Gigabyte z170x ultra gaming review (full review)

Gigabyte Z170X Ultra Gaming technical features

Unboxing and design

The Gigabyte Z170X Ultra Gaming comes presented in a box dominated by black and red. Along with the product name we find all the certifications.

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

Once we open the box we find the following bundle:

Gigabyte Z170X Ultra Gaming motherboard.SATA cable set.Collect cables.Instruction manual and quick guide.Rear hood. SLI bridge. Stickers and instruction manual.

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 very elegant design where it is made at night with the black color of all its PCB components .

By incorporating the Z170 chipset that is compatible with all Intel Skylake processors on the market: Intel Core i7, i5, i3, Xeon, Pentium and Celeron, along with the new Intel Kaby Lake that will be out very soon.

Rear view of the motherboard, which we know many of you like to see the level of welds.

The Gigabyte Z170X Ultra Gaming features two zones with cooling: 4 + 3 power phases. 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 3866 MHz in Dual Channel and is compatible with the XMP 2.0 profile.

The Gigabyte Z170X Ultra Gaming has an interesting distribution of its PCI Express connections. Among them we find three PCIe 3.0 slots to x16 and three other normal PCIe connections to x1.

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 compatibility with 7.1 channels that is accompanied by AMP-UP Audio technology, thus improving the sound quality significantly.

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

2 x USB 2.0 / 1.1.1 port x USB Type-C port with USB 3.1.1 support x S / PDIF Out optical connector. 1 x Mini-DisplayPort. 4 x USB 3.0 / 2.0.1 port x RJ-45.5 x port audio jack connector (output to center / subwoofer speaker, output to rear speaker, line input, line output, microphone input) 1 x HDMI. 1 x PS / 21 keyboard or mouse port x USB 3.1 Type-A port.1 x Mini-DisplayPort.

Test bench and tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel Core i7-6700k
Base plate:	Gigabyte Z170X Ultra Gaming
Memory:	2 × 8 16GB DDR4 @ 3000 MHZ Kingston Savage
Heatsink	Corsair H100i V2.
HDD	Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB.
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 1070.
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 x 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 Ultra Gaming

We have been pleasantly surprised by the excellent performance of the Gigabyte Z170X Ultra Gaming motherboard both in games and the ability to overclock it. We find one of the best motherboards or at least the best in quality / price.

That offers? A sober aesthetic, the possibility of installing a SLI or CrossFireX in it, excellent components, very cool LED lighting, memory shielding and PCIe connections and support for NVMe SSDs.

We recommend reading the best guide for motherboards on the market.

In our tests we have been able to verify its performance with a GTX 1070 and the results have been excellent. Titles like Doom 4, Battlefield 4 or virtual reality offers us great performance.

As we have mentioned, its price stood out from its rivals, for a small price of 175 euros we find this fabulous motherboard. We would have liked it to have more SATA connections, but… we couldn't ask for more either.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ DESIGN.	- WE MISSING MORE SATA CONNECTIONS.
+ DDR4 UP TO 3866 MHz.
+ SHIELDING IN ITS MOST IMPORTANT CONNECTIONS.
+ ALLOWS US TO PERFORM A MAJO OVERCLOCK.
+ PERFECT PRICE.