A Z270 board for under $160 can be hard to find which is what makes this Z270X board interesting. There were some sacrifices made in the design, all of the reviewers at [H]ard|OCP noticed how thin the PCB is as well as the heatsinks less than robust attachments, not a deal breaker by any means but worth considering if you are a little rough on your components. The board does still have 7 power phases, the PCIe slots are Armored and there is a new ALC1220 CODEC with a USB DAC UP 2 so Gigabyte did not skimp on the features that matter. Overclocking was easy and did not require an obscene amount of power for an i7-7700K to hit 5GHz. You can see the full review over at [H] … and yes it does have all the RGBs too.
"GIGABYTE has been on a roll with all it's 2017 offerings. This generation has seen solid boards for both AMD and Intel fans alike. Today, we switch gears and look at the GIGABYTE Z270X Ultra Gaming. It's the most misleading name GIGABYTE has used to date, but comes in with a very affordable price of $160!"
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With Intel cannibalizing
With Intel cannibalizing everything it makes, it makes zero sense to buy anything 270 including all the CPUs that attach to it. If any more microcode issues arise Intel will provide zero support. If you absolutely have to have Intel wait for 370 or go straight for 299. AMD, at least gives you full support for TR for years as well as AM4. You can buy a low end AMD and upgrade later. Intel has chosen to force its users to update their entire platform each and every time. If users keep enabling them they’ll keep doing that.
B350 at $89 fully supporting
B350 at $89 fully supporting overclocking and M.2 (direct to CPU), and expect to support 2 more generations, including 7nm is the true bargain for sure.
So yea, I also dont see an end of the line motherboard at $160 that support only upto 4 core CPU as a bargain. (Even if it comes with RGB lighting 🙂