Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming G1 Motherboard Review

[Crashman]

Shooting straight for the top of the enthusiast LGA 1151 market, Gigabyte's Z170X-Gaming G1 is packed with features including four-way SLI, dual networking and Wi-Fi. Might this be the best Skylake motherboard we've tested?

Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming G1 Motherboard Review : Read more

 

[spentshells]

That was a great article, thanks.

 

[Crashman]

That was a great article, thanks.

Lesson to manufacturers, give me more to write about and I'll write a bigger article?

 

[red77star]

It is not LGA 2011 V3...there is nothing good about it.

 

[red77star]

6 Core i5820 is cheaper than quad core top of the line Skylake. The thing is that LGA 2011 V3 is going to support future CPU where this board is pretty much stack at Skylake.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

Why is nobody actually testing the best features of the board? Quad SLI? Raid M.2? This is a top of the line board and not a single result of the biggest questions.

 

[James Mason]

6 Core i5820 is cheaper than quad core top of the line Skylake. The thing is that LGA 2011 V3 is going to support future CPU where this board is pretty much stack at Skylake.

Proof?

Also the top of the line skylake i7-6700k is currently being price gouged a bit. You can get it at microcenter for only 359. The i7-5820k is quite a lot more power hungry than the skylake.

 

[Math Geek]

this is the 3rd article i have read on this mobo from 3 different sites and yet no one has bothered to see what the 3 m.2 slots can do in raid set-up. that was the first thing that stood out to me when i saw the board and no one has even tested it yet.

in my opinion if you are going to review a top of the line "cost-be-damned overclocked Core i7-6700K gaming rig", the fill that sucker up with what it can handle and let's see what it can do. try out some m.2 raid and at least 3 way sli. someone paying this kind of money for a mobo is gonna go all out and i'd love for the review to go all out as well

otherwise the rest of the info is nice and complete as usual. just need the last couple chapters and it would have been perfect

 

[rolli59]

Very nice board that appeals to the <1% market since most people do not use the added expensive features.

 

[g-unit1111]

That is a sweet board but that price...

A bit too rich for my blood! :lol:

 

[Crashman]

Why is nobody actually testing the best features of the board? Quad SLI? Raid M.2? This is a top of the line board and not a single result of the biggest questions.

None of us has three or more matching cards to put at one lab. But I'm thinking about doing another PCIe Scaling in SLI article like I did a few years ago with the P67.

What do you think? I might be able to get someone to pitch in some cards for that

this is the 3rd article i have read on this mobo from 3 different sites and yet no one has bothered to see what the 3 m.2 slots can do in raid set-up. that was the first thing that stood out to me when i saw the board and no one has even tested it yet.

in my opinion if you are going to review a top of the line "cost-be-damned overclocked Core i7-6700K gaming rig", the fill that sucker up with what it can handle and let's see what it can do. try out some m.2 raid and at least 3 way sli. someone paying this kind of money for a mobo is gonna go all out and i'd love for the review to go all out as well

otherwise the rest of the info is nice and complete as usual. just need the last couple chapters and it would have been perfect

The entire PCH has only the bandwidth of a single M.2 slot, and that's also shared with the Thunderbolt 3 controller. As the article state it's pointless to try to load up more than 32GB/s in devices at the same time.

 

[xenol]

The entire PCH has only the bandwidth of a single M.2 slot, and that's also shared with the Thunderbolt 3 controller. As the article state it's pointless to try to load up more than 32GB/s in devices at the same time.

What about testing the other factors, like IOPS and stuff?

I actually don't care about memory bandwidth. Community tests I've found suggested there's no point in going beyond SATA 6Gbps for most applications because load times don't improve appreciably for the cost of the media after that.

 

[voodoochicken]

I have the cutdown Gaming 7 version of this board, and I've been trying to pick a mid tower case with a similar white/red/black scheme. Haven't really found one that I liked, something similar to BixFenix Outlaw white is similar to the direction I'd like to go. Ideas?

 

[jaber2]

Niche market motherboard

 

[shrapnel_indie]

6 Core i5820 is cheaper than quad core top of the line Skylake. The thing is that LGA 2011 V3 is going to support future CPU where this board is pretty much stack at Skylake.

Proof?

Also the top of the line skylake i7-6700k is currently being price gouged a bit. You can get it at microcenter for only 359. The i7-5820k is quite a lot more power hungry than the skylake.

When Amazon and NewEgg are sold out, and there is no MicroCenter even close enough to consider, you are stuck with OutletPC and their price of $698.89 ea. for an i7-6700k. For that price, a 6-core i7-5820k, or i7-5930k for that matter, is cheaper.

https://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80662i76700k

 

[Crashman]

6 Core i5820 is cheaper than quad core top of the line Skylake. The thing is that LGA 2011 V3 is going to support future CPU where this board is pretty much stack at Skylake.

Proof?

Also the top of the line skylake i7-6700k is currently being price gouged a bit. You can get it at microcenter for only 359. The i7-5820k is quite a lot more power hungry than the skylake.

When Amazon and NewEgg are sold out, and there is no MicroCenter even close enough to consider, you are stuck with OutletPC and their price of $698.89 ea. for an i7-6700k. For that price, a 6-core i7-5820k, or i7-5930k for that matter, is cheaper.

https://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80662i76700k

This article was written before the price spike and will remain relevant after the spike goes away

 

[chechak]

looking for gigabyte-z170x-gaming 7 setup

 

[Take_Out]

Where is Z 270 at? Supposed to be like half again more powerful. Prob 4 mo away.

 

[Mac266]

I must say I love the look. Nice to see a departure from the regular Red/Black, the white really works it for me.

 

[DrakeFS]

What about testing the other factors, like IOPS and stuff?

Not really much of a point, SSDs at low queue depths are pretty much all the same. Since most of us when gaming are operating below a QD of 4, you will not see much of a distinction between different boards (current SSDs are not capable of pushing the interface at a low QD). Maybe if 3D Xpoint is what Intel and Micron claim it is, we will see some new life breathed into NVME M.2 Slots on the consumer side.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

It'd be cool to see 4 Crossfire R7 370 cards.

 

[merikafyeah]

Since Thunderbolt 3 comes with 10Gb networking can you connect two of these motherboards with a thunderbolt type-c cable and have it behave as if you connected them with an ethernet cable but transfers 10x faster than gigabit?

To get transfers between PCs to exceed 1 GB/s cheaply, you have to use Infiniband instead of 10GbaseT. Thunderbolt 3 is supposed to change that so I'm also hoping Thunderbolt 3 switches will eventually come out to replace those ludicrously expensive 10GbaseT switches.

 

[chechak]

I have the cutdown Gaming 7 version of this board, and I've been trying to pick a mid tower case with a similar white/red/black scheme. Haven't really found one that I liked, something similar to BixFenix Outlaw white is similar to the direction I'd like to go. Ideas?

try graphite-780t- white full-tower
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/graphite-series-780t-white-full-tower-pc-case

 

[shrapnel_indie]

This article was written before the price spike and will remain relevant after the spike goes away

Of that I have no doubt. But until it does, one has to move fast if they see the i7-6700k in-stock at a good price.

(As a side note, my input was based on the availability and price-gouging going on with the 6700k, not on the Skylake/Z170 platform in general OR this pricey MoBo.)

 

[Crashman]

This article was written before the price spike and will remain relevant after the spike goes away

Of that I have no doubt. But until it does, one has to move fast if they see the i7-6700k in-stock at a good price.

(As a side note, my input was based on the availability and price-gouging going on with the 6700k, not on the Skylake/Z170 platform in general OR this pricey MoBo.)

It's a pretty crazy board for features, but I was really hoping to see a sub-$300 3-way SLI board by now.