By ccokeman @ Overclockers Club
ASUS ROG Z87 offerings were excellent performers in their own right and now Intel and its board partners have introduced the Z97 PCH-equipped socket 1150 offerings, which includes the Maximus VII Hero I have here today. Not only do you get improvement through the Z97 PCH, but you get software updates to the ROG standbys, along with new implementations including Keybot, a new UEFI BIOS interface, and improved hardware.
Ultra M.2 x4 Tested With XP941
By Ian Cutress @ AnandTech
ASRock has a history of bringing new features to motherboards where others can tread conservatively. In recent generations, this means the Extreme11 range with an onboard LSI3008 for SATA ports, or the C2750D4I, an octo-core Atom platform with 64GB DRAM support and 12 SATA ports on a mini-ITX. For the ASRock Z97 Extreme6 we have an M.2 slot that runs at PCIe x4, with lanes taken direct from the CPU. We test the motherboard, the performance of this slot, and the effect of dual-GPU gaming with four CPU PCIe lanes tied up in storage.
