Product Showcase

Product Showcase

The Gaming 7 follows a standard ATX form factor (30.5x24.4cm). The motherboard is located in the Gaming enthusiast class range within the Skylake and Kaby Lake desktop processor range. 

Check it out first, nice huh ? Included with the motherboard are the regulars including; manuals, driver CDs, SATA cables and a rear IO plate. It also has a couple of new features which we'll talk about in-depth in this review. BTW the white accents are incredibly hard to photograph in our white studio, so sorry about that as things can look a little washed out.

• CPU support: Skylake / Kaby lake class Intel Core processors
• Chipset: Intel Z270 Chipset
• 2x Gigabit: Ethernet Intel Gb and Killer E2500
• Storage: 
  • 2 x M.2 Socket 3 connectors
  • 3 x SATA Express connectors
  • 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0~5)
  • 1 x U2
• Connectivity: 
  • 3x PCI-E 3.0 x16  (single at x16 / dual at x8 / triple at x8 - x8 - x4)
  • 3x PCI-E 3.0 x1
• USB 3.0 / 3.1 
• ThunderBolt IC driving USB 3.1 Gen 2 and 40 Mbit TB connections
• 8-channel Audio Creative Sound Core 3D chip
    

Included in the bundle is one interesting looking motherboard and gear like SATA cables, SLI connectors and so on. What this motherboard misses however is WIFI, a bit of a miss if you ask me.

The I/O back panel reveals 3.1/3.0/2.0 ports. The audio unit has special noise reducing capacitors and shielding. You will spot one 10/100/1000  Gigabit Ethernet jack and the  another one, Killer with new model E2500. Included is a PS/2 combo port for either a keyboard or a mouse, optical SPDIF out port and five audio jacks. If you plan to use the integrated IGP of the processor, you can make use of one HDMI or DP connector. The rear connectivity back-panel is loaded full - we like that, nice.

The board 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 one 8-pin power connector. You'll get four DIMM slots that can be used for up-to 64GB of dual-channel memory up-to even 4000 MHz supported in OC mode. We use a new 3866 MHz Trident Z kit from G.Skill which we'll feature in detail in this review.

Back Panel I/O Ports

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
• 1 x HDMI port
• 1 x DisplayPort
• 1 x ThunderBolt 3 (USB Type C with 3.1 Gen 2 support)
• 1 x USB 3.1 Type-A port (red)
• 5 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
• 2 x RJ-45 ports
• 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
• 5 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Line In/Mic In, Line Out, Headphone)