With the release of Kaby lake well under way, BIOSTAR has joined in with their own motherboards. The company has announced several Z270 boards as part of their 2nd generation RACING lineup. As you might expect from the RACING branding, the motherboards are aimed at gamers first and foremost. In addition to the flagship RACING Z270GT9, we also have the RACING Z270GT8, RACING Z270GT6 and RACING Z270GT4.
The Z270GT9 goes all out with a total of 6 PCIe 3.0 x16 slots which should be more than enough for peripheral needs. For the CPU, we have Digital Power+ which features IR’s digital controller with 14 phases. M.2 cooling appears to be the new thing everyone has as well and the board sports 2 U.2 connectors as well.
For the Z270GT8, we have a similar design which is largely indistinguishable. One of the differences is that the GT8 lacks the extra 10Gbe LAN port with just the usual Gbe ethernet. Other than that, both feature the same VIVID LED DJ, VIVID LED ARMOR and 5050 LED FUN ZONE RGB lighting solutions.
Moving down to the GT6 and GT4, we get more differentiation in features. The GT6 features 3 PCIe 3.0 x16 slots while the GT4 trims it down to 2. The GT4 also lacks support for Intel’s new Optane storage as well. Both feature just 1 U.2 connector and use the ALC892 codec instead of the ALC1220. Interestingly enough, the GT4 features additional CPU display outputs and a Thunderbolt 3 header missing on the GT6. Both have VIVID LED DJ and 5050 LED FUN ZONE as well.
All of the RACING boards feature game codes for the World of Tanks Asia server. Hopefully, this promotion might be expanded beyond just that server in the future. While no pricing is provided, the BIOSTAR RACING Z270GT8 or RACING Z270GT9 can be purchased in a bundle with the Intel 600p 256GB M.2 SDD for $329 and $399 respectively.
