ASUS Z170-A (LGA 1151) Motherboard Review

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging Mark today in the Intel history calendar, if you are keeping one, because Skylake, Z170 and mainstream DDR4 are here. We've been keeping tight-lipped about this for a few weeks and we can finally show off what we have been working on. You already know almost all of the details regarding the Skylake processors being launched today; the i5-6600K and i7-6700K, but what about Z170? Well, we know it supports DDR4 and features the new 1151 socket, but something that really shines through for this chipset is the absolutely huge connectivity incorporated. Motherboard manufacturers now have up to 20 PCIe 3.0 lanes and up to 10 USB 3.0 ports to play with. Now some of you may be thinking that you can't fit 20 PCIe lanes onto a single standard motherboard and you would be correct, to a certain extent. In recent years, M.2 (or mini PCIe) has really taken the expansion world by storm and with Z170, you can start to see M.2 ports crop up in multiples depending on the motherboard. In theory, you could have 3, 4 5 or even more M.2 ports on a single motherboard. What's more, these ports accept RAID and you can see some truly insane figures if used with U.2 devices such as the Intel NVME 750 SSD. When you come to think of motherboards, only one name sticks in your mind; ASUS. Topping the manufacturer sales last year, it's easy to image how it came to be thanks to the huge range of motherboards suiting a wide variety of users and implementing high-quality components. The motherboard range is exceptionally large, from basic desktop units, right up to professional workstations such as the Deluxe range and gaming series in the form of Republic of Gamers (RoG). The motherboard we have in today is the Z170-A which has been based off the X99-A motherboard. This particular board is aimed at the low-mid range segment of the market, but don't let that fool you. With a simply huge array of connectivity and newly introduced DDR4 support, this could be a very powerful option. Let's find out how it performs in today's review. Key Features Manufacturers nowadays need to find innovative ways to stand out from the crowd, ASUS is no exception and has crammed a huge array of features into this motherboard. OC Design 5-Way Optimisation DIGI+ VRM TPU EPU Fan Xpert 3 Turbo App UEFI BIOS PC Cleaner Remote Go! Media Streamer HyStream Q-Design Q-LED Q-Slot Q-DIMM Q-Connector EZ DIY USB BIOS Flashback Card UEFI BIOS EZ Mode AI Suite 3 LAN Guard Ai Charger+ MemOK! EZ XMP USB 3.1 Boost Precision Tweaker 2 Overclocking Protection This board was built with eSports in mind and included the following to give the best possible experience: Turbo LAN Crystal Sound 3 Turbo App Packaging and Accessories The box is very similar to the previous A range of motherboards with the striking white IO cover and heatsink.. The back of the box details many of the features on this motherboard, but we'll take a closer look at each of those in a moment. Inside the box, you will find quite a few accessories; Z170 feature manual, motherboard manual, driver disk, and other leaflets regarding the Z170, 6x SATA 6Gb/s cables, I/O shield, SLI bridge and front panel header extension. ASUS has designed a great solution for the Z170 range. This new CPU holder enables the user to handle the CPU as minimal as possible. This holder aid the prevention of bent pins and can be left on when the socket latch is secured. Insert the CPU by whatever your usual handling means; I found it easiest to push the CPU by the centre until it latched. Simply place it onto the CPU socket, there is only one way you can do this. And finally close the socket. You may hear some slight creaking of plastic, that is to be expected on some installations. A Closer Look & Layout Analysis Taking our first detailed look at the motherboard, it feels very; busy; Around the CPU socket, normally the chokes are nestled under the heatsinks to conceal them away from view. The I/O cover is absolutely huge on this and makes that part of the motherboard look bigger than it actually needs to be. Something that caught me off guard here is the addition of a PCI lane; the only possible reason for this addition is to ease some upgraders if they have PCI compatible products such as a sound or networking card. Taking a look at the CPU socket itself. It resembles the sockets of previous years thanks to a great pin design; this motherboard can accept cooling solutions from the 1150 range of motherboards. The chipset heatsink is very stylish with small cutouts in the cover showing the heatsink below; The blue outlines are a great addition of colour. Looking at the I/O options. the layout is slightly unconventional and I'm struggling to find the reason behind the placement of the PS/2 port. Going left to right: 2x USB 2.0, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort, 1x DVI, 1x VGA, 1x PS/2, 2x USB 3.0, 1x Gigabit LAN, 2x USB 3.1 (1x Type A, 1x Type C), S/PDIF out and 5 HD audio jacks. Moving down the side of the board, the I/O cover stops, the white design continues to the base in an almost circuit board dashed style. This motherboard features Crystal Sound 3 features which make the most out of the Realtek RTL892 codec. The Crystal Sound codec has a nice metal cover, similar to that of the SupremeFX covers on the ASUS RoG motherboards. For a relatively low branded motherboard, when considering that the A brand is the lowest compared to the S, Pro and Deluxe; this motherboard has heaps of connectivity; 3x PCIe x1 lanes, 3x PCIe x16 lanes and 1x PCI lane. Nestled under the chipset heatsink is the M.2 port. Thanks to a great design, the SSD can be as long as 110mm and fit just between the last two PCIe lanes. To the bottom of the board, the usual headers such as HD audio, USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt. Nestled in the middle is a small power button for when you need to test with as few connections as possible. Moving over and the usual headers continue. Something unique to ASUS is the TPU switch, previously this was just a switch On and OFF, but now this has two settings (three if you include OFF). First is air cooling settings and second is water cooling settings, this switch optimizes the CPU performance to which cooling solution you have fitted. I would use this with a warning, these settings would be optimised to a general "middle ground" cooling setup, if you are using a close to stock cooling solution, your temperatures may increase significantly. Turning up the right-hand side of the board, we see the first and only M.2 Port, 6x SATA 6Gb/s ports and 1x SATA Express. Despite the move to digital media and cloud storage, this motherboard is likely aimed at the low-end of the market. If so, some users may still be using blu-ray drives and similar which can take up multiple SATA ports depending on the amount of drives used. Opposite the I/O ports, we find the 4 DDR4 DIMMS, 24 pin power connection, USB 3.0 header and MemOK button for memory testing. One feature that I like about this motherboard is the introduction of the W-PUMP (Water pump) header. Have you ever had the issue of the CPU fan not recognised on your previous motherboard, despite having the water pump plugged in. Well, this new header is specifically designed for that purpose; no more POST errors from this motherboard. The Test System and Test Software Before we delve into any testing we would like to take this opportunity to review our test system. Test System Motherboard varies by review CPU: Intel Core i7 6700k GPU: NVIDIA GTX 980Ti RAM: Crucial Elite 16GB (2x8GB) 2666MHz Cooling: Thermaltake Water 3.0 AIO with Gelid GC-Extreme Case: Lian Li T80 Test Bench Storage Drives: Main storage: Crucial M200 250GB, Test Devices: SanDisk Extreme Pro 240GB SSD, Plextor 256GB M6e M.2 SSD and Patriot SuperSonic Magnum 256GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 850W Operating System: Windows 8.1 64-bit Networking: ASUS RT-AC68U router Test Software SiSoft Sandra Engineer - available here WPrime - available here Cinebench - available here 3DMark - available here Bioshock Infinite - available here Tomb Raider - available here AIDA 64 Engineer - available here Latencymon - available here Rightmark Audio Analyser - available here LAN Speed Test Lite - available here Passmark - available here All tests are conducted three times and the average taken to use in our charts. 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. Software Overview So the manufacturer's point of difference is not only the components it uses, but also what it can offer the user during day-to-day use. ASUS, like others, offer many different programs for you to choose from once set up which can help to make your life a little easier. Usually these programs are useless, offering bloatware or some pretty pointless programs that you wouldn't normally download. ASUS used to be the same, but have now changed and have tuned their software to be extremely useful. The main utility that ASUS provide is AI Suite. It is now on its third revision and in that time it has come a very long way. One key point I really like about AI Suite is the incorporation of most of the other ASUS Utilities into a simple app. The first page you arrive on is the Dual Intelligent Processors 5 page, or most recognisable as "5 Way Optimisation". This page can tune your system to your preference from three settings; Performance, Power Saving and Away Mode. All this achieved by adjusting the five settings in the centre of the screen; TPU, Fan Xpert 3, DIGI+ VRM, Turbo App and EPU. No utility would be set without an overclocking feature. A very simple and effective approach, but maybe a little too easy for novice overclockers to adjust. The Turbo App is deceiving simple. It basically prioritises key applications and processes in your preference of importance. This page is an extremely cut down version of the first with just Performance, Power saving and Away Mode being the only clickable options. This page is a more detailed version of Fan Xpert 3 from the first page. You can edit each fan individually, set an overall profile or even allow the system to tune the fans to the best possible setting, running through each speed to determine what each fan can run at. This is a very interesting page to include in the application. Normally to have LLC functions here are rare to see. When I was first starting into CPU overclocking, I was scared to touch LLC, but this utility makes it easy to adjust and even provides some information on the features which can something be missed in the BIOS. In with Ai Suite, you have PC Clean up, which works like most other applications, but this is bundled in with this utility and just makes the process much more hassle free than having to download a third party application. Ai charger+ is a great little feature. Having the ability to quickly charge your phone or tablet is a great relief. USB 3.1 Boost is something that I don't see why isn't implemented from factory, why have a normal mode for some end users to get confused about? EZ Update is an absolute essential utility. A simple update tool for your BIOS is great for novices and pros alike. The System Information page is exactly what it says on the tin; it just gives you the information of key parts of your system. Mobo connect is something new to me, this allows the use of your keyboard and mouse to control your connected smart device and also play music. USB BIOS Flashback is a great little feature. it simply allows you to save your current BIOS to a USB drive. This is great just incase a new BIOS is corrupt and you can no longer POST. Along with the absolutely huge Ai Suite, ASUS has bundled in a few other apps such as Turbo LAN. This allows you to monitor your current network activity with a ghost overlay. As you can see from the screen shot, it is relatively accurate. ASUS Boot Setting is a simple app that allows you to boot to BIOS at next reset; simple! This little widget is extremely small, but it incorporates EPU, Fan Xpert 3 and PC Cleaner into a simple little interface. HyStream is an application which I feel might annoy some users. This allows you to stream the screen from your iOS device, with no obvious plans for Android. CPU Performance Cinebench CINEBENCH is a real-world cross-platform test suite that evaluates your computer's CPU performance. Cinebench R15 is a totally free utility and is available for download here. The first test we see if the single and multicore performance of the CPU's tested. At stock, the 6700K is about half way between the 4770K and 5820K. Multicore performance is around 12% stronger and single core is around 20% stronger. When overclocked, it just tops the 5820K. WPrime wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions. wPrime is a free utility that is available for download here. Both of the WPrime tests utilise multicore performance; the overall performance is around 12% better than the 4770K. SiSoft Sandra The SiSoft Sandra Dhrystone and Whetstone benchmarks are widely used measures of compute power and performance for a wide array of real-world usage scenarios. You can find out more details on these tests here or download SiSoft Sandra here. SiSoft really like the new architecture, allowing the i7 6700K to top the chart. GPU Performance 3DMark 3DMark Firestrike is Futuremark's latest creation for testing the GPU performance of high-end gaming PCs using Direct X 11 graphics. You can download a free basic version of 3DMark here. Graphics cards are now limited by themselves rather than the performance and bandwidth of the CPU and motherboard. Slightly better performance in Firestrike, but slightly worse in Extreme. Tomb Raider Tomb Raider is a popular action-adventure video game published by Square Enix based on the Tomb Raider franchise. The game was released in 2013 and as of March 2014 had sold 6 million copies. Bioshock Infinite Bioshock Infinite is a first person shooter developed by Irrational Games that is the third instalment of the Bioshock series. The game is the last to be produced by Irrational Games before they announced their closure in February 2014. The game has sold over 4 million copies since its 2013 release. Performance here is very average, well within the tolerance for the graphics card. Memory Performance For our memory tests we use the built-in memory benchmarks in AIDA64 Engineer and SiSoft Sandra. For more details on each of the benchmarks please see here and here respectively. AIDA64 Engineer SiSoft Sandra Combined Latency Test With the introduction of Z170 comes DDR4 and all of the performance benefits that come with it. Latency is on par with DDR3 in the i7-4770K system and bandwidth with the DDR4 in the i7-5820K system. SATA, M.2 and USB Performance To test the storage performance in our motherboard reviews we use AIDA's Disk Benchmark utility built into their AIDA64 Engineer Edition software package and run linear read and write tests. We run each of the benchmark tests on a SATA III, USB 3.0 and M.2 device. For SATA III testing we use a SanDisk Extreme Pro 240GB, for USB 3.0 testing we use the Supersonic Magnum 256 GB USB 3.0 flash drive and for M.2 testing we use Plextor's 256GB M.2 M6e SSD. The drives are always formatted before use. Linear Read Linear Write Storage drive speeds are slightly lower than normal here but well within the acceptable tolerance. Z170 is still immature, so maybe we will see performance beneficial drivers in the near future. Networking Performance For our networking tests we connect the test system up to our Intel Gigabit-enabled ASUS Rampage IV Extreme X79 motherboard test system through the ASUS RT-AC68U router and run our tests. We opted for this over a direct point-to-point connection because we wanted to simulate real-world performance. For our WiFi tests we do the same except we connect the test system to the ASUS RT-AC68U router via WiFi at a distance of 2 metres from the router. LAN Speed Test Lite LAN Speed Test was designed from the ground up to be a simple but powerful tool for measuring file transfer, hard drive, USB Drive, and Local Area Network (LAN) speeds (wired & wireless). It does this by building a file in memory, then transfers it both ways (without effects of windows file caching) while keeping track of the time. Download the free Lan Speed Test Lite utility from here. ASUS have introduced the new I219V LAN option. From my testing, it doesn't prove a huge improvement over the previous I218V. Passmark Performance Test 8 The PassMark Advanced Network Test (which is part of PerformanceTest) is designed to test the data transfer rate between two computers both of which must be running PerformanceTest. One of the computers must act as the server and will sit waiting for a connection. The other computer acts as a client. It connects to the server machine and sends data to it for the duration of the test. You can download a trial version of PerformanceTest from here. Ethernet UDP throughput is a little lower, but look how huge the difference is for TCP; nearly 30% compared the RVE. Network CPU Load Network tests are very posstive, that is a huge increase compared to the I218V. Audio Performance RightMark Audio Analyser (RMAA) RMAA suite is designed for testing quality of analog and digital paths of any audio device. The results are obtained by playing and recording test signals passed through the tested audio path by means of frequency analysis algorithms. A more common mark is also provided for those unfamiliar with measured technical parameters. Available here. We run the RMAA test using a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable connecting the line out to the line in to test the quality of the motherboard audio codec not any external audio devices. We run the complete playback and recording test at default settings and then get RMAA to interpret the results giving the below outputs. We sync the playback and recording audio devices to the same setting as the test for accurate results. 16 Bit, 44KHz (DVD Quality) 16 Bit, 96KHz (Studio Quality) 24 Bit, 96KHz (Studio Quality) Some very good results here for the ALC892 codec. Consistently high quality in all results. DPC Audio Latency Analyser DPC is a Windows tool that analyses the capabilities of a computer system to handle real-time data streams properly. It may help to find the cause for interruptions in real-time audio and video streams, also known as drop-outs. The ALC892 coded is comparable to the SupremeFX codec found on the Maximus VII Ranger; which has proven to be a great audio option. Power Consumption Power Consumption To measure power consumption we, use a "killawatt" meter and measure the total system power draw at the wall. We run three different use-case scenarios for 5 minutes and take the average reading. The i7-6700K has brought a refined 14nm process which has proven to be extremely low power, around 15% lower than the i7-4770K at idle and 1080p playback. Final Thoughts Pricing The ASUS Z170-A motherboard is currently in stock at OverclockersUK for the low price of £116.99. Summary Wow, just wow. The ASUS Z170-A is a great motherboard and don't let the series put you off, when you consider that the Z170-A would be the lowest of that series. However, that is assuming that ASUS will be releasing the same models as the X99 range. The Z170-A and Z170 in general, brought great things with it, such as DDR4 memory support which improves productivity massively and a huge number of PCIe lanes to allow for multiple PCI, PCIe and M.2 lanes. This board, for example, has three M.2 lanes which can all work in RAID; imagine having high capacity M.2 SSDs, you wouldn't need any external drivers. ASUS haven't really bundled much additional software with this motherboard, but really it doesn't need it. Ai Suite holds all of the possible and relevant applications that you would likely use. I really like this as it just means a much faster and streamlined experience with nothing bogging you down. The board is very attractive. The brilliant white heatsink and IO cover are the most dominating features of the board itself and work extremely well with the black and dark grey features of the rest of the board. Around the CPU socket is some small white lines that denote the CPU links on the PCB and I think it works really well, although you won't really be able to see it under a CPU cooler, or in a case for that matter. Maybe if the entire PCB was styled like this or maybe even the back, who knows. Now onto the performance, what is there to say? Overall we knew the i7-6700K was going to be better than the previous i7-4770K, but worse than the i7-5820K; however, we didn't know how much worse. That simply wasn't the case, it is almost on par with the i7-5820K in most cases. The DDR4 is a great addition over DDR3 and hopefully with DDR4 coming into the mainstream market; we will see DDR4 prices drop even futher. One new feature that is worth noting is the new Intel I219V LAN chip; it is superior to the previous I218V, but it requires more power; maybe Intel realised what Qualcomm had already known with the CPU load. Pros Excellent performance High quality audio Not weighted down with utilities White colour scheme is refreshing Great price Cons None, but I219V LAN is rather power hungry compared to the previous version "The ASUS Z170-A is a great step forward for new and old users alike. The addition of DDR4 has really livened up the performance and the i7-6700K brings extreme performance to enthusiasts. You don't need to spend big bucks to get the big picture." Thank you to ASUS for providing this review sample.