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BIOSTAR Announces the GAMING Z97X and Z97W Motherboards

btarunr

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BIOSTAR announced its latest flagship socket LGA1150 motherboard, the GAMING Z97X. With a design focus on gaming PC builds that are high on connectivity, with a little bit of overclocking thrown in, rather than an all-out focus on overclocking (TPower), this board punches well above its weight with its feature-set. To begin with, the board features a rustic, industrial design, featuring a brown/gold+black color scheme for the various slots and connectors; and a black plastic shroud running the board's length. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors. A 12-phase VRM conditions it for the CPU.

Expansion slots include three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (electrical x16/NC/NC or x8/x8/NC or x8/x4/x4); and three PCI-Express 2.0 x1, wired to the PCH. Storage connectivity includes SATA-Express, six SATA 6 Gb/s, and an M.2 (electrical PCIe 2.0 x2) connector. This board also offers two supercharged USB 3.1 (10 Gb/s) ports, in addition to six other USB 3.0 ports, and a number of USB 2.0/1.1 ports. There are two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, one driven by an Intel-made controller, and another by Qualcomm Killer E2200, so you get to choose between Killer and Intel. The onboard audio features a 110 dBA SNR CODEC, a 600Ω headphones amp, and ground-layer isolation. Also included is a 5.25-inch front-panel head-unit BIOSTAR calls the "Gaming Commander," which gives you front-panel audio outputs with a volume control, amplifier control, diagnostic LEDs, and a CPU temperature indicator. A variant of this motherboard, which lacks the third PCIe x16 slot, offers a 10-phase CPU VRM, and goes easy on some other features, called the GAMING Z97W, was also released.



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Well umm...Not bad Biostar, not bad at all. I still have trouble looking at Biostar boards however this is a pretty cool looking board.
 
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looks damn sexy, only problem I have with it is that green/pink headphone mic indicator on the extra bay thingy.
It just looks cheap, if they just made that like gold like on the back of the motherboard it would be much better.
 
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looks nice but they need little tweak for detail things
 
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Nice, it even includes a LN2 jumper.
 
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Hmmm...depending on price, I might have found the board for my G3258. XD
 
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Damn that's a good looking board
 
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The Z97X looks like it'll be around $200, if not over.
 
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Wow, Biostar made a fine joob on those boards they look quite nice.
 
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Lack of imagination?

How about Nostromo edition? :D How about using ship names, classes? Or some other military structures, that has levels?

Use some animal naming like wildcat or peregrine... why not? At least it could give character to the board...
 

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Cool.

I mean, I might lie in my System Specs exactly what board I'm using, but I could see myself with the Z97X.
 
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There was nothing wrong with the z97 boards they already had?
IMO the black looks better than the "gold"
I never bought a Biostar for the colors anyways,though.
This was one fine board right here:

I say 1 board too many on z97...1 too few on x99.
 
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I enjoy seeing pci slots on new boards, for those who use sound cards.
 
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I enjoy seeing pci slots on new boards, for those who use sound cards.

And why then you want it? Those PCIE to PCI controllers just add latency and other issues like noises pops... PCI Sound card is a very specific capricious product...
 
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And why then you want it? Those PCIE to PCI controllers just add latency and other issues like noises pops... PCI Sound card is a very specific capricious product...

I was unaware they are using pcie to pci controllers. I thought intels chipsets still had native pci support.
 

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Sound card is a very specific capricious product...
Pretty much!
i dont see the need of one on my current motherboard... but i respect people who have one...or like them...

Regards,
 
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I was unaware they are using pcie to pci controllers. I thought intels chipsets still had native pci support.

Not anymore... If you dig up, now most commonly Asmedia bridge is used to implement PCI on recent motherboards.

Pretty much!
i dont see the need of one on my current motherboard... but i respect people who have one...or like them...,

Well I ain't deaf, I can't stand motherboard audio actually... Sound Card is still a must in my books for me.
 

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The last Biostar board I liked was my TPower I55 (LGA1156). It was feature-packed, and Biostar chose the topmost quality VRM components. After that, biostar never really came up with a quality product.
 

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The plastic looks cheap.

OOh, i was not sure if that was plastic. If that's plastic over the heatsinks that's just bad shit and one thing i would not get me to buy a mobo with it as it be bad for cooling.
 
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