GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 Motherboard Review

[PAGETITLE=Introduction, A Tour Of The Hardware][Top Ad] If you're looking to build a new PC designed around Intel's Z170 chipset, your decision on which motherboard to go with isn't likely to be that simple. This is of course for a great reason: the selection of Z170 boards out there is incredible. The selection is even incredible on a vendor-by-vendor basis: GIGABYTE currently offers 26 models to choose from! Given the sheer selection, it's a little hard to understand the differences between all of the boards, but fortunately, GIGABYTE offers a tool that lets you compare one board to another. Where the Gaming 7 I'm looking at here is concerned, it's designed to cater to gamers and offer a great number of features, but without going "overboard" by most standards. The Gaming 7 is the top-tier board in GIGABYTE's lineup that's numbered, but it has even higher-end offerings in the form of Gaming G1 and Gaming GT. The company's Gaming 7 is priced at around $225, putting it in a rather comfortable spot for those building beefy gaming PCs. If you want to spend less, the featureset gets whittled down as far as the Gaming 3, which is priced at $130. Isn't it great to have so much choice? Based on its name alone, I don't need to tell you which market this board is targeted at. It's a "Gaming" board because its audio and networking solutions are catered towards it, and not to mention the aesthetics. Before we get into a hardware tour, here are the board's specs: GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 Architecture Intel Z170 (LGA1151) Form-Factor ATX (12″ x 9.6″) Memory Up to 4x16GB DDR4-3866 Multi-GPU 2-way NVIDIA SLI 3-way AMD CrossFire Expansion 3x PCIe 3.0 x16 3x PCIe 3.0 x1 Storage 6x SATA 6Gbps (Intel) 2x SATA 6Gbps (ASMedia) 3x SATA Express 6Gbps (Intel) 2x M.2 (PCIe SSD: 2242/2260/2280) Network 1x Intel Gigabit Ethernet 1x Killer E2400 Wireless None Audio Creative Sound Core 3D TI Burr Brown OPA2134 operational amplifier Optical S/PDIF out USB Back-panel: 1x 3.1, 1x 3.1 USB-C, 5x 3.0 & (Intel) Internal: 4x 3.0 (Renesas) & 4x 2.0 (Intel) Back I/O 2x 1Gbps LAN, 5x USB 3.0, 1x USB-C 3.1, 1x USB 3.1 (Red), 1x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI, 1x Optical S/PDIF, 5x Audio Jacks, PS/2 Keyboard + Mouse Features 3D OSD, @BIOS, Ambient LED, AutoGreen, Cloud Station, EasyTune, Easy RAID, Fast Boot, Smart TimeLock, Smart Keyboard, Smart Backup, System Information Viewer, USB Blocker, Q-Flash, Smart Switch, Xpress Install A couple of features stand out here. First, there's not one, but two M.2 slots, letting you install two super-fast SSDs, or one SSD and one of some other peripheral. In addition to that, if you want to jump on the SATA Xpress bandwagon, you'll be able to hook up a total of three drive configurations (which would be 6 drives total.) Also noteworthy is the fact that this board has a built-in TI Burr Brown OPAMP to deliver crystal-clear sound. As an added bonus, this OPAMP isn't soldered onto the board, so you are free to swap it out for your own if your tastes tempt you to do so. If you're using high impedance headphones, you can flick a switch beside the OPAMP to increase the amplification from 2.5x to 6x. This motherboard also includes dual Ethernet ports; one from Intel, and the other from Killer. While having two NICs is going to be unnecessary for most people, I've come to really appreciate having two in the rare event that one of them dies at some point - something I've experienced twice. Looking over the board, it's not hard to keep spotting something new to investigate. At the top-right hand side are four buttons; two are for power and reset, while the other two are for enabling "ECO" or "OC" mode. These buttons will mostly benefit overclockers who use a test bench, although I've found myself relying on them a lot while troubleshooting in the past. One thing that helps this board stand out is the metal shielding surrounding the three x16 PCIe slots. This isn't included so as to reduce signal noise, but instead to increase the durability of the slots. GIGABYTE says that this stainless steel helps the PCIe slot be 3.2x stronger in retention tests, and 1.7x stronger in shearing tests. I am truly not sure how needed a feature like this is, but I don't hate it. Looking closer at the board, there are a couple of things worth pointing out. The "Turbo B-Clock" chip allows overclockers to break free from the Intel-imposed BCLK limitations of 5%, and instead gain the ability to adjust it between 90MHz and 500MHz. I think it goes without saying that should be enough for anyone. On the capacitor front, GIGABYTE employs 10K solid-state caps for the CPU and memory, and some Nichicon caps for the audio solution (which are hidden underneath the AMP-UP shroud.) In the final shot in the above slider, you'll notice something a bit odd about the I/O panel: it has a wire hanging from it. When installed, you can plug this wire into a special port on the motherboard which will enable configurable LED lighting - a great feature for those who love adding bling to their builds. I'd say the GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 has a great hardware design. The 5x fan headers are well-placed, and so too is the sometimes-iffy 8-pin motherboard connector (GIGABYTE has on occasion placed that vertically, which can complicate some builds.) With that, let's see if the software bundle is as great as the hardware. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=A Tour Of The EFI & Software][Top Ad] An archive including all of the screenshots we captured (EFI + software) can be downloaded here (.ZIP, 800KB). In recent years, GIGABYTE has played around quite a bit with its EFI from generation to generation. Last-gen, the company had three different EFI modes to choose from. Now, there is only one, and I think that's for the best (there's no need to overly complicate something so simple.) For the Z170 generation, we see the return of the best version of GIGABYTE's EFI. It's clean, and perhaps even elegant. It's also easy to maneuver through with either the keyboard or mouse - and speaking of the latter, I was somewhat impressed to spot an option to adjust the mouse speed, which I actually took advantage of. Where EFIs are concerned nowadays, there's really not too much to talk about outside of the aesthetics and ease-of-use. This is simply because most motherboards will all offer the same basic functionality that everyone will need, and it's hard to spot something unique that's truly important. In this board's case, one feature I did notice "missing" was an advanced configuration for the fans. I use quotes here because most people are going to be fine using an easier solution by way of GIGABYTE's Windows software. But that point highlights why every EFI should have fan profile capabilities, since Linux users can't access that software. #PenguinProblems Nonetheless, I am glad to see that this is the EFI version GIGABYTE chose to stick with. A Look At The Software. So what about the software? Admittedly, GIGABYTE's solutions of late haven't been overwhelmingly impressive, and for one good reason: it hasn't been uniform. @BIOS looked nothing at all like EasyTune, for example, and it in-fact looked "old-school". This generation, that has all been rectified. All of the apps included in the aptly-named "App Center" (enough app?) follow the same aesthetic, and overall look great - if you enjoy lighter backgrounds. I personally wish GIGABYTE stuck to a darker color scheme, but it's a minor complaint and one that could be easily battled against. App Center is modular in design, so you're able to install only the apps you will use. For the sake of testing, I opted to install and check out each app, and fortunately, I have no problems to report. If you want to see all of the individual tools that GIGABYTE offers, I'd recommend downloading the small Zip archive at the top of this page. I wanted to highlight just two: EasyTune and Ambient LED. EasyTune is a one-stop shop for overclocking, and it really couldn't be much easier to use. If you're not interested in messing with individual settings, you can simply choose the "OC" profile which will automatically overclock your CPU based on known safe stable overclocks. In the case of our Core i7-6700K chip, the board would overclock it to 4.4GHz, effectively a 400MHz gain. If a 10% clock boost isn't satisfactory, you can choose "AutoTuning", which will attempt to stress the chip and determine its max stable overclock. Due to minute differences in each chip, this option is going to be hit or miss. If you really want to eke as much performance out of a chip as possible, I'd encourage you read a beginner's guide on overclocking modern Intel processors, because all you need to know are a couple of basics - you're not likely competing for world records, after all. Ambient LED is just as it sounds: LED control. As mentioned on the previous page, the Gaming 7 board includes an I/O panel that can plug into the motherboard, providing seven different colors to choose from. Part of the shroud on the motherboard also enjoys this LED lighting, so if you love color, you're really going to love this board. Because I am a big oaf, I forgot to snap a photo of this in action, but the effect makes me want to build a windowed PC. You can see an example of the lighting on the board's official product page. Simply put, GIGABYTE has done very well with its software solution with this generation. It was the first time I was left truly pleased when all was said and done; my minor grievances in the past being the lack of a single design between all of the apps offered. All of the apps are easy to use, and the fact that App Center as a whole is modular is fantastic. Onwards to performance testing and conclusions! [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Performance & Final Thoughts][Top Ad] In the past, I felt that motherboard benchmarking was almost useless, due to the fact that a motherboard should "just work", and the overall differences between models are so minor. As I've said before, a $100 option...

GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 Motherboard Review

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Rob Williams