Intel Skylake Z170 Motherboards: A Quick Look at 55+ New Products
by Ian Cutress on August 5, 2015 7:59 AM ESTASRock Z170: Mini-ATX and Micro-ITX
ASRock Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac
Everyone loves a mini-ITX gaming motherboard, right? Even if it says Fatal1ty?
Mini-ITX boards are notorious for getting things right, but ASRock has had a go with this one to implement a number of features. Top of the list is probably USB 3.1, where we have both Type-C and Type-A ports on the rear panel. The rear panel also shows an 802.11ac 2T2R dual band WiFi connection, dual HDMI ports and a single DisplayPort. Other networking is from the Intel I219V, while the half-width audio block comes from the higher end ALC1150 codec. My specifications sheet says there is a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot on board, and by the looks of it we would probably find it on the rear as the half-sized mini-PCIe slot is occupied by the WiFi card. There is a total of six SATA 6 Gbps ports on board with a SATA Express as well, and we’re still in the realm of DDR4.
ASRock Z170M Pro4S ($100)
The Pro4S is designed to be the best cost/performance Z170 motherboard on the market, and the successor to the Z97M Anniversary – it does this by shedding a number of features. We are down to six-phase power with half-height heatsinks, a single PCIe 3.0 x16 from the chipset and no USB 3.1. We still get a PCIe 3.0 x4 based M.2 slot due to the number of free lanes from the chipset, but there are no SATA Express here and only six SATA 6 Gbps slots. Networking comes from the Intel I219-V codec while audio is still the ALC892 design. This board still aims for DDR4 it should be noted.
ASRock Z170M-ITX/ac
The solitary mini-ITX board from ASRock being announced publicly is the Z170M-ITX/AC. Not quite sure why they need an M in the name with the ITX being there, but it must be said the board isn’t necessarily built for style:
I’m sure that this board is more aligned with the Pro motherboards than the Extreme motherboards, namely due to the lack of USB 3.1, but it does oddly enough have dual network ports in the form of an Intel I219-V and the Realtek RTL8111E as well as an 802.11ac 2T2R dual band solution included, sitting upright in the mini-PCIe slot. Audio is provided by the ALC892 codec and a total of four SATA 6 Gbps ports are found just past the DDR4 memory slots. These ports are somewhat annoying, meaning that locking cables will easily block out the last cable from being removed without removing all others first. There is an mSATA slot on board as well, and it would seem to be on the rear similar to previous ASRock mini-ITX designs.
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Oyster - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Ian, do you think it is possible to supply us with a tabular breakdown of all the motherboards? Not sure about others, but going through page-by-page is a bit overwhelming, and confusing at the very least. Good coverage as usual!Eidigean - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
I second this. looking for number of M.2 slots, PCIe slots, USB 3.1 ports w/ type of controller (Alpine or otherwise). I'm shocked so few support 3 M.2 slots.MrBowmore - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Why not just use the pcie? Is there anything better than a intel 750 and demands M.2? I dont get the need for M.2.Eidigean - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Well, the SM951 is quite interesting. Also, if the M.2 slots are used, the PCIe slots can be used for 4 GPUs, NICs, or RAID cards. The ASUS workstation board in this article is interesting.Gadgety - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Tabular would be great.The_Assimilator - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Z170X-UD5 and Z170X-UD3 galleries are swapped.I'm glad to see that Gigabyte is exposing 2x USB 3.0 internal headers on almost all their boards - USB 2.0 needs to die. Now if only they would replace the dual USB 2.0 headers with an additional 3.0, giving 3x USB 3.0 headers, then I would be ecstatic. My Z77X-UD5H is still the only decently-priced motherboard around with a trio of USB 3.0 headers, and it's not getting any newer!
Regardless, I'm probably going to skip Skylake, for the simple reason that I'm not interested in buying a board equipped with the useless SATA Express. By the time Cannonlake rolls around, M.2/NGFF should have killed SATAe and there will be even more USB 3.0 ports from the chipset.
DanNeely - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
I bought a GB board for a 4790k earlier this year for the dual headers. At least in the medium term though, I think they do need to keep 1 or 2 2.0 headers around. Not everyone buys a new case for their new builds, and older cases have built in 2.0 ports on the front/top panel. The same thing for front panel SD card readers; there are USB 3.0 versions out now, but the SD reader won't benefit from the faster connection so why spend money to replace it. I can't remember who makes it, but there's one OEM who sells some PSUs with an internal USB2 header for monitoring purposes.Beyond all of that, the chipset itself provides 14USB ports only 10 of which can be 3; so the mobo makers have 2 "free" headers to do something with. Dell/HP/etc will ignore them; but in the box ticking consumer market they're going to get used either for internal headers or a pairs of ports in the back. Anyone clinging to w7 who doesn't have PS2 peripherals in the closet will need those since 7 doesn't have a USB3 class driver; and at least in my case refused to talk to a 2.0 device in a 3.0 port until I got drivers installed.
Impulses - Thursday, August 6, 2015 - link
If you're using an SD reader for a modern camera with modern SD cards then it'll absolutely benefit from USB 3.0... Last 128GB SD I bought for like $58 can read at 150MB/s (or about 3x USB 2.0 speeds), Lexar UHS-II card. Most recent mirrorless bodies can take advantage of it too...8steve8 - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
when will these actually be for sale?Ian Cutress - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Depends on the motherboard and what region you are in, but some are listed already: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-...