Gigabyte z170x designare review (full review)

Searching among the best motherboards on the market is not easy, Gigabyte wants to make it easy for us with the launch of its new Gigabyte Z170X Designare with premium power phases , RGB LED lighting system and the possibility of mounting up to 2 graphics cards in SLI or Crossfire.

We thank Gigabyte Spain for trusting the product for its analysis:

Gigabyte Z170X Designare technical characteristics

Unboxing and design

The Gigabyte Z170X Designare It comes in a black box with an illustration of a race car. Some of its most important characteristics are also described.

On the back they indicate all the most important technical characteristics of the motherboard.

Once we open the box we find the following bundle:

Gigabyte Z170X Designare motherboard . SATA cable set, rear hood, instruction manual and quick guide, CD with software, CrossFireX and SLI cable, stickers.

As we can see, it is an ATX format board with dimensions of 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm for the LGA 1151 socket. The board has a sober design and a brown PCB. It incorporates the Z170 chipset that is compatible with all Intel Skylake processors on the market: Intel Core i7, i5, i3, Pentium and Celeron. It can even accept next generation Intel Xeon processors.

Rear view of the motherboard, for the most curious.

The Gigabyte Z170X Designare features two zones with cooling: 4 + 3 power phases and one for the Z170 chipset. All its components are armored with Ultra Durable technology. But what is this technology? Basically it incorporates improved components: power phases, chokes, capacitors of better quality than the rest of the most basic range. Also gutter with an 8-pin EPS connection for auxiliary power to the motherboard.

The board incorporates a total of 4 64 GB compatible DDR4 RAM memory sockets with frequencies from 2133 MHz to 3600 MHz in Dual Channel and is compatible with the XMP 2.0 profile.

The Gigabyte Z170X Designare features a very interesting layout with three PCIe 3.0 slots at x16 and three normal PCIe connections at x1. The PCI Express 3.0 to x16 and the RAM memory incorporate a shield that better cushions the graphics that are so heavy that are on the market today.

It is compatible with Nvidia and AMD graphics cards . In SLI you can only connect two cards to x8-x8, while in CrossFireX up to 3.

As expected, it incorporates an M.2 connection to install any SSD with type 2242/2260/2280/22110 format (42/60/80 and 110 mm). As we have already discussed, these devices are very fast and have a bandwidth speed of up to 32 GB / s.

Regarding storage, it has six 6 GB / s SATA III connections with RAID 0.1, 5 and 10 support and two SATA Express connections (which are vertical). It also incorporates a sound card with the ALC1150 chipset with 7.1 channel compatibility , basic but very feisty thanks to AMP-UP Audio technology.

Finally, it is time to talk about the rear connections of the motherboard, it has:

2 x USB 2.0 / 1.12 port x USB Type-C with USB 3.1.1 x HDMI support 4 x USB 3.0 / 2.0 port 1 x PS keyboard / mouse port / 22 x RJ-45 port 1 x DisplayPort 5 x audio jack connector (output to speaker Center / Subwoofer, Rear Speaker Out, Line In, Line Out, Microphone In) 1 x Mini-DisplayPort

Test bench and tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel Core i7-6700k
Base plate:	Gigabyte Z170X Designare
Memory:	2 × 8 16GB DDR4 @ 3000 MHZ Kingston Savage
Heatsink	Corsair H100i V2.
HDD	Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB.
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 1080.
Power supply	EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2

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To check the stability of the i7-6700k processor at 4500 MHZ and the motherboard we have stressed with Prime 95 Custom and air cooling. The graphics we have used is an Nvidia GTX 1080, without further delay, let's see the results obtained in our tests with a 1920 × 1080 monitor.

BIOS

The BIOS is the same as its older sisters. It has all the options and we can get to have a performance of a high-end motherboard. We are very happy with the armored result.

Final words and conclusion about Gigabyte Z170X Designare

The Gigabyte Z170X Designare is an ATX format motherboard and it is positioned among one of the best options around 200 euros. It has everything that is needed to be in the high range: design, good components, overclocking capacity and a very stable BIOS.

Its cooling is very good and the heatsinks fully serve its purpose. Also highlight its RGB lighting system that allows you to customize the motherboard with 16 million colors and combine with any graphics or RAM with the same system.

In our tests we have put the processor at 4500 MHz and with a performance of 10 in games. I also liked the addition of enough SATA connections, compatible with M.2 disks and the improved sound card.

Its price in store ranges from 225 euros. A great candidate for mounting an Enthusiast PC.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ DESIGN.	- NONE.
+ ULTRA DURABLE COMPONENTS.
+ DUAL NETWORK CARD AND IMPROVED SOUND.
+ GREAT OVERCLOCK POTENTIAL.
+ GIGABYTE WARRANTY.