Motherboards

GIGABYTE Z97X-SLI Motherboard Review

by Jeremy Gulley01934

Z97 Chipset Overview

Images and information courtesy of Intel.

The Intel® Z97 Chipset with 4th and 5th generation Intel® Core™ processors deliver excellent performance for an unparalleled PC experience. New responsiveness capabilities and unlocked flexibility together with stunning 3-D visual and graphics support1 allow you to reach your full gaming potential.

 

z97-chipset-diagram

Feature Benefit
Support for the 4th and 5th generation Intel® Core™ processors Supports the 4th and 5th generation Intel® Core™ processors with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.02, Intel® Pentium® processors, and Intel® Celeron® processors.
Overclocking3 The Intel® Z97 Chipset also enables overclocking features of unlocked 4th and 5th generation Intel Core processors.
Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST)4 With additional hard drives added, provides quicker access to digital photo, video, and data files, and greater data protection against a hard disk drive failure with RAID 0, 5, and 10. Support for external SATA (eSATA) enables the full SATA interface speed outside the chassis, up to 3 Gb/s.
Intel® Rapid Storage Technology for PCI Express* Storage Enables Intel® Rapid Storage Technology features with PCI Express*-based SSDs.
Intel® Rapid Recover Technology (Intel® RRT) Intel’s latest data protection technology provides a recovery point that can be used to quickly recover a system should a hard drive fail or if there is data corruption. The clone can also be mounted as a read-only volume to allow a user to recover individual files.
Intel® High Definition Audio (Intel® HD Audio)5 Integrated audio support enables premium digital surround sound and delivers advanced features such as multiple audio streams and jack re-tasking.
Intel® Smart Response Technology6 Implements storage I/O caching for faster response times of application startup and quicker access to user data.
Intel® Smart Connect Technology7 Provides faster application refresh by allowing applications to be updated in a low power state.
Intel® Rapid Start Technology8 Allows quick system resume from the hibernate state.
Universal Serial Bus 3.0 Integrated USB 3.0 support, provides greater enhancement in performance with a design data rate of up to 5 Gb/s with up to six USB 3.0 ports.9
Universal Serial Bus 2.0 Hi-speed USB 2.0 support with a design data rate of up to 480 Mb/s with up to 14 USB 2.0 ports.
Serial ATA (SATA) 6 Gb/s Next generation high-speed storage interface supporting up to 6 Gb/s transfer rates for optimal data access with up to six SATA ports.9
Serial ATA (SATA) 3 Gb/s High-speed storage interface supporting up to six SATA ports.
Intel® Device Protection Technology with Boot Guard10 Helps protect the system’s pre-OS environment from viruses and malicious software attacks.
eSATA SATA interface designed for use with external SATA devices. Provides a link for 3 Gb/s data speeds to eliminate bottlenecks found with current external storage solutions.
SATA port disable Enables individual SATA ports to be enabled or disabled as needed. This feature provides added protection of data by preventing malicious removal or insertion of data through SATA ports. Especially targeted for eSATA ports.
PCI Express 2.0 interface Offers up to 5 GT/s for fast access to peripheral devices and networking with up to eight PCI Express 2.0 x1 ports9, configurable as x2, x4, and x8 depending on motherboard designs.
4th and 5th generation Intel Core processor PCI Express 3.0 Interface Intel® Z97-based platforms enable the processor PCI Express 3.0 port to be configurable as a 1×16, 2×8, or 1×8 and 2×4 which enables support for Thunderbolt™ technology11 depending on desktop motherboard designs.
USB port disable Enables individual USB ports to be enabled or disabled as needed. This feature provides added protection of data by preventing malicious removal or insertion of data through USB ports.
Intel® Integrated 10/100/1000 MAC Support for the Intel® Ethernet Connection I217-V.
Green technology Manufactured with lead-free and halogen-free11 component packages.

specs 01

Specifications

CPU
  1. Support for Intel® Core™ i7 processors/Intel® Core™ i5 processors/ Intel® Core™ i3 processors/Intel® Pentium® processors/Intel® Celeron® processors in the LGA1150 package
  2. L3 cache varies with CPU

(Please refer “CPU Support List” for more information.)
Chipset
  1. Intel® Z97 Express Chipset
Memory
  1. 4 x DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory * Due to a Windows 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than the size of the physical memory installed.
  2. Dual channel memory architecture
  3. Support for DDR3 3000(O.C.) / 2933(O.C.) / 2800(O.C.) / 2666(O.C.) / 2600(O.C.) / 2500(O.C.) / 2400(O.C.) / 2200(O.C.) / 2133(O.C.) / 2000(O.C.) / 1866(O.C.) / 1800(O.C.) / 1600 / 1333 MHz memory modules
  4. Support for non-ECC memory modules
  5. Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules

(Please refer “Memory Support List” for more information.)
Onboard Graphics Integrated Graphics Processor:

  1. 1 x D-Sub port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920×1200@60Hz>
  2. 1 x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920×1200@60Hz * The DVI-D port does not support D-Sub connection by adapter.
  3. 1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096×2160@24Hz or 2560×1600@60Hz * Support for HDMI 1.4a version.
  4. Support for up to 3 displays at the same time
  5. Maximum shared memory of 512MB
Audio
  1. Realtek® ALC1150 codec
  2. High Definition Audio
  3. 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
  4. Support for S/PDIF Out
LAN
  1. Intel® GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Expansion Slots
  1. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16) * For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot.
  2. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8) * The PCIEX8 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16 slot. When the PCIEX8 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot will operate at up to x8 mode. (The PCIEX16 and PCIEX8 slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)
  3. 3 x PCI Express x1 slots (The PCI Express x1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
  4. 2 x PCI slots
Multi-Graphics Technology
  1. Support for 2-Way AMD CrossFire™/2-Way NVIDIA® SLI™ Technology
Storage Interface Chipset:

  1. 1 x M.2 PCIe connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SATA & PCIe SSD support)
  2. 1 x SATA Express connector
  3. 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (M.2, SATA Express, and SATA3 4/5 connectors can only be used one at a time. The SATA3 4/5 connectors will become unavailable when an M.2 SSD is installed.)
  4. Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
USB Chipset:

  1. 6 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)
  2. 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 6 ports available through the internal USB headers)
Internal I/O Connectors
  1. 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
  2. 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
  3. 1 x M.2 PCIe connector
  4. 1 x SATA Express connector
  5. 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
  6. 1 x CPU fan header
  7. 1 x water cooling fan header (CPU_OPT)
  8. 3 x system fan headers
  9. 1 x front panel header
  10. 1 x front panel audio header
  11. 1 x S/PDIF Out header
  12. 1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header
  13. 3 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
  14. 1 x serial port header
  15. 1 x parallel port header
  16. 1 x Clear CMOS jumper
Back Panel Connectors
  1. 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
  2. 1 x D-Sub port
  3. 1 x DVI-D port
  4. 1 x HDMI port
  5. 4 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
  6. 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
  7. 1 x RJ-45 port
  8. 6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Side Speaker Out, Line In, Line Out, Mic In)
I/O Controller
  1. iTE® I/O Controller Chip
H/W Monitoring
  1. System voltage detection
  2. CPU/System temperature detection
  3. CPU/CPU OPT/System fan speed detection
  4. CPU/System overheating warning
  5. CPU/CPU OPT/System fan fail warning
  6. CPU/CPU OPT/System fan speed control * Whether the fan speed control function is supported will depend on the cooler you install.
BIOS
  1. 2 x 64 Mbit flash
  2. Use of licensed AMI UEFI BIOS
  3. Support for DualBIOS™
  4. PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.7, WfM 2.0, SM BIOS 2.7, ACPI 5.0
Unique Features
  1. Support for APP Center * Available applications in APP Center may differ by motherboard model. Supported functions of each application may also differ depending on motherboard specifications. @BIOS EasyTune EZ Setup Fast Boot ON/OFF Charge Smart TimeLock Smart Recovery 2 System Information Viewer USB Blocker
  2. Support for Q-Flash
  3. Support for Smart Switch
  4. Support for Xpress Install
Bundle Software
  1. Norton® Internet Security (OEM version)
  2. Intel® Rapid Start Technology
  3. Intel® Smart Connect Technology
  4. Intel® Smart Response Technology
  5. cFosSpeed
Operating System
  1. Support for Windows 8.1/8/7
Form Factor
  1. ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 21.4cm
Remark
  1. Due to different Linux support condition provided by chipset vendors, please download Linux driver from chipset vendors’ website or 3rd party website.
  2. Most hardware/software vendors may no longer offer drivers to support Win9X/ME/2000/XP. If drivers are available from the vendors, we will update them on the GIGABYTE website.

 

That is certainly a quite of bit of information to absorb about this new hardware! Thankfully, it is time to get to the meat and potatoes of this review. So what are you waiting for? Click over to the next page, of course!

 

Tinkering with computers and other electronics since the days of the Apple IIe and the Intellivision as the Prodigal 80s child, Jeremy seeks to constantly expand his knowledge of the ever-changing and ever-enticing world of Consumer Electronics. He enjoys tinkering, overclocking, modding, and most of all gaming.

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