ASUS today announced a new look for its range of motherboards based on the Intel Z87 chipset. Replacing the previous blue-accented color scheme, Asus has added a gold application on custom-designed heatsinks.

The gold-imbued heatsinks on new ASUS Z87 motherboards have bigger surface areas for better heat dissipation and improved cooling, and use fine-threaded polished metal that gives the gold theme a deep luster.



Asus' Z87 motherboard line-up for Intel's new Haswell CPUs includes a full range of boards spanning Mini-ITX, microATX, and ATX form factors. It includes the mini-ITX Z87 I-Deluxe, which is a follow-up to the P8Z77-I Deluxe. The Deluxe features 802.11ac Wi-Fi and more 6Gbps SATA and USB 3.0 ports as well as an improved AI Suite softwaredesigned for overclocking, power management, and fan controls.

The top of the line Z87-PRO has all ASUS-exclusive features of the Z87-PLUS like a 12-phase CPU power three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots wired to the CPU (x16/NC/NC or x8/x8/NC or x8/x4/x4), four PCI-Express x1 slots, eight internal and two external SATA ports, six USB 3.0 ports, 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, WiFi (802.11 b/g/n), display outputs that include DVI, D-Sub, HDMI, and DisplayPort.

Asus also revealed the Z87-Deluxe motherboard that supports the most functions and features advanced connectivity and the the Z87-A that features mainstream designs.

ASUS will also offer the Republic of Gamers (ROG) Maximus VI series which will be based off three models, the Maximus VI Hero, the Maximus VI Gene, and the Maximus VI Extreme. The Maximus VI Hero is the budget-oriented solution; the Maximus VI Gene micro-ATX and the Maximus VI Extreme will be the flagship motherboard from ASUS for socket LGA1150. The former two feature Supreme FX sound enhancement with SNR 115dB output, and the latter supports DDR3 memory up to 3GHz.

The Maximus VI Hero comes with a 12-phase CPU power supply three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (x16/NC/NC or x8/x8/NC or x8/x4/x4) and eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, SupremeFX onboard audio, and your standards like four USB 3.0 ports, gigabit Ethernet, and HDMI display output.

The Maximus VI Gene has two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (x16/NC or x8/x8), a PCI-Express 2.0 x4 , a mPCIe combo cardfor 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth, and six USB 3.0 ports.

The Maximus VI Extreme allows for 3-way and 4-way multi-GPU setups and has a PCI-Express 3.0 x48 bridge chip for four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots. Two of them are electrically x16 wired, while all four can do x8. Connectivity include two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, ten SATA 6 Gb/s ports, eight USB 3.0.

ASUS' TUF series incluses the Sabertooth Z87 and the Z87-Gryphon.

The Sabertooth Z87 is an ATX model packed with thermal armor, auxiliary temperature probes, and dust covers for all the slots. The motherboard has eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports, three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, comes with 8-channel HD audio, gigabit Ethernet, eight USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, and a number of conventional USB 2.0/1.1 ports.

The Z87-Gryphon is a micro-ATX motherboard equipped with a thermal armor kit 8-phase CPU power, expansion slots that include two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (x16/NC or x8/x8), a PCI-Express 2.0 x16 and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports, four USB 3.0 ports, 8-channel HD audio with optical SPDIF output, gigabit Ethernet, and display outputs that include DVI and HDMI.

For 2013, Asustek expects to ship 22 million motherboards but will try to challenge the 24 million mark. ASUS Z87 motherboards will begin shipping worldwide mid-2013.

Gigabyte also recently unveiled its new motherboard line, which includes the Z87N-Wifi focused on the HTPC market, the H87-D3H with 2-way CrossFire technology, Z87X-D3H for the gaming market and the B85-HD3 for enterprise users.

ASRock has unveiled its Z87 Extreme9/ac, which has received certification from Intel for Thunderbolt technology, with new Purity Sound 115dB, HDMI-In, special coating, Wi-Fi 802.11ac and family cloud technologies.

MSI is also extpected to set to showcase its latest motherboards at Computex 2013.