Intel Launches The Z97 Chipset

Written by Michael Larabel in Intel on 11 May 2014 at 08:56 AM EDT. 12 Comments
INTEL
Today the NDA clears covering Intel's new Z97 and H97 chipsets, which are targeted for the Haswell-Refresh CPUs along with Broadwell CPUs later in the year.

We were supposed to have a few Z97-based motherboards from Intel and friends, but they unfortunately didn't arrive quite in time... Long story short though, the Z97 motherboards should work under Linux just as existing Haswell 8-Series motherboards do.

The Intel 9-Series Chipsets brings all of the 8-Series features on the same LGA-1150 socket plus a few more improvements, besides guaranteed compatibility with Haswell Refresh and Broadwell CPUs. There's Intel Rapid Storage Technology 13.0 for PCI Express storage, M.2 SSD form factor support, and Intel Device Protection Technology with Boot Guard for protecting the boot block against malware attacks. For those with an Intel 8-Series chipset right now, it's not too worthwhile the upgrade as long as your motherboard vendor plans to release an updated BIOS for compatibility with the upcoming new CPUs from Intel, but it sounds like the overclocking-friendly Devil's Canyon CPUs may be limited to only supporting the Intel Z97/H97 motherboards.

Stay tuned for Linux testing of the new Intel Z97/H97 motherboards in the days ahead plus reviews of the new Intel CPUs as soon as we're allowed, with thanks going out to Intel for ensuring there is Linux hardware coverage of their products on Phoronix and being more helpful than AMD.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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