As May draws near, one by one, motherboard manufacturers are revealing their upcoming Z97 motherboard lineup. Recently Gigabyte has revealed some of their Z97 motherboards including the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming G1 WiFi-BK Black Edition and Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SOC Force motherboards. The pictures where revealed via one of the company’s Facebook account. First let’s take a look at the Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK.
It looks like the Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK Black Edition is a fully featured Z97 motherboard, built with the latest Ultra Durable components and features that are geared towards gamers and enthusiasts. The board features an LGA Socket 1150 that supports 4th gen Intel Haswell, Haswell Refresh and Devil’s Canyon, as well as the upcoming 5th Gen Broadwell processors. It draws its power from an 8pin power connector and a standard 24pin ATX power connector.
This Gigabyte Z97 motherboard is most probably their flagship in the Gaming lineup. Notice that there are two holes in the heatsink near the socket? If you are using a custom water cooling system, you can connect your water cooling tubes and directly cool the VRM and MOSFETs beneath the copper based heatsink. It’s nothing new since we saw this on some of Asus ROG motherboards, like the Asus Maximus VI Formula. Still, this is a good move for Gigabyte.
The Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI Black Edition has 4x DDR3 DIMM slots that will most probably support higher memory clock speeds. There’s also a power button, a Q code LED display and some switches for CMOS and another button which I could not decipher. There are also voltage points where you can directly monitor the motherboard’s temperature, voltage and other status of the board, located right beside the CMOS switch.
The Gigabyte Z97X Gaming G1 WIFI-BK has also 6x SATA 6GB/s ports and two SATA Express ports. Unfortunately, I don’t see an M.2 PCIE port for NGFF SSD. This Z97 motherboard has 4x PCIE 3.0 x16 slots and supports both SLI and CrossfireX. There are also 3x PCIE 3.0 x1 slots, some USB headers and lots of fan headers as well.
This Gigabyte Z97 motherboard features Killer E2200 LAN connectivity and a Sound Core chip with EMI shielding. It looks like there are also two BIOS chip on this board. Since the rear I/O port was not revealed, I’m not sure whether the WiFi is built in and has a connector on the rear panel, or it’s an add-in card. Either way, this board has WiFi connectivity features.
The Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming G1 WiFi Black Edition is expected to be officially launched this coming May 10, together or right after the official announcement of the Intel Z97 Express Chipset.
Check out the other Z97 motherboards that were recently revealed:
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD7 TH Revealed – Features Thunderbolt 2 Connectivity
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H Black Edition Revealed – Features M.2 PCIE 10Gb/s Port for NGFF SSD
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SOC Force Z97 Motherboard Revealed – Made For Overclockers
Asus ROG Z97 Motherboards – Maximus VII Gene, Maximus VII Hero and Maximus VII Ranger Revealed
Asus Z97-WS, Z97 Deluxe, Z97-Pro, Z97-A and Z97I Plus Mini ITX
Asus TUF Z97 Motherboards Revealed – Includes Sabertooth Z97 Mark I, Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2 and Asus Gryphon Z97
Entire MSI Z97 Gaming Motherboard lineup Revealed
Source Facebook Gigabyte PH
