Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming 7 Owners Thread.

Caporegime
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Here is an owners thread for this board.

Z170X_Gaming_7%20AWARDS_zpslp7m1bfy.jpg



OcUK Page - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/giga...cket-1151-ddr4-atx-motherboard-mb-526-gi.html

CPU bundle Page - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/giga...rboard-bundle-20-pounds-saving-bu-022-gi.html

Gigabyte UK Page - http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5615#ov



This board has been cleaning up on the review sites.


You will find the latest drivers and BIOS versions at the Gigabyte download page here - http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5615#dl - do not use the stuff that comes on the disk.

You will find the latest BETA BIOS versions here - http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte/28441-gigabyte-latest-beta-bios.html - never had an issue flashing these as I believe they come from Gigabyte engineers and eventually get turned into official releases.


Some awesome features are

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Loads of power phases for overclocking.


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Display Port and HDMI, USB typeC with 3.1 support, Five USB3.0/2.0, One USB3.1 (red port), Intel and Killer NIC, 5.1 audio with S/PDIF.


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Power ON/OFF, Reset and CMOS clear buttons.

OC and ECO mode buttons.

ECO - Saves power by automatically reducing power consumption based on system load.

OC - Press this to automatically overclock your system, but doing this manually is best.

For example with my i7 6700K pressing it takes my core speed up to 4.4GHz.

Untitled2_zpsar7v3r7r.png


Which increases Cinebench R15 score from around 865 stock to 895 roughly, a small overall gain to be honest.


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Two USB3.0 internal headers.


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Lots of SATAIII and SATA Express.


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Creative sound chip and an up-gradable OP-AMP.


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Twin M.2 32Gb/S ports which you can RAID together but you do lose some SATA ports if you use these and the manual is very complex in understanding which M.2 effects what SATA Port and how different PCI-E lane SSDs effect various numbers of SATA ports and even some of the PCI-E slots.

This is the simplest explanation I have seen - http://techreport.com/review/29072/gigabyte-z170x-gaming-7-motherboard-reviewed/2


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Dual BIOS of course.


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BIOS switch for single BIOS mode or dual BIOS mode.

You would use single mode if you were heavily overclocking as in dual mode it can throw errors as on every boot it compares the two BIOSes, if you ever see the "db" error, switching to single mode will fix it.


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Audio gain switch for high impedance headphones.


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Burr Brown OPA2134 AMP.

You can swap this out if you prefer a warmer sound for example.


m.2 installation

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This is not rocket science, slot it in at the connector end (which is keyed so it will only go in one way).

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Screw it down.

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In the BIOS screenshot above you can see that I have a Kingston DataTraveller thumb drive as the first boot option, this thumb drive contains my Windows 10 install, then the windows boot manger second followed by the actual m.2 SSD itself.

Save+exit the bios and the Windows install will auto-start and install windows for you.


Setting your RAM to XMP

Advanced%20Memory%20Settings_02-33-02_zps8rtjyrvt.png


Many people buy fast RAM such as 3000MHz and fit it into their board and assume that that is it all done and dusted and forget about it. Yet if they look at the memory tab of say CPU-Z it would actually show the RAM is running at 2133MHz as they have not set the XMP profile within the BIOS.

So in the screenshot above, navigate to that page and load the profile corresponding to the 3000Mhz rating of the RAM and then save+exit.

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A quick check of CPU-Z should show the RAM running at 1500MHz (double data rate so double it for 3000MHz).

Also try using the red pair of slots first.


Some BIOS features

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Here is another auto overclock style setting, pick the percentage you want to increase the speed by, save+exit and remember to test for stability.

I am not sure what they are comparing the percentages against but 20% takes my i7 6700K to 4.3GHz and 100% takes it up to 4.7GHz.


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You can make the boards onboard LEDs and I/O shield plate change colour.

You can set it to pulse or activate with music beat.

It can also be controlled via one of the downloadable apps,



Overclock to 4.5GHz

 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
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16,526
Great board, I own one myself

Gigabyte techs are struggling with RAM issues at the minute. There are two beta bioses available (F8) which together with disabling XMP and setting timings manually removes 99% of BSODs

Shouldn't affect most people, but those who hit their RAM hard will have problems. Gamings fine, using large RAM disks isn't :D
 
Caporegime
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System Information Viewer App

If you download the App Center you can then add other programs to it such as EasyTune shown in the video above.

One of the programs available is SIV (system Information Viewer).

This is an application which you can use to setup your system fans rather than using the BIOS.

For example this is what the fan options look like in the BIOS,

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A choice of speed or manual control.

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And how much you would like the fan RPM to ramp up by as the temp increases.


But if you use SIV,

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You can start the fan calibration process where by it will ramp the fans up and down until it stalls and goes full speed then it is done.

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You get four preset options after the calibration is done.

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This is what its determined is the fan rpm curve for one of my fans, you can drag the little points around and change the graph completly if you wish.

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You can set a fixed speed and override the calibration if you wish.

Just move the slider on the left up or down and click apply.

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You can set it to record various sensors such as the fan speed or voltages for example.

Untitled6_zpsyha9vadc.png~original


Or to warn you of any issues via this pop up box.
 
Caporegime
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Will this ram be ok for his motherboard?

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cors...hannel-kit-white-cmk16gx4m2b30-my-484-cs.html

Also any using the corsair AIO's on this? Did you plug it into the cpu fan header?

That is I think the same RAM I am using (but black colour) so Im confident it will work.

I am using a H110i GT with this board, the fans plug into the pump, the pump has an RPM sensor that plugs into the cpu fan header, the pump also needs a SATA power connector and finally a USB cable connects the pump to the board and that is so Corsair Link can control it.
 
Associate
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I just bought one of these boards but am confusing myself as to what will and wont be enabled in my configuration of drives.

So i have bought the board and the following

Samsung PM951 512GB M.2 PCI-e 3.0 x 4 NVMe Solid State Drive x 2
Samsung Evo 500gb SSD

So if I put the two M2 drives in each slot (not in raid) i know PCI-3 socket will disable, that's fine as I only intend on using one Gfx card..

what i cant get my head around is will both M2 drives installed which sata port will i be left with to run the evo 500gb SSD?

The Evo is going to be my windows disk and M2's for game storage with a mechanical as backup..

so according to this link http://techreport.com/review/29072/gigabyte-z170x-gaming-7-motherboard-reviewed/2 what sata port will i have free?? i know 6/7 are on a different controller..

I'm guessing 1&4 and maybe 5?? confused.com :confused:
 
Caporegime
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Looking at the manual page 32 I think you will have SATA port 4+5 free to use.

You are putting PCIeX4 SSDs into the m.2 slots.

The charts show ticks in all of the boxes for the m.2 M2H one (which is the bottom m.2 slot on the board).

But the m.2 M2D looks to then wipe out SATA0-3 when used.

And as you say 6-7 are on a different controller so I believe will remain operational also.
 
Associate
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When I enable XMP my computer doesn't post, have to set RAM speeds manually. I looked at BIOS updates the other day and it looks like they may have fixed this issue now?
 
Caporegime
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When I enable XMP my computer doesn't post, have to set RAM speeds manually. I looked at BIOS updates the other day and it looks like they may have fixed this issue now?

Either try a update of the BIOS or try maybe using the other pair of slots.

What speed RAM is it?

Edit, what BIOS is yours on now?
 
Associate
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Either try a update of the BIOS or try maybe using the other pair of slots.

What speed RAM is it?

Edit, what BIOS is yours on now?

Its not an issue since I just set speeds manually. 2666MHz ram. The issue happened when I was using the shipped/earliest BIOS. Updated BIOS to latest 2 days ago, but havent tested XMP yet.
 
Associate
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Its not an issue since I just set speeds manually. 2666MHz ram. The issue happened when I was using the shipped/earliest BIOS. Updated BIOS to latest 2 days ago, but havent tested XMP yet.

got mine last week and it shipped with Bios F6. Updated to F7 on building it.

Currently using corsair vengeance 3000mhz with XMP enabled and its fine. Bios F8 is at a beta stage and should be out soon. Seems like its priority is improve ram support.

The fact that your ram is working when set manually means I wouldn't worry about it mate!
 
Caporegime
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Associate
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Anybody tried updating hdmi firmware? I updated mine and now windows gives me black screen (no signal is being sent through hdmi on the motherboard ). Weird as motherboard is sending signal while in bios just not in windows : / not sure how to sort it out.
 
Caporegime
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Anybody tried updating hdmi firmware? I updated mine and now windows gives me black screen (no signal is being sent through hdmi on the motherboard ). Weird as motherboard is sending signal while in bios just not in windows : / not sure how to sort it out.

Hmm that sounds like something simple+daft causing that.

I guess you could try a cmos reset, or a reinstall (doesnt take long to do lets be honest).

Do you see the windows loading icon? (spinning dots if win10)
 
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