Introduction

Now that several months have passed since the launch of Intel's latest platform, BIOSes have matured greatly, which had many users take the plunge with Z97. Unfortunately, not all of us can afford to be those first adopters, so value for our money is a matter close to the heart. I covered a few ASUS products already, but what about a much more affordable option? The ASUS Z97-A is here to meet those needs, and right off the bat, I've got to say that it excels at the task in such a way few other come close to. Let's delve a bit deeper to take a look as to why.

Featuring many of those features we all look for from ASUS, including a great software package and a wide open BIOS ready for tweaking, the ASUS Z97-A ups the ante a fair bit when it comes time to get a good product for decent money, while offering some fantastic memory support and that curious little SATA Express implementation many other boards have chosen not to support. Having been fortunate enough to get an early SATA Express drive sample to use in my testing, there's something to look forward to with the ASUS Z97-A, with a fair bit of room for upgradability because of its SATA Express port some time in the future.

Specifications