Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI (LGA 1151) Motherboard Review

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging The Z170 chipset and Skylake CPU's has been around for just over a week now and we have seen pretty much everything that each manufacturer has to offer. We now know that the huge connectivity options presented by the Z170 chipset that some manufacturers have included not on, but two or even three M.2 slots and multiple USB 3.0 ports. Along with those, you also have USB 3.1 Type A and Type C as standard and the vast majority of the Z170 series. Today on the test bench, we take a look at one of the cheaper options on the market, the Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI. Don't let the low MSRP of £120 fool you, this motherboard has more features than you can shake a stick at and is expected to outpace the competition at a higher price bracket. This particular board boasts the latest Realtek audio codec to provide crisp and clear audio performance, combine that with high-speed RAM and a multi-graphics card setup and you have a great gaming computer that is capable of dominating the competition. Key Features Manufacturers nowadays need to find innovative ways to stand out from the crowd, Gigabyte is no exception and has crammed a huge array of features into this motherboard. App Centre 3D OSD @BIOS Ambient LED AutoGreen Cloud Station EasyTune Easy RAID Fast Boot Smart timeLock Smart Keyboard Smart Backup System Information Viewer USB Blocker Packaging and Accessories The box is of a new design, featuring a character from the game Heroes of the Storm. This comes with a sole partnership between Gigabyte and Blizzard. The colour scheme outside of the main image resembles heavily of the Ultra Durable range with the orange highlights and logos. The back of the box focuses on more key features with a large chart showing the speed increase of USB 3.1 over USB 3.0. Inside the box is a nice amount of accessories. First up the paper based which consists of a door hanger, Gigabyte/Heroes of the Storm leaflet, Install guide and motherboard manual Along with those are4x SATA 6Gb/s cables, I/O shield, Ultra Durable case sticker, SLI bridge and Gigabyte G-Connector. The G-Connector is a great addition that allows you to securely clip in all of the front panel connectors into one hub and install at once; this makes the installation 100x easier as you can do it outside of the case while the motherboard is installed. A Closer Look & Layout Analysis The motherboard itself is very simple. The heat sinks are well designed, small and clean-cut; subliminally this adds more focus to the Ultra Durable focus. While I find that the Red and black theme has been played out, I quite like this; it's extremely subtle. Looking closer at the CPU socket, we can see that the chokes and capacitors are fairly close. This might become an issue with some CPU coolers if they have a larger fitting plate, but most of the current range of LGA 115x CPU coolers will fit with no issues what so ever. This motherboard, much like the rest of the Z170 range, has taken advantage of the huge expansion options available through the PCi lanes. This board only features a single high speed M.2 Port which can accommodate a max length of 80mm. The price point of this board is on the cheaper end of the Z170 market, so I/O options are more limited due to more focus on the SLI nature of the board. From left to right there are 2x USB 2.0 ports, 1x PS/2 port, 1x VGA, 1x DVi, 1x USB 3.1 Type C, 1x USB 3.0, 1x USB 3.1 Type A, 1x HDMI, 1x Gigabit LAN, 2x USB 3.0 and 6x Audio jacks. Moving along the IO side of the board, we are taken to the audio section. The AMP UP! audio feature is reminiscent of other recent AMP UP! featured motherboards with a simple cover. Along the bottom of the board, we find a smaller array of the usual headers including UDB 2.0, Thunderbolt header, TPM and LPT headers. Moving over, a large proportion of the board is taken up by the block of headers, but there is room for a fan header, front panel headers and a clear CMOS jumper nestled just behind the front panel block. Moving up the other side of the motherboard, we can see a good arrangement of SATA connections including 6x SATA 6 Gb/s and 3x SATA Express ports. Opposite the I/O ports, we find 2x US 3.0 header, 24-pin power connector, more fan headers and the DDR4 slots. The top of the board is plain and simple with 2 fan headers, a few capacitors and the 8 pin power connector. Testing and Methodology Before we delve into any testing we would like to take this opportunity to review our test system. All tests are conducted three times and the average taken to use in our charts. Hardware 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 MX200 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 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 Memory 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. Storage 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. Networking 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 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. PassMark 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. Power Usage 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. 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. DPC 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. 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. 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. Gigabyte don't offer the EZ BIOS with this board, possibly to reduce costs and make the . The first page you are presented with is the MIT page; it hosts everything you will want to increase the performance of your computer including CPU and memory frequency. System information is a simple motherboard information screen, displaying motherboard model and BIOS versions. The BIOS features page has all of information regarding the BIOS and operating systems. This screen allows you to fine tune your system before the BIOS loads to give the best possible experience. Peripherals is the page where you will go to look at and tweak the information regarding anything you have plugged in into the USB, SATA or PCI ports. The Chipset screen is likely to be one of the lesser used screens thanks to how well the chipset is already set up. However, you can tweak certain features such as the Audio. Power Management could be misinterpreted. It doesn't include the voltages to the components, rather the overall power features of the motherboard such as power on features and resume by alarms. The Save and Exit screen it probably the only screen that is familiar between all motherboards. Here you can choose to save or discard your settings and manually boot into another drive if you are performing a task such as a new operating system install. Overclocking Overclocking on this board was an absolute breeze, a simple BIOS trip and multiplier increase achieved a stable 4.8GHz overclock. The voltage monitor is still a bit buggy, but this is set to be updated in the next CPU-z revision. 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. Gigabyte, like others, offers 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, but times have changed and so have these programs. Gigabyte offers a huge amount of utilities, first up is Smart Switch. This particular app is only compatible with Windows 8/ 8.1 as all it really does is add a traditional start menu. While some might see this as pointless, it works quite well apart from the search function, which seems to be non-existent. The main utility on offer is App Center. This is the main "hub" for all of the sub-utilities and is easily accessed through searching or the taskbar. One key feature I like with this is that if you hover over the app you no longer want, you can simply uninstall it by right-clicking. First up is 3D OSD, this small feature gives you an in-depth insight to the graphics hardware monitor. The blue dots represent what can be recorded and displayed in a log file, handy if you are experiencing issues or just want to monitor your graphics card after a hard gaming session. @BIOS is probably the most renowned utility for Gigabyte, being one of the first highly successful BIOS flashing software to be offered by a manufacturer. The process is extremely simple, but I found updating from a server to be extremely annoying. When it did find a server to download from, it would not present the latest BIOS either, so manually downloading from the product page would be the best option. Ambient LED is one of the newer additions to the app line-up. This is mainly due to only recent motherboards being offered with customisable RGB LED's. This feature changes the LED colour which is found under the sound cover. With a push towards a more mobile lifestyle, Gigabyte offers AutoGreen. This is a feature that allows you to control your computer power settings through a mobile device. EasyTune is something that all manufacturers offer. It is a one stop shop for overclocking and performance information while using the computer instead of having to restart and enter BIOS. While these methods of overclocking still aren't recommend, they are getting a lot better, but you can always do better by manually setting the overclock in the BIOS. Easy RAID is a great little tool that allows you to enable RAID simply through a nice GUI. Fast Boot is a similar feature to what we saw during our trip into the BIOS. This allows you to choose whether or not you want to disable certain processes to speed up the booting process. Here you can also choose to enter BIOS if your keyboard isn't recognised before the operating system is loaded. Home Cloud and Home Cloud Station are both mobile interaction features. Home Cloud is a back-up system between your computer and mobile device. The Home Cloud Server is a combination of multiple features: HomeCloud, Gigabyte Remote, Remote OC and HotSpot. These features give a seamless connectivity experience beteen your main computer and smart device. System information viewer (SIV) is a hardware monitor that focuses on the fan speed. First time opening of the app will start a fan calibration which closely resembles Windows 8/8.1/10. Along with fan control, you can set up alarms and warnings if your system ever goes outside of the tolerances that you set. The record screen works hand in hand with the System Alerts to monitor your voltages. This could be extremely useful if you are having random drop-outs during general use and you are not sure on the issue. Smart Keyboard is basically a hotkey macro function. By assigning different functions to different unused keys, you can quickly access webpages by only pressing 1 button. In with this software, you can also change the mouse sensitivity on the fly if you mouse doesn't support it on the device itself. CPU & GPU Performance Cinebench Considering the price point of this motherboard, a joint top score is an extremely good result. WPrime A slightly larger lead here, a great result again. SiSoft Sandra Results are slightly lower than the starting trend, but still some great results. 3DMark Motherboards now have such a high bandwidth allowance for the GPU, that there is very little difference between motherboards. Some results are better than others which could be due to improved and matured BIOS and drivers since launch. Tomb Raider A great performance score in Tomb Raider with very little difference between bottom and top. Bioshock Infinite Another great result here, but again the bandwidth is so high with the motherboards that the only limitation really is the CPU and GPU themselves. Memory Performance AIDA64 Engineer Aida64 proves that the memory channels are very free-flowing in terms of bandwidth. This allows the DDR4 dual channel memory to offer all of the performance it has to offer. AIDA64 reacts badly to an overclocked CPU in most cases, providing poorer results than at stock. SiSoft Sandra Slightly poorer comparable performance here compared to the competition, but at least an overclocked CPU offers benefit to the performance here. Combined Latency Test Some of the lowest latency results here and it only gets better with an overclock with the lowest Z170 result recorded so far. Storage Performance Linear Read We are now hitting the performance levels of the testing hardware rather than the motherboard itself. Both read and write tests offer an extremely similar performance to all of the other tests results. Linear Write Networking Performance LAN Speed Test Lite This motherboard is equipped an Intel I219V gigabit chip. This has proven to be a great improvement over the previous I218V in terms of performance, it still doesn't consistently match the Killer E2400 option. The Intel option on this motherboard is a strong option, but it lacks the overall performance to really wow within this particular test. Passmark Performance Test 8 - Ethernet A bit of a tumble with the Z170-A, but it just goes to show how much variation there is with this chip. Passmark Performance Test 8 - CPU Work Load Thankfully, the Intel option has a winning streak with low CPU usage. There was a blip with early options, but that has been ironed out with driver updates. Audio Performance Some extremely good results here, but a recurring theme with the Realtek ALC1150 is a relatively poor Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise performance. This is strange as comparing that towards the other linked results, it would seem that it should at least be "Good" rating. 16 Bit, 44KHz (DVD Quality) 16 Bit, 96KHz (Studio Quality) 24 Bit, 96KHz (Studio Quality) DPC Audio Latency Analyser The Realtek ALC1150 codec is a strong option in a wide diverse market. However, the application from one motherboard to another can vary results massively. Gigabyte has applied this extremely well and produced one of the lowest latency score we've seen. Power Consumption Gigabyte isn't really known for being the greenest option, but it goes to show that the power options available on this motherboard have produced the best performance at the lowest possible power consumption. Final Thoughts Pricing The Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI is currently available in the UK from OverclockersUK for the extremely low price of £113.99. In the US, you can purchase it from Newegg.com for $145.99 and is currently offered with a free mouse for a limited time only. Summary So there we have it, the Z170 chipset being unleashed onto the world. I can say that performance of the actual chipset isn't a massive improvement over Z97, but performance is greatly limited to the hardware being used such as the M.2, SATA and USB drives. What the Z170 brings to the table is the absolutely huge connectivity. As standard, it comes with USB 3.1 Type A and Type C and six USB 3.0, which was previously unheard of due to the limitations of the chipset and CPU. The motherboard doesn't offer much in the way of looks, it isn't going to win any awards any time soon. That being said, my experience with wallet-friendly Gigabyte motherboards has always been function over form and that can be seen throughout the testing. The black heatsinks are minimal and the colour detailing is extremely subtle, but it holds strong performance figures in all of the tests and the price point is going to be hard to beat with that level of performance. When considering to buy a motherboard, you don't really consider the additional programs that manufacturers offer. We all have our own experiences with this software and we can all probably say that at one point or another; we have had a negative experience. In recent years, things have changed massively and the programs are no longer a hinderance, but more of a pleasure to use. Gigabyte App Center is one of the better ones to use, the simple and light interface is nice to use and each program is separate to not step on each others toes but also similar so they are familiar to use. One small thing that I found annoying was trying to use them for long periods of time, the overlay can only be accessed from the taskbar or by searching and it disappears after a few seconds, meaning you have to locate it all over again. A bit more colour would have been a nice touch, maybe a splash of green to commemorate the SLI branding; while moving away from lairy red and black is a good move, almost ditching all colour doesn't really help attract buyers. Pros Understated colour scheme to match all system builds Performance is extremely strong Excellent audio perofrmance Extremely low power consumption Cons Intel I219V LAN chip doesn't perform as well as in other boards Neutral Storage performance is becoming limited by the external hardware, rather than the motherboard itself "More features than you will ever need and performance that matches top end motherboards, the Z170XP-SLI is a great option at a great price." Thank you to Gigabyte for providing this review sample.