Shuttle XPC SH170R6 Barebone Desktop review - PCH - The H170 Platform Controller Hub Chipset

H170 PCH - The Platform Controller Hub Chipset

With the Skylake for desktop processors comes yet again a new motherboard chipset. You cannot stick to the Series 9 Chipset from Intel. For end consumers like you and me the H170 chipset will be less performance targeted and comes with better support for HTPC monitor connectivity and yeah a better price level. The Z170 chipset however is targeted at mainstream performance and enthusiast end users allowing much more tweaking and providing performance features. 

H170 still offers a wider range of features, you will see support for up-to six SATA3 devices, support for M.2. USB 3.1 is going to be a common thing you will see with these motherboards. Both Z170 and H170 will be the platform used by you guys, you can expect PCI Express 3.0 with 16 links controlled by the processor and another bunch through the PCH. Interesting to know is that the processor will drive 16 PCI-Express gen 3.0 lanes and then the PCH will drive another 16 PCI-Express gen 3.0 lanes. So your SATA / M2 devices will not hog valuable PCI-Express lanes from the processor for graphics.
 

Next to the increase in PCI-Express lanes (16+16) a pretty big thing is DDR4 memory support, albeit that is linked through the processors memory controllers, not the PCH. There's more really, the B150, Q150 and H110 business and value chipsets exist as well.
 

PCI-Express gen 3.0

PCI Express Gen 3 provides a 2x faster transfer rate than the previous generation, this delivers capabilities for next generation extreme gaming solutions. PCI Express Gen 3 has twice the available bandwidth, 32 GB/s, improved efficiency and compatibility and as such it will offer better performance for current and next gen PCI Express cards. Going from PCIe Gen 2 to Gen 3 doubles the bandwidth available to the add-on cards installed, from 500 MB/s per lane to 1 GB/s per lane. So a Gen 3 PCI Express x16 slot is capable of offering 16 GB/s (or 128 Gbit/s) of bandwidth in each direction. That results in 32 GB/sec bi-directional bandwidth. Obviously the hardware you use needs to be compatible.

M2 Storage Units

Your Intel series 100 and newer motherboards will likely all have that cute and tiny M.2 PCIe interface. That brings small form factors add-in SSDs to our PC platform. There is an abbreviation for that, NGFF (Next Generation Form Factor). It is not just that though, SATA3 has not been amongst us for that long, but the SSDs evolved in a very fast manner, making SATA3 already a bottleneck for current generation SSDs. M.2 PCIe links directly to your PCIe lanes and as such, it is an interface with much more available bandwidth. At a cool 10 Gbps PCI-Express based M.2 has roughly 67% more bandwidth available opposed to SATA3 (6 Gbps). Next to that all motherboard manufacturers now offer x4 links, generating 32 Gbit/s connectivity. So that will definitely kick off a new SSD race . You can expect performance anywhere from 500 MB/sec up-to 3000MB/sec range with these products. 

SuperSpeed+ USB

USB 3.0 (also known as SuperSpeed USB) has a maximum bandwidth rate of 5 gbps (gigabits per second). That would be to 625 MBps (megabytes per second), ten times faster than USB 2.0 (aka Hi-Speed USB).  USB 3.1 (now known as SuperSpeed+ USB) however once again doubles the numbers jumps from 5 towards 10 Gbps. On the now slowly accustomed USB 3.0 super speed interface pretty much you will be maxing out in the 400 to 450 MB/sec threshold die to a lot of factors. With USB 3.1 you could hover in the 700 Mb/sec range if you have a storage device that supports USB 3.1 though, as that obviously is a requirement. 

USB 3.0 was called SuperSpeed USB, and SuperSpeed+ USB will be the name for USB 3.1

Compatibility

This one is simple, ALL USB solutions are backwards compatible, meaning you can use USB 1.x, 2.0 and 3.0 on this USB 3.1 device just as well. Below we placed the specifications in-between USB standards in a chart.

The C-type connector

There are several types of USB connectors normal and mini sized. With USB 3.1 there is a new reversible connector, this is called the USB type c-connector.  And while it unfortunately is yet another USB cable, this one is good though.
 

Interesting is that you can flip the connector 180-degrees and you can still insert it as there is no up or downside to the connector, you just plug it in. In blue to the bottom of the photo you can see your normal Type A USB 3.0 connector, above it with the rounded edges, the new mini type-C USB 3.1 connector. It looks quite a bit like the Micro USB Type-B connector (left) commonly used with SmartPhones.

LGA 1151 - The CPU Socket

With Sandy Bridge we moved to socket LGA 1155 and for Ivy Bridge we kept that socket. Haswell and Broadwell fit onto socket LGA 1150. Now for Skylake there is one more pin in use, socket 1151 is the new socket to use. As such you'll be required to purchase a new motherboard. The good news is that the cooler pins are similar to 1150/1155/1156 so you can re-use your cooler. So, you do not need to purchase a new CPU cooler.