Connectors and I/O

ASUS equipped the Z170 Deluxe with six angled SATA ports. All of them offer 6Gbps bandwidth. Other than that there is one SATA Express port, natively wired to the PCH as well as an M.2 x4 Gen 3 slot. You'll also find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons as well as a debug LED on this board, which is definitely something you can expect from todays high-end board. What's standard since quite a few generations is the MemOK buttons which has proven useful quite a few times. ASUS also decided to place a PCIe x1 slot right below the I/O panel on the back of the board. After that one there is a PCIe x16 Gen 3 slot. This means that it's well possible to remove a graphics card even if a large CPU heatsink has been installed.

  

There is a total of seven fan headers on the Z170 Deluxe which is more than enough, to provide a well equipped high-end or workstation with fresh air. The fan header are located close to the CPU as well as spread over the board. Other than that it's a good thing that all of them feature four pins, which allows for rpm regulation in BIOS as well as under Windows.

  

  

Looking at the external connectors directly at the back-panel ASUS equipped the Z170 Deluxe with six USB 3.1 ports whereas there is one Type-C connector, one USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 port, two Intel gigabit ethernet ports, as well as an optical out and an analogue audio panel. Furthermore there is also an HDMI and a DisplayPort out and there is even an onboard WiFi modules with screw threads to attach an antenna.