Final Words & Conclusion
Final Words & conclusion
For the first ever SuperMicro gaming series motherboard being reviewed, we have to say we are not disappointed, but do acknowledge that a lot can be improved on. With the “Server Quality” C7Z170-SQ you will receive a motherboard that was 100% stable in our testing, it was also the most energy friendly board we tested with very low IDLE and LOAD power consumption. The motherboard maximizes the Intel chipset but it's just that, meaning not a lot of extra stuff is added in terms of 3rd party controllers. No KillerNIC, No WIFI, no SATA Express, no extra SATA ports. So yeah, it all feels a little basic to be honest. There's nothing wrong with that, but if you go basic, then the product needs to be cheaper than it is now. Currently the price listing shows numbers in the 240 EURO price-bracket, and that's very similar to the products from the competition that offer more features and better aesthetics.
Solely depending on “Server Quality” is a marketing miss from my point of view. The Military class design from MSI, the Ultra Durable design from Gigabyte and all the other names out there offer motherboards with a build quality at least equal or even surpassing the “Server Quality” C7Z170-SQ motherboard. Especially when we look at component selection I dare to say that SuperMicro uses lower grade gear opposed to similarly priced competing products. After the initial tests of the Core i7 6700K on the C7Z170-SQ motherboard, I ended up being satisfied though - Intel doesn't make and thus offer any reference motherboards anymore, so it is hard to define a reference processor's performance point as the motherboard partners will do everything in their power to tweak out the last bit of performance. And sure, that's not a bad thing but there can be some platform (brand) performance differences. But yeah, the perf you see is mostly related to the higher base clocks. The C7Z170-SQ offers it all in terms of features, stability and reliability really, USB 3.0/3.1 connectors, six SATA3 ports, super fast M.2, a Realtek ALC1150 audio solution and so on. I do find the lack of WIFI a bit of a miss though. I mean it's 2015, the world is wireless right? The performance is up there with others albeit the overall default performance could be a tiny notch better. Combined with the series 100 chipset, new features are available as well, SATA3, M.2, some manufacturers will even go U2 and SATA Express. Then there's the added benefit of DDR4 memory that not only use less power, the frequency can be so much higher as well, bringing more bandwidth and overall performance to the applications that require fast memory. Combine that with things like nice Gigabit jacks, nice audio solutions on the new motherboards and things like USB 3.1. So what i am trying to say here is that the overall platform experience is what it is all about for Skylake.
Storage
With six SATA 6Gbps ports we can hardly complain about anything, but again this is what the Intel chipset standard offers at default. Two more SATA3 ports over, say, an ASMEdia controller would have been nice though. Interesting I find to be the development of the M.2 interface, pop in a M.2 compatible PCI-E SSD and you'll see your SSD quickly perform in the 750 MB/sec range. Overall your SATA and M.2 connectivity is plentiful and top notch when it comes to performance. Great to see is that it has obtained a x4 PCIe interface connection allowing it 32 Gbps of bandwidth to work in. To compare a little, your SATA3 port has 6 Gbps available. So that small form factor SSD solution is now very future proof.
Aesthetics
The looks of the SuperMicro C7Z170-SQ are OK, but yeah it remains just that, OK at best. While it is good to see a black/red industry standard color combo, there is just too much going on on the motherboard. The silver colored capacitors, blue jumpers everywhere and then the simple heatsinks do make this motherboard look a bit less compared to what the competition is doing. I mean it's not bad, but hey, it is a very tight and tough market so in this price range and category, people will expect something better looking. Good to see is the black PCB and also nice to see are the red LED traces.
Performance & tweaking
The overall performance in combo with the SuperMicro C7Z170-SQ motherboard as such I'd rate as "good" for a quad core Core i7 6700K. Temps remain reasonable at default clock, temperatures when the CPU is overclocked with added voltage definitely seem to be a notch better opposed to Haswell but still can rise fast and hot. Our sample was not quite stable enough at 4.8 GHz but 4.7 GHz was stable on liquid cooling. At that level we needed a lot of voltage, 1.45 volts on the processor. Also, overclocking with this motherboard is much more complicated in the UEFI BIOS.
The bottom line
I think the SuperMicro C7Z170-SQ is a lovely motherboard for those that need a simple motherboard without many bells and whistles. You'll have plenty of default performance with the right Skylake processor and, features wise, you are covered with all the basics as well including USB 3.0/3.1/Thunderbolt connectivity, one Intel Gigabit jack and six SATA ports and then a fast M.2 slot. The DDR4 memory can be easily configured and maximized by enabling the XMP 2.0 profile. You will gain excellent features combined with seriously nice performance and very nice energy consumption levels. The looks are OK, the form factor design overall is fine. The overall combination of the SuperMicro C7Z170-SQ and a Core i7 6700K is grand but in this price range it will remain an incredibly difficult sell as you can find better and more feature rich Z170 product at a lower price. We absolutely like the fact that there is a new player in the motherboard retail market. SuperMicro made a nice first step, but to be able to be competitive enough pricing needs to go down, or the feature levels and the overall aesthetic looks need to go a notch up as, in its current design, the product might not be appealing enough to the very picky consumer / end-user. We can't wait to see some more of their products in the future though.
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