MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC Motherboard Review

[section_title title=”Specifications”]Specifciations

CPU 

• Supports 4th and 5th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors, and Intel® Pentium® and Celeron® Processors for Socket LGA1150
Please refer to CPU Support for compatible CPU; the above description is for reference only.

• Intel^® Z97 Express Chipset

Main Memory

• Support four DDR3 1066/1333/1600/1866*/2000*/2133*/2200*/2400*/2600*/2666*/2800*/3000*/3100*/3200*/3300*(*OC) MHz DRAM, 32GB Max
– Dual channel memory architecture
– Supports Intel^® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
– Supports non-ECC, un-buffered memory

• 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, (support x16, x8/x8, x8/x4/x4 modes)
• 3 x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots

• Intel Z97 Express Chipset
– 6x SATA 6Gb/s ports (SATA1~6)
– 1x M.2 port*
– M.2 port supports M.2 SATA 6Gb/s module
– M.2 port supports M.2 PCIe module up to 10Gb/s speed**
– M.2 port supports 4.2cm/ 6cm/ 8cm length module
– Supports RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 5 and RAID 10***
– Supports Intel® Smart Response Technology, Intel® Rapid Start Technology and Intel® Smart Connect Technology****

• ASMedia ASM1061 Chipset
– 2 x SATA 6Gb/s ports (SATA7~8)
* The SATA5 and SATA6 ports will be unavailable when installing a module in the M.2 port.
** M.2 PCIe interface only supports UEFI option ROM, NOT support legacy option ROM.
*** M.2 PCIe interface does not support RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 5 and RAID 10.
**** Supports Intel Core processors on Windows 7 and Windows 8/ 8.1

Wireless LAN 
• Wi-Fi/Bluetooth expansion module with Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 chip.
– Supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual band (2.4GHz, 5GHz) up to 867 Mbps speed.
– Supports Intel Wireless Display (WiDi)

Bluetooth 

• Wi-Fi/Bluetooth expansion module with Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 chip.
Supports Bluetooth v4.0 (includes BLE* and Bluetooth 3.0+HS)
* BLE: Bluetooth Low Energy

Multi-GPU

• Supports 3-Way AMD CrossFire™ Technology*
• Supports 2-Way NVIDIA^® SLI™ Technology
* Supports Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1.