Testing Configuration and Benchmarks Used
To verify that the motherboard works as advertised, the board was run through our standard benchmark suite. In most cases, the results are presented for the motherboard under review as well as a different similar-class motherboards for performance comparison purposes. The benchmark tests used should give you a good understanding of the board’s capabilities for both office and gaming use so that you, the reader, can make a more informed purchasing decision.
Test System Setup | |
Motherboards | Intel Z170-based systems MSI Z170A-Gaming G1 GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 ASUS Z170-A Intel Z97-based system ASUS Z97-Pro Intel X99-based systems ASUS X99-A |
CPU | Intel Z170-based system Intel Core i7-6700K (4.0GHz CPU and Ring Bus, 40 x 100MHz Base Clock) Intel Z97-based system Intel Core i7-4770K (3.5GHz CPU and Ring Bus, 35 x 100MHz Base Clock) Intel X99-based systems Intel Core i7-5960X (3.0GHz CPU and Ring Bus, 30 x 100MHz Base Clock) |
Memory | Intel Z170-based system Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 modules (1600MHz, 16-18-18-35-1T, 1.225V) Intel Z97-based system Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 modules (1600MHz, 9-10-9-27-1T, 1.525V) Intel X99-based systems Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 modules (2133MHz, 15-17-17-35-1T, 1.225V) |
Hard Drive | Intel 730 240GB SSD Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA III HD |
Sound Card | On-board sound |
Video Card | ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 3GB |
CPU Cooling | XSPC Raystorm D5 Photon RX480 V3 WaterCooling Kit |
Video Drivers | NVIDIA 353.62 |
Power Supply | Corsair HX750 |
Operating System | Windows 10 Pro x64 |
Test Setup Explanation
The 64-bit Windows 10 based test bench used For Intel Z170 LGA1151 board testing includes an Intel Core i7-6700K processor, 16GB of DDR4-2666 memory, an ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 3GB video card, and an Intel 730 240GB SSD drive. For the Z97-based board testing, an Intel Core i7-4770K CPU, 16GB of DDR3-2400 memory, an ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 3GB video card, and an Intel 730 240GB SSD drive were used in the test system. For Intel X99 LGA2011-V3 board testing includes an Intel Core i7-5960X CPU, 32GB of DDR4-2666 memory, an ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 3GB video card, and an Intel 730 240GB SSD drive. Using the selected components gives us the ability to demonstrate the motherboard's capabilities rather than that of the components themselves.
Benchmark Tests used for evaluation:
- SoftPerfect Research NetWorx Speed Test v5.41
- LanBench v1.1.0
- ATTO Disk Benchmark v3.05
- SiSoft Sandra 2015 SP2b (v2015.07.21.42)
- Intel Linpack Benchmark v11.3.0.004
- Maxon Cinebench R15
- PCMark 8 v2.4.304
Great looking board, but for
Great looking board, but for $300 I think it needs more USB 3.0 slots, and duel x16 Xfire/SLI.
Why dual x16 slots? There’s
Why dual x16 slots? There’s no performance benefit when talking about pci-e 3.0. The bandwidth available even with x8 is more than any current video card can use.
Do you even know the
Do you even know the difference between slots and ports ?
Not to mention the obvious difference between duel and dual.
The education system sucks so bad.
I blame spell checkers! They
I blame spell checkers! They do not have proper contextual spell checking and Duel, and Dual are easy to overlook when proof reading! Once proper contextual spell checking becomes available via HSA and GPU accelerated Spell Checking, then mistakes like this will occur less often. Contextual spell checking requires a great amount of processing and automated definition checking/phrase matching algorithms, so GPGPU will be reguired.
P.S. some people have Dyslexia and can not spell to save their lives!
Edit: reguired
To:
Edit: reguired
To: required.
See what I’m saying, Dyslexia is a pain!
Do you suck in real life,
Do you suck in real life, that you took the time to insult someone spelling to make you feel better?
Damn, lighten up man. Who
Damn, lighten up man. Who cares if he doesn’t know duel/dual. Seems like disparaging the entire educational system (of where?) is a bit much, don’t you think?
That aside this is still
That aside this is still LGA1151. so i think it is useless to have two x16 slot wired for x16 config.
By default, that’s right.
By default, that's right. But some manufacturers include a PLX chip so that both the primary and secondary PCIe slots get the full x16 bandwidth…
The PCB color reminds me of
The PCB color reminds me of the old Soyo Dragon Ultra.
Oh yeah, I had those
Oh yeah, I had those crash-prone pieces of crap. The via 133 AGP chipset was the worst thing ever. I went through 4 of those boards before I figured out it would just not work right. It was a great looking board though. It is nice to see the color scheme again, on a much better MSI board this time!
Sorry, I meant KT333 chipset.
Sorry, I meant KT333 chipset.
Does anyone know if I can
Does anyone know if I can RAID 0 two M.2 drives with a z170 board and be able to boot/install Windows on the RAID? I really want to pickup two of the new 512MB Samsung 950 Pros and create a 1TB system drive.
Yes you can create a NVME
Yes you can create a NVME raid 0 . You do lose 2 sata for that though
windows 7 — good luck, it’s
windows 7 — good luck, it’s nearly impossible, even though it supposedly supports it. Windows 10, no problem, just have to feed it the storage drivers from the included msi disk during the install process.
I’d buy it for just the
I’d buy it for just the audio…and the looks !
No USB-C ? No dice !
No USB-C ? No dice !
I have try installed
I have try installed Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combine card on PCI-E(2or4), the windows 10 can’t found the hardware and BIO’s showed PCI-E slot is “EMPTY”. Does anyone know why?
I had a simillar issue. Ended
I had a simillar issue. Ended up getting a cheap usb adapter and plugging it into the case. Works great.