ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming (LGA 1151) Motherboard Review

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.

With Z170 sees the introduction of the new Intel-based I219V chipset. Not hugely better, but a gain is a gain, with limits here likely being the control system.

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 scores are within the same area as the other boards, but the TCP results are far superior.

CPU Work Load

Something Intel LAN options always had over the competition was low CPU load; however, that seems to have failed here. Maybe Intel has noticed that it needs to sacrifice CPU load for maximum throughput.