Benchmarks: storage
USB performance is an interesting area of differentiation since some vendors will use certain turbo procedures to speed-up data transfer. In our testing we found the ASUS Z97 Pro Gamer delivered lacklustre write performance with its 'normal' USB operating mode. By enabling the UASP function both read and write performance improved dramatically. In contrast the MSI board seemed to have UASP enabled by default, giving similar numbers with or without MSI's software.
SATA performance is mandated by the Z97 Express chipset so the numbers vary little between boards. The Corsair Neutron GTX pushes the SATA III interface to the limits on both boards.
M.2 testing revealed 30MB/s of difference on the read aspect. Both boards sport the same M.2 10Gbps ports, not the faster Gen3 32Gbps variants, so the difference is a little puzzling.