ASUS Z87 Motherboards Have Thunderbolt Too

The upcoming Z87 ASUS ROG Maximus VI Extreme motherboard

Z87 and Thunderbolt has been causing a bit of a stir between motherboard vendors recently. ASRock has been bragging recently that they are  “the world’s first to add more of these wonderful Thunderbolt ports to the upcoming Intel 8 Series motherboards” to quote their own words from their latest press release statement which we brought you here.

However, unpicking that statement a bit more and we can see it is actually very misleading and other vendors aren’t happy about this. For a couple of reasons. First, is that they cannot prove they were the first to add Thunderbolt to a Z87 motherboard, that is a very loose claim as most big motherboard vendors were all doing a similar thing at the same time during the development process of their Z87 motherboards which probably started well over 9 months ago. Second, is that no one has produced the world’s first Thunderbolt Z87/8 series motherboard until motherboard vendors are allowed to release their motherboards to the public, when this happens we will most likely see ASRock, ASUS and Gigabyte launch their Thunderbolt equipped motherboards at the same time meaning no one is actually “first” or they are all joint first. This is because everyone has to obey the same NDA.

However, in that same press release ASRock did provide the accurate version of that same statement, which isn’t so misleading, stating the “Z87 Extreme9/ac motherboard is the world’s first Intel 8 Series motherboard to pass the Intel Thunderbolt certification” and it is important to note that subtle yet important difference between getting certification for Thunderbolt first, and actually having the first Thunderbolt motherboard.

In response ASUS also clarified with us that their Z87 motherboards will support Thunderbolt too and have been Thunderbolt certified for this. In the image provided by ASUS below you can see proof of this Thunderbolt certification and the inclusion of Thunderbolt ports on one of their upcoming Z87 motherboards.

So while ASRock may have dibs on the first Thunderbolt certification from Intel, ASRock, ASUS and Gigabyte will all have Thunderbolt motherboards ready on Haswell’s launch according to Z87 motherboard previews, rumours and leaks. I have still yet to see evidence of Thunderbolt motherboards coming from MSI, ECS, EVGA and other vendors but we will let you know if that happens.