Product Showcase
Product Showcase
The Z170 follows a standard ATX form factor (30.5x24.4cm). The motherboard is located in the Extreme class range within this new Intel C236 Chipset (they marked it as X170 for obvious reasons as it hints to Z170) 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 features which we'll talk about in-depth in this review. I do dig that camo style shielding.
- CPU support: Support for Intel® Xeon E3-1200 v5 processors/Intel Core processors/ Intel Pentium processors/Intel Celeron processors in the LGA1151 package
- Chipset: Intel C236 Chipset (referred to as X170)
- 2x Gigabit Ethernet (1x Intel and 1x Killer E2400)
- Storage:
- 2 x M.2 Socket 3 connectors
- 3 x SATA Express connectors
- 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0~5)
- 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
- 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.
The I/O back panel reveals 3.1/3.0/2.0 ports. The audio unit has special noise reducing capacitors and EMI shielding. You will spot one 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet jack (Killer E2400) and one Intel based . 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 connector or DP.
- 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
- 1 x DisplayPort
- 1 x HDMI port
- 1 x USB Type-C port, with USB 3.1 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)
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 (Crossfire only) - 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 or 3-way Crossfire.
The motherboard comes with an 8-pin power connector and if you want to use it, another 4-pin as well. You'll get four DIMM slots that can be used for up-to 64GB of dual-channel memory up-to 2133 MHz supported. The motherboard supports DDR4 2133 MHz memory modules as well as ECC UDIMM 1Rx8/2Rx8 memory modules, we'll put both to the test today.
