At $150 Gigabyte's Z170X-UD3 is within the budget of many system builders but the question remains as to the value you get for that money. The Tech Report delved into this topic in their recent review and the prognosis is good, especially if you can find it on sale for $120 like they did. They did find the firmware somewhat limiting, though some of us do like the Classic Mode UEFI the fan speed control is quite limited. Gigabyte did address that with their System Information Viewer utility for Windows which does allow for fine control and when asked Gigabyte did suggest they may address this in a new UEFI update. With three PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, USB 3.1 and a pair of M.2 ports you do not suffer for connectivity and the overclocking potential is certainly acceptable for this price point. Check out their full review here.
"Gigabyte's Z170X-UD3 is a mid-range motherboard that gives builders everything the Z170 chipset has to offer and more. We take an in-depth look at this board to see whether it lives up to the promise of its impressive spec sheet."
Here are some more Motherboard articles from around the web:
Motherboards
- MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon @ [H]ard|OCP
- MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon Motherboard Review @ Hardware Canucks
- ASUS ROG STRIX X99 @ Kitguru
- ASUS STRIX X99 @ Kitguru
Heeey, this actually looks
Heeey, this actually looks surprisingly not bad (for a Gigabyte motherboard of late, which they were making only crap out of in the last two~three years). I might actually consider getting this for a separate low-budget build.
I personally went with the
I personally went with the ud5 which gave me 2 nvme ports and dual nics and has worked out nicely.
Looks Ok but lets be honest
Looks Ok but lets be honest here, the Z170/skylake crap is the most over rated and underwhelming release from Intel in a decade or so. I’m still running a 3770k and see no need to even consider an upgrade till at least “cannonlake”.
“Still running” an i7
“Still running” an i7 3770K?
You amuse me, newbies.
“i7 2600K @ 4.4GHz|24/7/365 for almost six years straight now”-god
Nice. What graphics
Nice. What graphics card/cards do you run and does the lack of PCI-Express 3.0 effect it at all?
There is literally ~1/1.5%
There is literally ~1/1.5% difference between PCI-e 2.0/2.1 x16 and PCI-e 3.0 x16, man. It doesn’t affect the performance at-friggin’-all.
It’s just one of my builds (albeit being my main station at the current moment). You can check it out here – http://pcpartpicker.com/list/LQmtMp .
Aside from this configuration I also have five other different builds at the current time being, that are my secondary systems for different other tasks (media machines, servers, and etc). These are based on i7 990X, friggin’ Prescott Pentium 4 HT (yes, really. The effing NetBUUUUURRRRRRRRst), Trinity APU A10 5800K, FX 6300, and the GODLIKE Phenom II X4 955 BE. So, essentially, I have three machines that utilize Intel’s processors and chipsets, and three that utilize AMD’s processors and chipsets. I’m not on anyone’s side in this so-called “holy war”, I try to maintain my lifestyle as a PC enthusiast in a perfectly fine balance. Oh, and also, all of these systems I’ve built completely from scratch by my own hands, there are no pre-built rigs in my home. I’m currently building a seventh one that’s going to be a very small ITX configuration based on Pentium Skylake G4500, then I’ll see what Zen has to offer.
My i7-920 wants you off the
My i7-920 wants you off the lawn
Did you even read the above
Did you even read the above post? i7 920? Jeremy don't make me laugh even harder right at your face than I've already been laughing for the last half of a year or so. I have the effing 990X, d00d. In comparison to this monster, any other Intel's 9xx stones are literally NOTHING.
Ooh, very funny…NOT. But
Ooh, very funny…NOT. But nice try anyway, I guess.