Biostar Gaming Z170X Motherboard Review

[Crashman]

Biostar stretches its portfolio to the high-end with extra features, but does the Gaming 170X retain the competitive price for which the company is famous?

Biostar Gaming Z170X Motherboard Review : Read more

 

[stairmand]

This is however the first board with HDMI 2 support. If it was a Micro-ATX board it would be perfect for my HTPC. Oh well, the wait continues.

 

[Crashman]

[quotemsg=16848258,0,236932]This is however the first board with HDMI 2 support. If it was a Micro-ATX board it would be perfect for my HTPC. Oh well, the wait continues.[/quotemsg]Is it? I don't see a lot of companies flagging the term "HDMI 2", but I do see a lot of boards rated for 4k resolutions. Z170 Claymore supports 4k:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ecs-z170-claymore-intel-skylake-motherboard,4263.html

As does Z170 Extreme6:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-z170-lga-1151-skylake-motherboard,4254-2.html

And Z170A Gaming M7:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-z170-lga-1151-skylake-motherboard,4254-3.html

As did several Z97, H97, and even B85 boards that came before these:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asrock-z97m-oc-formula-motherboard,4259.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/msi-b85-g41-pc-mate-motherboard,4311.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/biostar-hi-fi-b85s3-motherboard,4273.html

Unless the company lists "HDMI 2" in its features chart, it's probably not going to end up on the features chart. Most of those are probably HDMI 1.4. I should probably start scanning their information for 4k support though, like, now

 

[-Fran-]

The front panel is such a missed opportunity for Biostar. They could have made wonders with it, but decided to make it gimmicky instead of actually useful. Pity.

I just want a ROG board with a front panel like in the old old Asus days. Man, those front panels were good.

Cheers!

 

[g-unit1111]

Looks like a pretty decent board, but I think if I were going to be spending that kind of money that Biostar would be last on my list. I'd go for the Asus Maximus VII in that price range.

 

[stairmand]

"Unless the company lists "HDMI 2" in its features chart, it's probably not going to end up on the features chart. Most of those are probably HDMI 1.4. I should probably start scanning their information for 4k support though, like, "

HDMI 1.4 will do 4K but only at 24Hz HDMI 2 will do 4K @60Hz. All of those are HDMI 1.4.

 

[Davinlevey]

No... Sli support? Not that everyone uses two cards, but I personally bought 2x 970's.. this board is instantly out of the loop for me. Oh well!

 

[firefoxx04]

I feel like they made too many compromises for the price they are offering.

My z97 extreme 6 is more feature packed at a lower price point (however outdated it may be)

The control panel is cool but I personally would not be valuing it when the rest of the board is not as feature rich as other competitors options.

 

[RedJaron]

At x8/x8, this could theoretically support at least two-way SLI. Does it not provide any SLI options?

 

[Crashman]

[quotemsg=16851093,0,570460]At x8/x8, this could theoretically support at least two-way SLI. Does it not provide any SLI options?[/quotemsg]
Nope, companies still have to get Nvidia to certify Intel-chipset motherboards. I believe there's money involved. That is, unless anyone is still able to hack the driver

 

[RedJaron]

Right, they still have to pay for certification, I just thought they would have at least paid for two-way GPUs. Yeah, that largely DQs the board for any consideration from me.

 

[Erikas Brazaitis]

Is it just me or does green, pink coloured audio jacks make everything look cheap

 

[zthomas]

I like the board and easy access to the bio's.. rebooting and tapping the delete key is such a pain in the ass.. all those sub screens is killer coool.. plus gives the puter case a class of its own with the added control panel..

 

[RedJaron]

[quotemsg=16851447,0,1804496]Is it just me or does green, pink coloured audio jacks make everything look cheap [/quotemsg]
I don't think so. The colors are nice to make sure you're using the right port. I've seen some MSI boards that compromise the two. They use gold-plated connectors and just the outside of the ring is colored for identification.

 

[tacgnol06]

ASUS and Gigabyte have some damn nice offerings. Not sure why this even exists.

 

[quilciri]

If the lack of SLI support (presumably because of the cost of NVIDIA certification) had resulted in a cheaper board, I'd be more forgiving.

A $220 gaming motherboard with 3 pci-e 3.0 slots has no excuse to lack SLI support, no matter how many additional bells, whistles, and trombones may be on the board.

 

[JerryC]

Lack of SLI support kind of removes this as a possible option for my new builds