**The Best Z170 Board Available?**

[ScottiB]

I think it may be....

Available now, only from OcUK...

Unlike competitor products in this this price range it is fully PLX equipped, nor does it cut features to a minimum! It supports up to four graphics cards, three M.2 drives and three SATA Express devices...

Gigabyte GA-Z170X-SOC Force Intel Z170 (Socket 1151) DDR4 EATX Motherboard @ £334.99 inc VAT

Key Features
- Supports 6th Generation Intel® Core™ Processor
- Dual Channel DDR4, 4 DIMMs
- 22 phases digital power delivery design
- Exclusive OC Touch with Metal shielding design
- Exclusive Ultra Durable Metal Shielding over the PCIe Slot
- Built-in advanced performance tuning IC
- Intel® USB 3.1 with USB Type-C™ - The World's Next Universal Connector
- Extreme 4-Way Graphics Support with OC Brace
- 3 SATA Express Connectors for up to 16Gb/s Data Transfer
- 3 PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 Connectors with up to 32Gb/s Data Transfer
- 115dB HD audio with build-in rear audio amplifier
- Intel® GbE LAN with cFosSpeed Internet Accelerator Software
- LED Trace Path with Multi-Color Choice
- Water Cooling Ready Heat sink Design with G1/4 Threaded Fittings
- GIGABYTE UEFI DualBIOS™ with Q-Flash Plus USB port


Specification:
CPU
Support for Intel® Core™ i7 processors/Intel® Core™ i5 processors/ Intel® Core™ i3 processors/Intel® Pentium® processors/ Intel® Celeron® processors in the LGA1151 package
L3 cache varies with CPU

Chipset
Intel® Z170 Express Chipset

Memory
4 x DDR4 DIMM sockets supporting up to 64 GB of system memory
* Due to a Windows 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than the size of the physical memory installed.
Dual channel memory architecture
Support for DDR4 3866(O.C)/3733(O.C)/3666(O.C) /3600(O.C.) /3466(O.C.) /3400(O.C.) /3333(O.C.) /3300(O.C.) /3200(O.C.) /3000(O.C.) /2800(O.C.) /2666(O.C.) /2400(O.C.) /2133 MHz memory modules
Support for ECC UDIMM 1Rx8/2Rx8 memory modules (operate in non-ECC mode)
Support for non-ECC UDIMM 1Rx8/2Rx8/1Rx16 memory modules
Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules

Slots
2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1, PCIEX16_2)
* For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16_1 slot; if you are installing two PCI Express graphics cards, it is recommended that you install them in the PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2 slots.
2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1, PCIEX8_2)
* The PCIEX8_1 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16_1 slot and the PCIEX8_2 slot with PCIEX16_2. The PCIEX16_1/PCIEX16_2 slot will operate at up to x8 mode when the PCIEX8_1/PCIEX8_2 is populated.
3 x PCI Express x1 slots
(All of the PCI Express slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)
Onboard Graphics
Integrated Graphics Processor-Intel® HD Graphics support:
1 x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200@60 Hz
* The DVI-D port does not support D-Sub connection by adapter.
1 x Mini-DisplayPort, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096x2304@60 Hz
* Support for DisplayPort 1.2 version.
1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096x2160@24 Hz
* Support for HDMI 1.4 version.
Support for up to 3 displays at the same time
Maximum shared memory of 512 MB

Storage
Chipset:
3 x M.2 Socket 3 connectors (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SATA & PCIe x4/x2/x1 SSD support)
3 x SATA Express connectors
6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0~5)
Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
* Refer to "1-9 Internal Connectors," for the supported configurations with the M.2, SATA Express, and SATA connectors.
ASMedia® ASM1061 chip:
2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 6~7), supporting AHCI mode only

USB
Chipset+Intel® USB 3.1 Controller:
1 x USB Type-C™ port on the back panel, with USB 3.1 support
1 x USB 3.1 port on the back panel
Chipset:
5 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports on the back panel
8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports onboard, 4 ports available through the internal USB headers)
Chipset+Renesas® USB 3.0 Hub:
4 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports (available through the internal USB headers)

Audio
Realtek® ALC1150 codec
High Definition Audio
2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
Support for S/PDIF Out

LAN
Intel Gigabit LAN

Dimensions
E-ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 26.4cm


Only £334.99 inc VAT.

ORDER NOW

 

[ScottiB]

He has..

a showdown would be a little difficult since they all have different strengths and weaknesses. For memory performance pick the OCF, for graphics/storage pick the SOC, I'm not sure which wins on CPU.

As for fading colours, I can't say I noticed and we've been using Gigabyte SOC boards for speed binning for the last three chipsets. Yours wasn't in direct sunlight at any time of the day was it?

 

[ScottiB]

I cant help but think how stupid the placement of the PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 Connectors are. If you are SLi'ig (2 x) you don't have 3, you have one available. Can they not place these some place else on the mobo, why do they need to put them under where the GPU's sit?

Surely you put the M.2 drives in before the graphics cards? Once fitted they don't interfere with the graphics card.

Most boards only have one slot because they take up a lot of space. I think Gigabyte's layout is pretty clever myself.

 

[ScottiB]

...the motherboard is brand new to the market so there will be a premium on it for a while.

This only happens on rare occasions where demand is high and stock is very restricted. I can assure you that there is no premium on this, or any Z170 board at the moment, the shortage of CPUs make is limiting demand.