14 DAY TRIAL // The Z97 chipset from Intel is more than enough to play even the best and newest games at full settings, provided you have graphics cards to match, but Intel has an even stronger chipset anyway, since there is no kill like overkill.
The Z97 chipset is what we may as well call the “normal” top-tier motherboard platform, as far as Intel's product line goes in any event.
Not that AMD has even bothered to challenge Intel on that level. It is more than comfortable on the mainstream front, where its APUs can show their advantages.
However, even with its status secure on the high-end market, Intel insists on perpetuating one that exists a step above even that.
That's why the X99 chipset exists and why its predecessors have existed. Same goes for the Extreme Edition Core-series CPUs that pair with them.
MSI has just released motherboards based on both chipsets
Micro-Star International could have launched either one of its two new motherboards alone. It could even have put their releases far apart. Pacing sometimes draws more consumers in the long run.
It didn't, though. The company chose to go with the maximum shock and awe factor, so it released both the X99S GAMING 9 ACK and Z97 GAMING 9 ACK motherboards at the same time.
The “ACK” in the name stands for the ACK powered by Killer DoubleShot Pro wireless networking card, which combined with Ethernet LAN can transfer data over-the-air at a speed of up to 1.876 Gbps.
And yes, we do mean teaming. Smart Teaming. A technology that allows a PC to use both Wi-Fi and wired connections at the same time, hence the high throughput rate we mentioned above.
The network technology also makes sure that, when a game is running, said game gets all the cable LAN to itself, leaving the rest of the PC (background web browsers, torrent programs, etc.) to use the Wi-Fi radios. This minimizes latency about as much as you can hope for.
Add to that the fact that Wireless ACK Killer has 2.9x times faster data throughput compared to traditional Wireless-N solutions and 3.5x times lower latency than other Wi-Fi solutions, and there is no way the technology will be at fault for you getting taken out by potshots in a shooting match.
Availability and pricing
The MSI X99S GAMING 9 ACK and Z97 GAMING 9 ACK motherboards should be up for sale soon enough, but availability and pricing details are still unavailable. Needless to say, the top-level audio, memory, and storage support won't make them any more affordable than the super networking tech does.