Gigabyte x170 gaming 3 ws review

Gigabyte X170 Gaming 3 WS unboxing and design

We do not offer pictures of the Gigabyte X170 Gaming 3 WS motherboard case because it came to us in neutral packaging and without any accessories. As we can see it is an ATX format board with dimensions of 30.4 cm x 22.4 cm for the LGA 1151 socket. The board has a very military design and a brown PCB.

The motherboard has two zones with cooling: power phases and on the C236 chipset. It has seven power phases supported by Ultra Durable technology that offers the best components on the market and with greater reliability than we can currently find.

The C236 chipset, masked by the X170 nomenclature , is specially designed for Intel Xeon processors. So it does not allow overclocking and is compatible only with the Xeon E3 range of servers.

It has 4 available 64 GB compatible DDR4 RAM memory sockets with frequencies up to 2133 Mhz both ECC and Non-ECC in Dual Channel.

The Gigabyte X170 Gaming 3 WS presents a very interesting layout from a reformed server board to a gaming board. It has three PCIe 3.0 to x16 slots and three other x1-speed PCIe 3.0 connections compatible with the 20 lanes that offer this architecture.

All x16 PCI Express connections incorporate a high-end card reinforcement.

It features a Red Killer E2200 card to enhance the gaming experience, reducing latency and ping as much as possible. It also incorporates a sound card with the ALC1150 chipset with 7.1 channel compatibility. It is well known for its good performance and its incorporation in almost the entire range of Z170 motherboards. It includes AMP-UPAudio technology with support for 7.1 channels, Two integrated stereo ADCs, 115 dB amplifier with signal-to-noise-reproduction-suppression (SNR) (DAC) and quality 104dB SNR recording (ADC).

Regarding storage, it has six 6 GB / s SATA III connections with RAID 0.1, 5 and 10 support and two shared SATA Express connections.

It is also important to know that it incorporates a slot for the M.2 connection to install any disk of this format and type 2242/2260/2280/22110 (42/60/80 and 110mm). The bandwidth is multiplied up to 32 GB / s. It is clear that it could not be missing!

In the lower right area we have the control panel and all the internal USB heads of the motherboard. It really is very complete.

Finally we detail the rear connections of the Gigabyte X170-Gaming 3 WS. They are made up of:

2 x USB 2.0.1 x VGA or D-SUB. 1 x DVI. 1 x USB 3.1 Type C. 4 x USB 3.0.1 x HDMI. 1 x Gigabit LAN. 7.1 sound output.

Test bench and tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel i5-6600k.
Base plate:	Gigabyte X170-Gaming 3 WS
Memory:	2 × 8 16GB DDR4 @ 3000 MHZ Kingston Savage
Heatsink	Corsair H80i GT.
HDD	Samsung 840 EVO 250GB.
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 780.
Power supply	EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2

Although the motherboard is only compatible with Intel Xeon processors according to its specifications, we have used an i5-6600k processor for testing at stock speeds.

On paper it does not allow to overclock it, but we have seen values in its BIOS that would allow us to do it, although we have tried… we have not managed to leave it stable at a frequency of 4200 to 4500 MHz. We will have to wait for new revisions.

All tests have been carried out with an Nvidia GTX780 graphics card, without further delay, let's see the results obtained in our tests with a 1920 × 1080 monitor.

WE RECOMMEND YOU Gigabyte has a white RTX 2060 graphics card in preparation

Final words and conclusion about Gigabyte X170 Gaming 3 WS

The Gigabyte X170 Gaming 3 WS is a great motherboard for socket 1151 as it supports Intel Skylake and Intel Xeon E3 processors. It is compatible with DDR4 Non-ECC and ECC memory, incorporates gaming components such as the sound card and the Killer E2200 network.

In our tests with an i5-6600k with stock values it has shown its face and has fulfilled what was expected. But the real chipset is the C236, which today is limited in overclocking, without offering 100% stability in its parameters. It is also true that the motherboard is not available on the Gigabyte official website, so we believe that it still has enough to polish.

It offers M.2 connections, two SATA Express connections, 3 PCI Express x16 connectors for mounting graphics cards on SLI and AMD CrossFireX and optimal cooling.

The price and availability are currently unknown. We hope that soon it will reach the best online stores in our country.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ CHIPSET REMARKED AND WITH THE POSSIBILITY OF MAKING OVERCLOCK IN A FUTURE.	- ITS TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS ARE NOT KNOWN NOR IS IT AVAILABLE ON THE OFFICIAL GIGABYTE WEBSITE.
+ ULTRA DURABLE COMPONENTS.	- PRICE AND AVAILABILITY UNKNOWN.
+ APRIORI COMPATIBLE WITH i3, i5 and i7 PROCESSORS. IN ADDITION TO INTEL XEON CERTIFICATES FOR LGA 1151.
+ ACCEPT ECC AND NON-ECC MEMORY WITH VERY GOOD REFRIGERATION.
+ SERIAL IMPROVED SOUND CARD AND NETWORK CARD.