The Guru3D review
Gigabyte Z170X Gaming G1 review edition motherboard
Locked, loaded and ready to fire ...
We review the Gigabyte Z170X Gaming G1, an Intel Z170 based product that is loaded with kit and features. The motherboard has a new let's call it F1 design and even is quad-SLI/Crossfire capable. Combined with a few extras and an overall high class build Gigabyte is showing a mighty fine offering. But how will it perform?
A motherboard that promises to deliver a high amount of features and provide that Skylake processor the full infrastructure is needs for a kick-ass gaming PC. Dressed to kill and with added benefits like USB 3.1, multiple M.2. slots and the fastest DDR4 support the product will shock and awe. These motherboards can (well must) be paired with new Skylake-S series processors. We'll quickly dive into the two most important ones. Skylake Core i5-6600K and Core i7 6700K processors for the desktop platform have been released. We test both processors, yet have separate reviews on each of these processors. A new chip, a new package meaning both of them are Socket 1151. The new series Skylake processors are energy efficient, quite powerful and this needs to be paired with a new motherboards series. For you guys that means the Z170 and h170 range. In this review we test the Core i5 6600K. An unlocked Skylake processor that has four cores and slim a 92W TDP,that is lower compared to Haswell with its 95W TDP, thanks to the new and smaller 14nm fabrication process. The quad core CPU has 8 MB L3 cache, and an integrated memory controller that supports both DDR4 and DDR3 memory. The Z170 and H170 series motherboards will all be offered with DDR4 though. For the gaming community two processors are the most important. The Core i7 6700K has four CPU cores with Hyper-Threading, 4.0GHz frequency, 4.20GHz maximum Turbo Boost frequency. Then there is the Core i5 6600K with four cores, 3.50GHz frequency and a 3.90GHz maximum Turbo Boost frequency, both based on the new LGA1151 socket package. Skylake is the code-name used by Intel for the 14nm processor micro-architecture under development and is the successor to the Broadwell architecture.
The Gigabyte Z170X Gaming G1 edition motherboard specific then, it certainly is a mouth full of words, but when you see it for the very first time, trust me you will be pleasantly surprised as it is a very feature rich product that will look terrific in any DIY PC build thanks to the new design.
Priced at a baffling € 535~550 this white, black and red colored PCB has shielding and many LED light accents. Features wise you may expect quadruple PCI-Express 3.0 ports, 8-channel Audio, the usual quality components and a Gigabit/s Ethernet jack being KillerNIC jacks. There is also Killer AC WIFI embedded into this motherboard. You'll then spot USB 3.1 gen 1 and 2 ports, two M.2. slots, and well ... much more. We'll show it all in detail of course. Have a peek at the photo below showing what we test today and then head on-wards into the review.
