ASUS Announces All X99 and Z97 Motherboards Support NVM Express Devices

ASUS TUF Sabertooth X99 already supports 2.5" and PCI Express card NVM Express options.  Now ASUS is world's first motherboard brand to offer the same support across the entire range of its consumer Z97/X99 motherboards.  By simply updating the UEFI BIOS and using an optional ASUS Hyper Kit expansion card, your motherboard is upgraded to achieve more than previously possible.   It is possible to be faster and use less power; extreme data-transfer speeds up to 32Gbit/s, while better power-efficiency leads to lower running costs.  

Advanced Host Controller Interface (ACHI) is a hardware mechanism that allows software to talk with Serial ATA (SATA) devices such as SSDs, an upgrade has been long-overdue.  NVM Express is the new storage architecture you've been waiting for.  This new technology allows the latest hardware to run at peak performance without bottlenecks, resulting in data-transfer speeds up to five times faster than traditional 6Gbit/s SATA connections, while reducing power consumption.

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A UEFI BIOS update can be applied using the ASUS-exclusive USB BIOS Flashback very easily.  The new UEFI BIOs can be flashed from a USB drive and the motherboard does not even need to have a processor or memory modules in place.  Simply connect the power supply, plug in the USB drive (with the UEFI BIOS), and press the USB BIOS Flashback or Reset button. 

With the optional ASUS Hyper Kit expansion card, owners of ASUS X99 motherboards are free to attach 2.5-inch NVMe storage devices via the SFF-8639 (Mini-SAS HD) connector provided by Hyper Kit. ASUS Hyper Kit can also be purchased separately.

 Hit the PR button below for the full details.