MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC Review
Published by Hiwa Pouri on 03.03.15Page:
Connectors and I/O
In total, MSI equipped the Z97 Gaming 9 AC motherboard with eight SATA 6Gbps connectors. This means you get six native SATA-III ports from the PCH and two SATA-III from another chip which is in this case an ASM1061 from ASMedia. With this motherboard you get three PCIe x16 Gen 3.0 and three PCIe x1 Gen 2.0 slot and all of them have been painted black. From top to bottom for the PCIe 16x slots have been wired using 16 lanes, 8 lanes and 8 lanes. This means you can do 8x/8x SLI/CrossFire and 8x/4x/4x CrossFireX (3-way). Basically these are the standard options you get with any Intel's Z97 based motherboard, that does not feature a PLX chip. The placement of the PCIe connectors has been well thought. Something that is almost standard nowadays with premium motherboards are the practical onboard power- and reset-buttons as well as a debug LED. MSI also added some extra stuff like two physical BIOS chips as well as a switch to select which one you actually want to use. Furthermore there is an OC Genie button, voltage reading points and a Go-BIOS button. This last one is here to help you get into the BIOS on next boot after pressing it.
The BIOS can be cleared by removing the battery or simply by pushing the clr_CMOS button located in the back panel.
The MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC motherboard features a total of five fan headers, which is enough to provide a normal gaming rig with enough of fresh air. A closer look at the pictures below shows where they have been placed. All five fan headers are PWM (4-pin).
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Looking at the external connectors placed directly at the I/O-panel, MSI equipped the new Z97 Gaming 9 AC motherboard with a P/S2 connector, eight USB 3.0 ports, one Gigabit Ethernet port, one HDMI and a DisplayPort output, two USB 2.0 ports, the CLR_CMOS button as well as an optical out and the analogue audio panel.
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