Asrock Z97E-ITX/ac (LGA-1150) Motherboard Review

SATA, M.2 and USB Performance

To test the storage performance in our motherboard reviews we use AIDA’s Disk Benchmark utility built into their AIDA64 Engineer Edition software package and run linear read and write tests. We run each of the benchmark tests on a SATA III, USB 3.0 and M.2 device. For SATA III testing we use a SanDisk Extreme Pro 240GB, for USB 3.0 testing we use the Supersonic Magnum 256 GB USB 3.0 flash drive and for M.2 testing we use Plextor’s 256GB M.2 M6e SSD. The drives are always formatted before use.

Linear Read

Linear Write

Here we can see an admiral performance from the Z97E-ITX/ac, we start seeing the possible performance limitations here. However, the Write test shows an outstanding 481MB/s write score, which is on par with the 520MB/s manufacturers speed. I can only assume the other tests were performed before drivers were installed. We also see a good USB 3.0 read speed compared to the rest.