ASUS Z170-A (LGA 1151) Motherboard Review

BIOS and Overclocking

Most motherboard manufacturers nowadays offer multiple BIOS styles for users to enter and tweak the system settings. The latest implementation of the BIOS type is the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) BIOS, which is a simpler version to view and interact with. Each manufacturer has a different style and each motherboard could have a different colour style.

ASUS uses a very simple and consistent UEFI BIOS style, the EZ mode offers most of the functionality you would need without having to enter the Advanced Mode and delve into the depths of the settings. The blue theme is reminiscent of older ASUS BIOS and motherboards, but the design is fresh.

EZ Tuning Wizard is ASUS’ own tuning software offered from the BIOS. You pass through multiple pages and choose settings that best suit your current computer set up and determine the best and most stable overclock from a range of possible presets. 

Q-Fan Control is the built-in Fan control system. Interactive and simple, the user can choose either from a preset profile for each fan or choose at what temperature and how fast the fan works.

EZ System Tuning is a much simpler (read lazy) system optimisation method. Three presets (Power Saving, Normal and ASUS Optimal) are what you can choose.

Heading into the Advanced Mode, you get a taste of the old style Legacy BIOS, without the horrid blue/ white/ red colour schemes. Even though you can use a mouse, I find it not as responsive and just choose to use a keyboard from habit.

Each section is split down from Main, which is essentially an extremely basic system overview to Exit, which does exactly what it says.

Ai Tweaker is probably the screen you will spend most of your time, adjust the CPU and DRAM settings as much as possible to get the most from your system. ASUS Ai Tweaker options are very comprehensive compared to some of the competition.

The Advanced screen contains all of the important settings which really do not need to be changed and offer very little in the way of performance increases. You can choose here options such as default graphics output (Discrete or onboard) or USB configurations.

Something Intel are touting with the Z170 Range is the Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt feature.

The Monitor tab is exactly that, it is constantly monitoring the system. Generally you only enter this page to view if fans are working correctly or to see what temperatures your CPU and motherboard are without entering the operating system.

The Boot tab hosts all of the features linked to the system boot process. You can choose what type of boot you want after a power cut, whether or not you want to enable Fast Boot (default enabled) or any other possible feature you could want.

The Tool tab offers some non-essential, but extremely useful applications that can optimise the system without entering the OS. Most notable is EZ Flash 3, this can install drivers and BIOS updates either through USB or internet connection.

The Exit tab is self-explanatory,  you can save or erase settings you have made during your BIOS trip and exit.

The Favourites tab is probably one of the most overlooked, but when use correctly it can be extreme useful. You can set key features to all display on a single page, so you can have DRAM and CPU clock speeds, multipliers and voltage control without having to trawl through the settings on the AI Tweaker page.

The Quick note system can be seen as pointless, but it could be used as a guide for yourself or as an overclocking/ system set up guide which you can never lose; well unless you clear CMOS or your BIOS corrupts.

One key feature unique to ASUS is the TPU function. On most motherboards there is a switch to turn it on and off, ASUS also offer an in-BIOS switch for simpler, non-intrusive method of switching it.

The DIGI+ VRM screen is extremely comprehensive, hosting all possible features you could want for monitoring and changing the power supplied to the system.

Overclocking 

This is the first time I’ve overclocked the 6700K and it jumped straight in at 4.8GHz with no additional voltage tweaks; this has been achieved with XMP enabled for the RAM and a BLCK of 100. I have kept the voltage as low as possible and 4.8GHz at 1.247v is very good indeed.