

I’d say the GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 has a great hardware design. When installed, you can plug this wire into a special port on the motherboard which will enable configurable LED lighting – a great feature for those who love adding bling to their builds. In the final shot in the above slider, you’ll notice something a bit odd about the I/O panel: it has a wire hanging from it. On the capacitor front, GIGABYTE employs 10K solid-state caps for the CPU and memory, and some Nichicon caps for the audio solution (which are hidden underneath the AMP-UP shroud.) I think it goes without saying that should be enough for anyone.
GIGABYTE MOTHERBOARD Z170 FREE
The “Turbo B-Clock” chip allows overclockers to break free from the Intel-imposed BCLK limitations of 5%, and instead gain the ability to adjust it between 90MHz and 500MHz. Looking closer at the board, there are a couple of things worth pointing out. While having two NICs is going to be unnecessary for most people, I’ve come to really appreciate having two in the rare event that one of them dies at some point – something I’ve experienced twice.Īccessories, including the I/O panel which plugs into the motherboard for some LED light action. This motherboard also includes dual Ethernet ports one from Intel, and the other from Killer. If you’re using high impedance headphones, you can flick a switch beside the OPAMP to increase the amplification from 2.5x to 6x. As an added bonus, this OPAMP isn’t soldered onto the board, so you are free to swap it out for your own if your tastes tempt you to do so. In addition to that, if you want to jump on the SATA Xpress bandwagon, you’ll be able to hook up a total of three drive configurations (which would be 6 drives total.)Īlso noteworthy is the fact that this board has a built-in TI Burr Brown OPAMP to deliver crystal-clear sound.
GIGABYTE MOTHERBOARD Z170 INSTALL
First, there’s not one, but two M.2 slots, letting you install two super-fast SSDs, or one SSD and one of some other peripheral. Internal: 4x 3.0 (Renesas) & 4x 2.0 (Intel)Ģx 1Gbps LAN, 5x USB 3.0, 1x USB-C 3.1, 1x USB 3.1 (Red), 1x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI, 1x Optical S/PDIF, 5x Audio Jacks, PS/2 Keyboard + MouseģD OSD, Ambient LED, AutoGreen, Cloud Station, EasyTune, Easy RAID, Fast Boot, Smart TimeLock, Smart Keyboard, Smart Backup, System Information Viewer, USB Blocker, Q-Flash, Smart Switch, Xpress InstallĪ couple of features stand out here. TI Burr Brown OPA2134 operational amplifierīack-panel: 1x 3.1, 1x 3.1 USB-C, 5x 3.0 & (Intel) It’s a “Gaming” board because its audio and networking solutions are catered towards it, and not to mention the aesthetics.īefore we get into a hardware tour, here are the board’s specs: Isn’t it great to have so much choice?īased on its name alone, I don’t need to tell you which market this board is targeted at. If you want to spend less, the featureset gets whittled down as far as the Gaming 3, which is priced at $130. The company’s Gaming 7 is priced at around $225, putting it in a rather comfortable spot for those building beefy gaming PCs. The Gaming 7 is the top-tier board in GIGABYTE’s lineup that’s numbered, but it has even higher-end offerings in the form of Gaming G1 and Gaming GT. Where the Gaming 7 I’m looking at here is concerned, it’s designed to cater to gamers and offer a great number of features, but without going “overboard” by most standards. Given the sheer selection, it’s a little hard to understand the differences between all of the boards, but fortunately, GIGABYTE offers a tool that lets you compare one board to another. The selection is even incredible on a vendor-by-vendor basis: GIGABYTE currently offers 26 models to choose from! This is of course for a great reason: the selection of Z170 boards out there is incredible.
GIGABYTE MOTHERBOARD Z170 PC
If you’re looking to build a new PC designed around Intel’s Z170 chipset, your decision on which motherboard to go with isn’t likely to be that simple.
