Best Z170 motherboard for gaming ~US$200-250

[RyanOCallaghan]

Hi. I need a good Z170 motherboard for gaming between US$~200 and US$~250. Which is the best option for me out of these three ?

Gigabyte GA-Z170X Gaming 7 (lowest cost of the three)
MSI Z170A Gaming M7
ASUS Maximus VIII HERO Z170 (highest cost of the three)

I need it to be suitable for me building a new PC, that will boot up once i put everything together and will immediately work well with Windows 10, as i hear some people are claiming that Win 10 doesn't have drivers for their Z170 boards. Thanks in adv.

 

[Luminary]

I'd presonally go with the Gigabyte GA-Z170X Gaming 7.

It's gotten fantastic professional reviews, as well as very high customer reviews from sites like Newegg. Very solid board for overclocking, and has full Windows 10 support.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($179.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $179.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-01 20:27 EST-0500

Professional Reviews:

-HiTechLegion 'GOLD Award': http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews/motherboards/45666-gigabyte-ga-z170x-gaming-7-motherboard-review?showall=&start=8

-Overclockers.com 'Approved' Award: http://www.overclockers.com/gigabyte-z170x-gaming-7-motherboard-review/

-Bjorn3D 'Best Bang for the Buck Award: http://www.bjorn3d.com/2015/09/gigabyte-ga-z170x-gaming-7/5/

-LanOC 'Recommended': http://lanoc.org/review/motherboards/7124-gigabyte-ga-z170x-gaming-7?showall=&start=8

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VIII HERO ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($219.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $219.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-01 20:28 EST-0500

or

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD5 TH ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($196.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $196.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-01 20:29 EST-0500

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

The Winner.

The Maximus VIII Hero

Final Thoughts

The Maximus VIII Hero was very nice to work with. Its BIOS felt stable, had many options, and provided very good guidelines for overclocking. The choice to use Texas Instruments NexFETs in the VRM was a sound one as can be seen in the thermal imaging section. The Maximus VIII Hero has all the right stuff to be an affordable overclocking motherboard aimed at breaking records. I expected to have problems with just turning on XMP with my 3600MHz memory kit, but there were none with the Maximus VIII Hero. ASUS did a good job of auto tuning behind the scenes to provide high overclocking margins.

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7276/asus-rog-maximus-viii-hero-intel-z170-motherboard-review/index.html

[video="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2GKyGyDm7g"][/video]

 

[koffeeshop77]

ASUS Maximus VIII HERO Z170
is the best and comes with the most options. "for gaming" including high quality soundcard
to say the least the 50$ extra dollors in the end are worth it considering the PC.

 

[RyanOCallaghan]

Thanks for the answers guys, I highly appreciate them. I guess i will look further into the Asus Maximus VIII HERO - But i cannot order hardware from Newegg or Amazon since i live in Hong Kong and i don't think they ship here. 🙂

The Maximus will actually cost me nearly 300 over here - but that's fine as long as it's a good mobo.
The Z170X Gaming 7 is a little lower - at about 250.

I am planning to buy an Intel Core i5 -6600K for gaming with one of these boards.

Thanks again 😀

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I own the two previous versions of the HERO VI and VII , both fantastic.