Morry looked at the ASUS Z170-A at the beginning of the month, while SkyLake was still being launched and we were learning about multiple Z170 boards every day. With the chipset still so new it is worth investigating the results of other sites when they tested ASUS' mid-range motherboard which costs about half of the Z170-Deluxe. The aesthetics of this board are somewhat simpler than the Deluxe model and [H]ard|OCP reported the motherboard felt much thinner and more flexible, it didn't break but it certainly didn't feel as sturdy as the more expensive model. Apart from the construction they also could not reach the same RAM speeds as they did with the Deluxe, one of the testers could not get 3200MHz DIMMs to run completely stable at their JEDEC specs. Check out the full review here, the price on this motherboard can make the small issues moot for many enthusiasts looking to upgrade to a new Intel based system.
"Previously we looked at ASUS’ Z170-Deluxe which offered users a huge amount of features and a premium price to go with it. Not everyone wants to spend $300 or more on a motherboard which is why ASUS has just what you need. ASUS’ Z170-A offers all the performance without all the extra features and fluff and a low price point."
Here are some more Motherboard articles from around the web:
- ASUS Z170-DELUXE @ techPowerUp
- Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming G1 @ Bjorn3d
- MSI Z170A Gaming M7 Motherboard Review @HiTech Legion
- EVGA Z170 FTW Motherboard Review: An Overclocking Gambit @ Modders-Inc
- EVGA Z170 FTW Motherboard Review @ HiTech Legion
- ASRock Z170 Extreme 7+ @ eTeknix
- GIgabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 Motherboard Review @ HiTech Legion
- BIOSTAR N3150NH ITX Motherboard Review @ Madshrimps
There is so little
There is so little information from Intel regarding Skylake’s micro-architecture, that over at S/A(1) that they have taken to literally making a sandwich with it!
WTF Intel, are you Apple now! No Information from Apple about anything technical, Apple is just a retailer, not a technology company! While sites like WCCF Tech. are busy reporting about Apple and it’s A9 CPU cores those very Tech. Sites never provided any real information on the A8’s micro-architecture. Well if you can’t get the CPU/SOC’s manufacturer to list the technical details what is there to report. Well with Anand no longer part of AnadnTech where are the technical data sheets and actual infromation that the chip makers used to provide with their new products.
Anand did a good job with the A7’s micro-architecture, but then Apple had Anand sealed up real tight in carbonite!
Well it’s of to behind the paywall to see what is going on with those new CPU core micro-architectures: reorder buffers, instruction decoders, execution piplines, etc!
(1) “Making a Sandwich out of Intel’s Skylake”, by Thomas Ryan. S/A
“There’s been a lot of talk over the past two weeks about the first Skylake chips to hit the desktop. Intel has remained rather coy about what is at the core of its new Skylake architecture but they did send us a chip, so there’s that. Telling you how and where Skylake outperforms Haswell is all well and good, but what you really want to know is why. We can’t tell you that, so instead we’ve made a sandwich. For you: our dear readers.”
There’s more and It’s definitely a fun read!