ASRock Z170 Gaming K6 Review - Product Showcase

Product Showcase

The ASRock Z170 Gaming K6+ follows a standard form factor. The motherboard is located in the Fatal1ty range and is a high-end product within this new Skylake range. 

Included with the motherboard are the regulars including; manuals, driver CDs, SATA cables and a rear IO plate. This motherboard does not come with Bluetooth and/or WIFI adapter which we feel is a miss anno 2015.

• CPU support: Skylake-S class Intel Core processors
• Chipset: Intel Z170 Chipset
• 1x KillerNIC Gigabit Ethernet (E2400)
• Storage: 
• 6x SATA 6Gb/s Intel
• 2x Sata 6Gb/s ASMedia ASM1061
• 1x M.2, PCIe 32 Gb/s and shared SATA Express ports x2
• Connectivity: 
• 3x PCI-E 3.0 x16  (single at x16 / dual at x8 / tripple at x8 - x8 - x4)
• 3x PCI-E 3.0 x1
• USB 3.0 / 3.1 
• 8-channel Audio ALC1150 Realtek

Well look at that; small and good looking. And really, as powerful as an enthusiast setup. Included in the bundle is one mighty fine motherboard and gear like SATA cables, SLI connectors and so on. Mind you there is a Z170 Gaming K6 and K6+ version of this motherboard, the only difference is that the last one has an Front panel USB 3.1 panel included.
 

You will notice that the motherboard has shields on a lot of spots, you can argue whether or not these work, but they sure do look nice. The I/O back panel reveals five 3.0 ports and then a Type-C and Type A connector are for USB 3.1 as well as a USB mouse port with ESD protection. A Realtek ALC1150 high definition audio codec is the main source for audio. The audio unit has special noise reducing capacitors and EMI shielding. You will spot one 10/100/1000  Gigabit Ethernet jack (Killer E2400). There is a single PS/2 combo port that can be used for either a keyboard or a mouse, optical SPDIF out port and six gold plated audio jacks. Can you see the small grey button roughly a cm away from the lower left? That is a clear CMOS button. If you plan to use the integrated IGP of the processor, you can make use of a DVI, DP or HDMI connector.

Check that, 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots which can be arranged in these slot configurations with graphics cards:

• 1-way mode - x16 / x0 / x0 
• 2-way mode - x8 / x8 / x0
• 3-way mode - x8 / x8 / x4

As you can see these are PCI Express Gen 3.0 configurations, that's plenty for regular graphics card setups up-to 2-way SLI/Crossfire. 

The motherboard comes with an 8 power connectors. The board itself is based on a 12 phase power design and comes with premium quality components like 60A chokes and Nichicon 12K platinum capacitors