It has been a while since we saw a new Sabertooth motherboard from the other side of ASUS, The Ultimate Force, up for review but [H]ard|OCP has remedied that with the new Z170 member of this line of products. It bears the same Thermal Armour design as previous models, adding a small fan that doesn't quite fit in with the overall design of the motherboard. As well you will notice an absence of a visible CMOS battery, it is indeed buried under the armour. [H]ard|OCP were less than impressed with the memory subsystem, the board is rated for DDR4 2400MHz DIMMs maximum and no higher. On the other hand the incredible stability of this board and the amount of features available on this relatively inexpensive Z170 board did garner a Gold Award. Read the full review to understand the benefits and drawbacks of this motherboard.
"In our opinion ASUS’ TUF series motherboards target the sweet spot in regard to features, price, and performance. TUF motherboards give you more features than most mid-range motherboards but lack certain features found on the high end. The Sabertooth Z170 Mark 1 is the flagship part of the current TUF series."
Here are some more Motherboard articles from around the web:
- ASRock Fatal1ty Z170 GAMING K6+ (Intel LGA-1151) @ techPowerUp
- Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 Review @ OCC
- ASUS Z170I PRO GAMING @ eTeknix
- ASUS Maximus VIII Gene Motherboard Review @ Hardware Canucks
- MSI X99A SLI Plus @ Kitguru
How much does the ugly and
How much does the ugly and useless “armor” add to the price?
At $260, I would hazard a
At $260, I would hazard a guess of $100 extra for 2 tenths of a penny worth of plastic.
Could be looked as useless,
Could be looked as useless, but for someone wanting to have a custom colored motherboard it is super easy to take it off and paint it also does a good job at directing the air across the board and out the back.