Tag Archives: Motherboard

PCIe 5.0 has made its stand in the PC world and is well on its way to making everything we do faster and more efficient.  Considering data storage, SSD data transfer speeds now stretch above 10GB/s, but other Z790 great features include parallel ThunderBolt 4 and USB 3.2 2×2, as well as CPU speeds well above 5GHz. TBolt 3/4 brings …

It has been a few years now, but thinking back I am sure there are those that remember the hard drive and all that went along with it.  Slow start times, heat, noise and an all around much slower PC experience, especially for those that work in media.  The largest jump we have seen in storage is without a doubt …

It has been some time now since Intel introduced VROC (Virtual RAID on CPU) and VROC provides for a capability on our motherboards that all would have hoped to see some time ago; the ability to create a bootable RAID configuration.   At the consumer and enthusiast level, VROC is only available in newer X299 chipset motherboards at present, and these …

So I originally started this upgrade on the advise of a peer who sold me on the fact that new Z370 PC builds were a natural for the Intel Optane SSD, displaying significantly faster startups, shutdowns and typical PC tasks.  He never lied. The difference is not just visible; it is significant. As with most things, however, I have always …

If you could load a motherboard with absolute killer features, what would you include?  Intel’s new X99 chipset opens the door a bit where, with the right X99 CPU, our PCIe lanes increase to 40 allowing us the leverage to stack our systems much more than we ever could have before.  Can you imagine a triple SLI/Crossfire graphics card layout …

If you are going to introduce a new motherboard to the world, perhaps the best marketing feat one could achieve would be to set a new overclocking world record for that board close to the time of its release.  Nick Shih of ASRock did that with the new ASRock X99 OC Formula recently by overclocking the latest Intel i7-5960X chip …

Intel Z97 based motherboards will be making their appearance very shortly and, once again, ASRock seems to flexing their muscle. If you remember their release of the Z87 series, they literally blew away competitors by releasing the Fatal1ty Killer AMD board with the worlds first native PCIe x2 M.2 socket, accomplishing the task of breaking that infamous SATA performance barrier …

Our report today will demonstrate single and RAID tests when we combine the newest ASRock Z87 Extreme11/ac motherboard with eight HGST SSD800MM SAS 12Gbps 400GB enterprise SSDs.  Our charts will display how the HGST SSD800MM scales as it is tested on its own, as well as in RAID 0 at X2, X4 and X8 combinations.  We can validate right off …

Some time ago, Asus released their newest Z87 ROG Maximus VI motherboard and it was the first  to take a crack at M.2 SSDs. Our review of the ADATA AXNS360E M.2 SSD looked at the Maximus VI first hand   As much as we loved such things as SSD Secure Erase and the UEFI on the board, their M.2 design …

SSDS AND MOTHERBOARDS It’s no secret that SSDs have been a major force in tech advance and the force in which they’ve impacted could never be covered in a single report. Eyeing the enthusiast or home user alone, SSDs are now a main staple of any PC build. They enable quicker PC start times, increase system performance and reduce scene …