Gigabyte X170-Extreme ECC, Intel C236 Motherboard Review

[Guest]

Accustomed to customary configurations, our AMD editor gets sideways with a prosumer Xeon platform. Will Gigabyte's X170-Extreme ECC bridge the gap between his work and hobbies?

Gigabyte X170-Extreme ECC, Intel C236 Motherboard Review : Read more

 

[Malik 722]

this board and z170x gaming 7 looks like the very same thing same layout,same features and same connectors.although a different paint scheme.but what really makes this board more pricey than gaming 7 aside from xeon support.

 

[andrewpong]

Hasn't SuperMicro's X11SAT-F supported Thunderbolt 3 on the C236 chipset for a while now?

 

[logainofhades]

Still saddened by Intel forcing Xeon to use a C232/236 chipset. Been able to run Xeons, in consumer chipsets, since at least core 2. I had an X3210 @ 3.6ghz, in an Abit P35 pro, back in the day.

 

[The Jedi]

Yeah, you're a hardware reviewer Jacob. That is all the excuse you need to be on the bleeding edge with a Kaby Lake system and a 4K monitor with the graphics to drive it.

Good to read about this unique motherboard. However the lack of XMP is a dealbreaker for me. I think the Asus Sabertooth with the 5-year warranty vs. 3 would do just as fine. Kaby Lake is in my future anyway with that new Netflix DRM it makes available.

 

[TheTerk]

@Malik, two words - Ultra Durable. IF testing and reliability are important to you, C236 is the way to go. Otherwise, that Gaming 7 is a spitting image of this board.

@AndrewPong - This board might have been released a week or two before the SuperMicro. Here's Gigabyte's press release: http://www.gigabyte.us/press-center/news-page.aspx?nid=1420

@The Jedi - Is it bad that I'm running a VM on my test rig to run some good ol fashioned Windows XP? If you guys think of something crazy to do on this thing, let me know!

 

[blazorthon]

A quote from the third page:

The AMD 970 data presents similar trends in the PCMark Home, Creative, and Work workloads, though the deltas are not as dramatic. The move to DDR4 and this Gigabyte X170-Extreme ECC shows a whopping 38% increase in memory bandwidth compared to the DDR3 implemented in the Gigabyte 970 Gaming-SLI sample running at similar frequencies.

The move to DDR4 has practically nothing to do with Intel's advantage in memory bandwidth. Intel simply has a better memory controller. They've had an advantage in this since Sandy Bridge and that's easily knowable since every Intel and AMD CPU review since Sandy with memory benchmarks demonstrates it with DDR3 and with DDR4.

DDR4 does not improve bandwidth over DDR3 at the same frequency when all else (within reason) is equal. It improves bandwidth by allowing higher frequencies.