MSI has refreshed their entire Z97 and X99 line to include USB3.1 support! These models can easily be identified by the ‘A’ in their name (X99-A / Z97-A) and sport a mix of type A and type C connectors.
For those not already familiar with the new USB 3.1 technology, it offers multiple advantages over standard USB 3.0 ports. First and foremost as you would expect, transfer speeds have significantly improved with real world benchmarks showing 50-75% increases over USB 3.0 in reads and 30-50% in writes depending on the environment. Secondly, with USB 3.1 comes the Type C connector, much smaller than standard USB connectors and best of all, it’s reversible!
