GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-UD3 vs ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming

[tacgnol06]

So, these two boards have practically the same feature set and sell for practically the same price point. Basically, I'm looking for a board with SLI support and an M.2 port for the upcoming Samsung 950 Pro SSD. A headphone amp is also desirable for my HyperX Cloud, and both boards feature one with the same good codec and shielding.

The only difference I see between the two boards is that the Gigabyte board supports two M.2 ports, which is a nice extra but not obligatory, thus I'm leaning towards that one. I'll probably do a small token overclock with the stock cooling but overclocking is not important to me. So which one would you guys go with?

 

[Robert Cook]

well it looks like the gigabyte board has one extra phase so overclocking should be slightly better, but as you mentioned you do not really care about that. as for the dual M.2 ports, I really fail to see what you would need all that fast storage for, but I suppose it is a nice option to have. neither of these boards is extremely SLI supporting, both require a drop to 8X and 8X. while not the end of the world, I would just consider getting one really good card and foregoing SLI. in terms of audio, the Asus board might be slightly better, but it is hard to know for certain.

 

[tacgnol06]

8x doesn't really bother me. I've seen videos that suggest it makes literally no impact at PCI-e 3.0 speeds. I'm going with a GTX 970 anyway with a 1080 monitor. I'll be doing dual monitors 1080 monitors down the road though and want SLI as an option in case I need that extra oomph. It's a upper-midrange i5-6500 or 6600 build with upgradability in mind.

 

[Robert Cook]

The SLI should not present much issues, and as you are not bench marking or worried about 1 or 2 FPS, I agree. that is a great CPU, and dual 1080P monitors will be more than maxed with dual 970s. sounds like a great build.

 

[tacgnol06]

Decided to spend a little more on a Gigabyte UD5, as it actually has a few reviews.
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7326/gigabyte-z170x-ud5-intel-z170-motherboard-review/index.html
This one in particular goes very in-depth, and it seems well worth the extra $25.

Keeping this open for contributions.

 

[Robert Cook]

very nice.

 

[zazzn]

Why did you choose the UD5? I see nothing different other than the ability to do 4k with the intergrated gfx and the extra sata controller?