Biostar Kicks Off New Gaming Hardware Series with Gaming Z97X Motherboard

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Say hello to USB 3.1

Biostar's been making a concerted effort to gain a reputation as a high-end hardware player, and it's doing it by releasing boards with enthusiast grade and sometimes unique feature-sets. We saw it last summer with the release of the TD85, a motherboard with half a dozen PCI-E slots intended for Bitcoin miners, and more recently with the Hi-F iZ97Z7. Continuing the trend, Biostar today launched the first in a new line of gaming hardware, the Gaming Z97X motherboard with USB 3.1 support.
According to Biostar, the Gaming Z97X is the first motherboard to come with onboard USB 3.1 -- there are two connectors. Also known as SuperSpeed+, USB 3.1 doubles the data transfer rate from 5Gbps to 10Gbps and is backwards compatible with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0.
It also has three PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots, PCIe M.2 support, dual GbE LAN ports (Intel + Killer), Super Hi-Fi audio, two HDMI ports supporting 4K and 2K resolutions, a SATA express connector, 12-phase power for the LGA 1150 CPU, 100 percent solid capacitors, and a super conductive heatsink design.
The board comes with Biostar's new external Gaming Command box. It fits in a 5.25-inch bay and allows voice control over certain situations. The box features an independent USB DAC, dedicated mic input and line output jacks, buttons for adjusting the volume, diagnostic LEDs, and a few other tidbits.
No word yet on when Biostar Z97X Gaming will be available or for how much.
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