 ports. This new connector offers 10 Gbps storage bandwidth. We'll have a look at performance in this review as well.

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Small and subtle detail; you can find LEDs underneath the motherboard. So once you have it installed in your PC, there's this HALO of light emanating from the motherboard. Very cool.

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