Product Showcase

Product Showcase

The ASUS Z170 Deluxe follows a standard form factor (30.5x24.4cm). The motherboard is located in the Deluxe 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 has embedded AC WIFI and a good one as well, we'll talk about that later in the article.

• CPU support: Skylake-S class Intel Core processors
• Chipset: Intel Z170 Chipset
• 2x Gigabit Ethernet (Intel)
• 1x WIFI a/b/g/n/ac with dual band support up-to 1300 Mbps
• 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
  • 1x Sata Express
• Connectivity: 
  • 3x PCI-E 3.0 x16  (single at x16 / dual at x8 / tripple at x8 - x8 - x4)
  • 4x 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. You will also receive an M.2. PCI-Express daughter board and U2 converter.
 

The I/O back panel reveals five 3.1/3.0/2.0 ports and then a Type-C, then two USB 3.0 for USB flashback etc. 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 two 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet jack (Intel). lacking is a single PS/2 combo port for either a keyboard or a mouse, optical SPDIF out port and six audio jacks. If you plan to use the integrated IGP of the processor, you can make use of a DP or HDMI connector. the three pins are for the WIFI antenna (included).

The boards has 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. You'll get four DIMM slots that can be used for up-to 64GB of dual-channel memory. We received the new 3200 MHz Ripjaws kit from G.skill which we'll feature in detail in this review.