FOR THE ENTHUSIAST
ASUS Z97- Deluxe ( NFC & WLC)
This full ATX board from ASUS is a prime example of a jack- of-all-trakdes design. From reliability to performance, it also offers a generous bundle of accessories with all the bells and whistles thrown in. The board sports a gold- on-black color scheme that was first introduced in 2013 with the Intel 8 series. In addition, the heatsinks cooling the power delivery components around the CPU socket feature a brushed aluminum finish, with three heatsinks connected via a heatpipe for better heat dissipation.
The board features ASUS 5-way Optimization technology for better realtime performance tweaking. The benefits include power savings in-between tasks, stable digital power delivery over the board’s 16 + 2 power phases to the voltage regulation modules, and a centralized manner to control cooling fans for efficient and quiet operations. It even boasts of being able to adjust network and audio systems to suit the applications being used on the system.
There is a pair of PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, plus a third x16 slot running at PCIe 2.0 x4 mode. With this setup, the board supports 2-way SLI or 3-way CrossFireX. You also get two SATA Express connectors and an M.2 socket. One SATA Express connector is directly linked to the Z97 PCH, while the other is tied to a third party ASMedia controller.
Its generous bundle of accessories also set it apart from the crowd. It has an ASUS Wi- Fi GO! onboard module that supports Wi- Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth v4.0. It also comes with a 2T2R dual-band Wi- Fi antenna. There is a ThunderboltEX II/ Dual expansion card that can fit into any PCIe 2.0 x1 slots. The card supports up to 12 daisy- chained Thunderbolt 2 devices, as well as up to six displays supporting DisplayPort 1.2.
A truly unique bundle is the new ASUS NFC Express 2 package that connects via a USB port. The package houses an NFC receiver and also doubles up as a USB 3.0 hub with two ports. If you don’t have any NFC devices, the board is bundled with an NFC tag for you to try out. The last accessory is the ASUS Wireless Charger that allows charging of devices that support the Qi inductive power standard, even when the system is turned off.
Thanks to its special T-topology design, the board claims to be able to support DDR3 memory rated up to 3,300MHz! Coupled with its digital power delivery system and a well laid out UEFI BIOS utility, the ASUS Z97Deluxe, together with its abundant bundle of accessories, is a truly impressive all-in- one motherboard.