Z97 GAMING 9 AC Custom-Designed Motherboard by MSI for the Public

Once upon a time, “professional gamer” would have been a nonsensical phrase, but when there are actual game tournaments with lots of cash at stake, you can't really scoff in skepticism anymore. And you don't get to glance oddly at high-end motherboards either.

On that note, MSI has introduced the Z97 GAMING 9 AC “custom-designed motherboard.” The company didn't actually say what it means by “custom-designed,” but we suspect it has to do with the various surveys that IT companies periodically conduct via social networking websites. Anyway, you'd think that MSI would take the time to gush about the expansion capabilities, memory or networking features. What really happened in the press release was different. The company spent time lauding the Dragon Armor (smooth, cooling covers for the important PCB parts), the Wi-Fi AC & Bluetooth 4.0 with Intel WiDi support and, last but not least, the Xtreme Audio DAC. In fact, the audio technology saw the most attention. MSI made sure that no one would miss the relevance of the premium onboard sound card whose capabilities are on par with the best add-in audio cards.

We're looking at 120dB Signal-to-Noise-Ratio (SNR) 192kHz / 32-Bit, C-Media HD Audio Processor, Wolfson WM8741 DAC and Texas Instruments TPA6120A2 amplifier, plus a pair of TI OPA1652 amplifiers, 1 per channel. Professional headphones of up to 600 Ohms will be put through their paces (high-end headphones can have 250 Ohms or less, so that's impressive). You can fine all the info on the new, mighty motherboard on MSI's Z97 Gaming motherboard website. Only the price is still unknown.

Z97 GAMING 9 AC
Image credits to MSI

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