Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI (LGA 1151) Motherboard Review

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.