Integrated Device Testing
Audio Subsystem Testing
Audio Playback Testing
Using a selection of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music tracks and Windows Media Player, the audio subsystem playback performance was tested for playback accuracy and fidelity.
Playback using the MSI Nihimic provided audio test was clear and distortion free with the 5.1 speaker setup using the integrated analogue audio ports.
Listening tests using the selected audio tracks were performed with a Kingston HyperX Cloud Gaming audio headset as well as a 5.1 speaker setup to exercise the subsystem's audio fidelity. In both cases, audio reproduction was clear, rich, and distortion-free with little quality difference between the listening sessions.
Microphone Port Testing
For testing the board's Microphone input port, the microphone from a Kingston HyperX Cloud Gaming audio headset was used to capture a 30 second spoken phrase with the assistance of the Microsoft Sound Recorder application. The resulting audio file was saved to the desktop and played back using Windows Media Player.
Even though the recorded audio remained distortion-free at all levels, audio pickup was best with recording volume set to 50 and Microphone Boost set to +10dB. Audio clarity improved with the auto calibration setting enabled from within the Nahimic audio control panel without needed to adjust recording volume or the Microphone Boost settings.
ATTO Disk Benchmark
To validate that the board’s device ports were functioning correctly, we connected an OCZ Vertex 460 240GB SATA III SSD to the system and ran the ATTO Disk Benchmark against the drive. The SSD was directly connected to the native SATA 3 ports, the SATA-Express device ports, the USB 3.1 Gen1 ports (equivalent to USB 3.0 port), and USB 3.1 Gen2 ports. NGFF port testing was performed using an M.2 based Plextor PCIe M.2 2280 128GB SSD. The M.2 device was tested using the board's integrated M.2 slot. USB port testing performed using the OCZ SSD in a USB 3.1 Gen 2 compatible enclosure. ATTO was configured to test against transfer sizes from 0.5 to 8192 KB with Total Length set to 512 MB and Queue Depth set to 10. The M.2 SSD selected for testing has a maximum read throughput of 770 MB/s and a write throughput of 335 MB/s over a PCI-Express x2 bus. The selected SSD has a maximum read throughput of 540 MB/s and a write throughput of 525 MB/s on a SATA III controller. The drive tests were repeated three times with the highest repeatable read and write speeds recorded.
The OC SSD performed as expected on the Intel-controlled SATA and SATA-Express ports as well as on the ASMedia USB 3.1 Gen2 ports. Drive performance met or exceeded device speed specifications in all cases. Performance of the PCI x2 M.2 drive was best overall, again as expected, with the M.2 drive performing or exceeding is rated speeds as well. Performance of the drive on the USB 3.1 Gen1 port was lower than that of the Gen2 port, but was in-line with expectations of a USB 3.0 speed-rated port.
SoftPerfect Research NetWorx Speed Test
In conjunction with Windows Performance Monitor, SoftPerfect Research NetWorx Speed Meter application was used to measure the upload and download performance of the motherboards integrated network controllers. Speed Meter was used to measure average network throughput in MB/s with Windows Performance Monitor used to measure average CPU utilization during the tests.
The LanBench network benchmarking software was used to generate send and receive traffic between the local and remote systems over a five minute period with packet size set to 4096 and connection count set to 20. A LanBench server was set up on the remote system to generate or receive traffic for the tests performed. The upload and download tests were repeated three times with the highest repeatable average throughput, the lowest repeatable average CPU utilization, and lowest repeatable performance spike percentages recorded.
Note that that theoretical maximum throughput for a Gigabit Ethernet adapter is 125 MB/s (1.0 Gbps).
The performance through the integrated Intel I119-V network controller was within limits of the port's rated throughput with upload and download averaging around 115 MB/s. CPU utilization averaged under 5% during all tests with spikes of no more than 8% seen during the download tests.
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.