My time with the Z97-A has been extremely interesting. As always I was extremely impressed with Asus’s attention to detail when packing the Z97-A full of features. Typically with a low to mid ranged motherboard like this manufactures seem to try their best to put only the bear minimum in effort into everything. Asus did a great job of giving the Z97-A the best software available as well as the best UEFI BIOS. I was also really impressed with the USB 3.0 performance when using Asus’s USB 3.0 Boost. In contrast to all of that I was a little disappointed in the network performance of the Intel NIC on the Z97-A. The same goes for the built in audio card, this is to be expected at a price point like the Z97-A’s though.
In the end I can’t be too upset. Asus did put together a motherboard that is going to be extremely hard to beat at a price point of $149.99 as of today. It has its downsides, but you can’t really expect something to be perfect when it is priced on the low to mid-range. Asus did end up putting together a good package at a price point that isn’t the cheap but fitting for the product you are getting.
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers.
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Hello...you stated, "I was a little disappointed in the network performance of the Intel NIC on the Z97-A...this is to be expected at a price point like the Z97-A’s though". I've been looking at getting the ASUS Z97 Deluxe which is almost twice as much as the -A version @ $275 and it uses the same Intel I218-V NIC. Even the $350 Z97 Deluxe NFC/WLC uses the same NIC as the Z97-A. Soooo...no matter what price point I'm at in this line of ASUS motherboards, I can't get very good network performance???
Actually in later testing I found this to be a specific issue only with the model of switch that we do our testing on. You can find a little more information here
