msi z97 leaked

[Riddler356]

Is it DDR3 or 4?

[VSG]

This is for the Haswell refresh but will also be compatible for Broadwell. I would imagine these first boards would be DDR-3 only since Haswell does not support DDR-4.

[TheNerdyCanadian]

What's going on with the VRM Heatsinks and the Lower heatsink A.K.A North bridge?

My guess would be this is a low-end gaming board.. bare essentials

well, it's a pre-production engineer sample, and due to the fact that it's part of the "Gaming" line from MSI, it will have the red/black heatsinks, and not these silver ones.

[brownninja97]

Is it DDR3 or 4?

no current info on it.

[Akolyte]

I'm probably staying with my socket 2011 X79 CPU and mobo.  But this looks promising, cant wait to see what new things come!  Maybe like 30GB or so of built in storage so you can STORE FILES in UEFI for updates etc, Maybe like 1-2GB of built in system memory? CANT WAIT!!!

[VSG]

What? It has a slot for M.2 PCI-E SSDs which a lot of current motherboards also have. You need to buy and connect the SSD yourself and it will behave as a separate drive- that's pretty much it!

[SpaceSquid]

no brown pcb pls

[VSG]

No, I meant M.2

 

mSATA makes no sense on desktop boards as they are essentially slightly crippled SSDs at a smaller form factor. With desktops where space is not as big a concern, you can get to use PCI-E SSDs in the M.2 (NGFF) form factor. For example:

 

From the Haswell ASUS ROG series introduced last year.

[Kaffefilter5]

What's going on with the VRM Heatsinks and the Lower heatsink A.K.A North bridge?

My guess would be this is a low-end gaming board.. bare essentials

it definately is low-end. Just look how ghetto the chipset cooler is. And it also has legacy PCI slots

[VSG]

Have you read the whole thread yet? Those heatsinks are temporary- why would Intel display a low end rig for it's first Haswell refresh display?

 

I also maintain those heatsinks made of actual aluminum with increased surface area will perform better than the typical retail heatsinks on motherboards.

[TheProfosist]

No, I meant M.2

 

mSATA makes no sense on desktop boards as they are essentially slightly crippled SSDs at a smaller form factor. With desktops where space is not as big a concern, you can get to use PCI-E SSDs in the M.2 (NGFF) form factor. For example:

 

From the Haswell ASUS ROG series introduced last year.

Its only on couple ASUS board and for good reason, do you know how hard it is to find a decently sized M.2 SSD? I the I found a 180gb Intel 530 is actually still SATA III not pci-e, which is fine because the M.2 on the ASUS VI Impact is only PCI-E x1 if I recall, so getting a pci-e one would be a waste. Even the Intel 530 M.2 is OEM only I just happened to find it at Newegg, likly because they stock it for their own stuff that they sell. The only PCI-e x4 one is the SanDisk which I can not find anywhere to buy stand alone. Also even though mSATA is on the way out you should note that Samsung did put out a mSATA (SATA III) 840 EVO not a M.2 one, that alone should show how much M.2 is available and being used in the consumer market.

If you check out my "Chibi PC" ITX build that is where I used the Intel 530 M.2 180gb drive quite successfully.

[VSG]

I never said it was successful lol, I was referring to member Mike_The_B0ss who thought the motherboard came with onboard storage.

[TheProfosist]

I never said it was successful lol, I was referring to member Mike_The_B0ss who thought the motherboard came with onboard storage.

It will be whats replacing mSATA and already has in newer laptops. the thing is that mSATA in desktops never really caught on. This because until the Crucial M500 mSATA and Samsung 840 EVO mSATA there were no decent size mSATA SSDs that didnt cost a fortune. Thsi was because they were really meant for cache drives not so be straight OS drives.

The Intel 530 M.2 180gb really worked out well in my ITX build but that due to saving me space. The only reason I could see someone using one in a larger desktop would be that there are or will be PCI-E variants so if you spend the money you will get a faster drive than the equivalent SATA III. Yo will be spending considerably more though, especially since currently only higher end drives are M.2 but my Intel 530 M.2 OEM was $30 more than just getting the standard OEM model. For me money well spent but since the majority of people on this forum just get the 840 EVO I see this as a cool feature to talk about but likely not one that many will use, especially on lower end boards. < that was said in general and not specifically talking about this board.

[Emperor_Piehead]

I'm out of the loop... What is the m.2?

Basically sata came out with m-sata and m.2 is the new version of it. 

 

M.2 is a more flexible standard in relation to the size of the actual ssd and is faster because of the use of a pci-e lane.

[Riddler356]

no current info on it.

I hope its DDR4

[TheDigitalRealm]

Why does everyone think the heat sinks on the Mobo are the production variants? They aren't. They're just there so the board can be tested. Those aren't anything like what will be on the production variant.

[TheProfosist]

I hope its DDR4

Z97 will likely have the Haswell refresh, might be broadwell but DDR4 is likely not going to be there until the next revision so they dont have to revise the processors that much. There is also the whole price thing and the larger ram size which the average consumer has not need for. Heck most lower end laptop have some were between 4GB and 8GB of memory and they really dont need more.

[TheProfosist]

Why does everyone think the heat sinks on the Mobo are the production variants? They aren't. They're just there so the board can be tested. Those aren't anything like what will be on the production variant.

nope dude thats totally what they are going to sell.

You know I kinda wish they did, lol. I like its simplicity.

[TheDigitalRealm]

nope dude thats totally what they are going to sell. :PYou know I kinda wish they did, lol. I like its simplicity.

I know where you're coming from, but your talking to a big fan of the sabertooth vanity cover so I'd have to disagree.

[Riddler356]

Z97 will likely have the Haswell refresh, might be broadwell but DDR4 is likely not going to be there until the next revision so they dont have to revise the processors that much. There is also the whole price thing and the larger ram size which the average consumer has not need for. Heck most lower end laptop have some were between 4GB and 8GB of memory and they really dont need more.

makes sense, but that doesn't mean I can't hope.

[brownninja97]

I hope its DDR4

Its likely to not be it, i expect linus will talk about it on the wan show, he would agree.

[miyabwah]

EDIT : I'm blind. dat 10Gbps M.2 tho
 

Double EDIT : I'm not blind. Looks like there'll still be legacy PCI.

[Riddler356]

Its likely to not be it, i expect linus will talk about it on the wan show, he would agree.

look at my most recent post on this topic, it was above the post i'm quoting.

[flibberdipper]

it definately is low-end. Just look how ghetto the chipset cooler is. And it also has legacy PCI slots

Just because it has legacy PCI doesn't mean it's low end AT ALL.

[TheProfosist]

Just because it has legacy PCI doesn't mean it's low end AT ALL.

I havnt seen a high end board in a while that has one...