H170 vs Z170 price/performance

[Markharwester]

Hello everyone!

I am soon getting an Intel i5 6500 (non-K), and right now i can get a nice H170 gigabyte mobo for around 100$. I was just about to make the purchase, when i noticed that the Z170 version of the same board is only 110$
I know that with the 6500 non K i cannot overclock, but i know that Z170 motherboards should have more power phases which might be good for my system, and also they accept more types of DDR4 ram. (although the CPU itself can have a maximum of 2133mhz ram)

So my question is, is that 10$ price difference worth it in my case? I am obviously not overclocking the CPU, but will that Z170 chipset do something for me over the H170?

Thank you in advance!

 

[InvalidError]

Your non-K CPU is locked, which means you cannot use memory faster than the CPU's official supported speed and you will get extremely limited, if any benefits from the allegedly better motherboard VRM.

The Z chipset itself gives you nothing useful beyond the ability to unlock K-chips' multipliers and x8x8 PCIe if you want to do SLI/CF.

Unless you have some reason to think you might need any of those features, then the Z170 is unlikely to be worth $10.

 

[Markharwester]

Your non-K CPU is locked, which means you cannot use memory faster than the CPU's official supported speed and you will get extremely limited, if any benefits from the allegedly better motherboard VRM.

The Z chipset itself gives you nothing useful beyond the ability to unlock K-chips' multipliers and x8x8 PCIe if you want to do SLI/CF.

Unless you have some reason to think you might need any of those features, then the Z170 is unlikely to be worth $10.

Thank you!

 

[aflneto]

Your non-K CPU is locked, which means you cannot use memory faster than the CPU's official supported speed and you will get extremely limited, if any benefits from the allegedly better motherboard VRM.

The Z chipset itself gives you nothing useful beyond the ability to unlock K-chips' multipliers and x8x8 PCIe if you want to do SLI/CF.

Unless you have some reason to think you might need any of those features, then the Z170 is unlikely to be worth $10.

Can you tell me if i use a 6700k on a h170 motherboard can i cause any kind of damage or stuff like this? or the diference is really on the overclock?

 

[InvalidError]

Can you tell me if i use a 6700k on a h170 motherboard can i cause any kind of damage or stuff like this? or the diference is really on the overclock?

The only differences between z170 and h170 is the ability to unlock the K-CPU's multiplier and split the CPU's x16 PCIe3 slot into x8x8/x8x4x4 usually for 2/3-way SLI/CF.

The i7-6700k is exactly the same chip as every other i5/i7-6xxx desktop chip, it will work fine with any LGA1151 chipset. The only difference is that it has everything either unlocked or unlockable when paired with a Z-series chipset.

Since overclocking is practically the only reason to get a K-chip CPU, it just makes very little sense to pair a K-chip with a non-Z chipset since that locks you out from using the main feature K-chips are usually bought for.

 

[matt4x4]

From another thread

H170 does *not* allow you to split the CPU PCIe lanes. So on H170 boards you'll get 1xPCIe 3.0 x16, and any further PCIe slots will be using lanes from chipset which are limited to a maximum of x4 lanes. That means NO SLI. Although CFX will technically work, it's not ideal and with high end hardware not a good idea.

Z170 on the other hand allows boards to split CPU PCIe lanes, providing two x8 slots, enabling multi-GPU options. To be clear, not all Z170 boards will actually implement this, but the fact is they can, whereas H170 boards cannot.

H170 boards can still offer great value for money as long as they're recognised as single-GPU only boards. Sorry again for reviving this thread, just felt it was an important bit of info for people trying to get their heads around these sometimes confusing chipset implementations.