Connectors and I/O

In total Gigabyte equipped the GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 with ten angled SATA ports. This is enough for any setup no matter if you're planning on building a gaming system or overclocking rig. Apart from that four times two SATA 6Gbps ports can be combined to a total of four SATA Express ports. Furthermore all SATA 6 Gbps connectors are directly wired to the PCH. As expected with such a high-end motherboard you'll also find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons in the top right corner of the board. There is even a debug display. Furthermore in this area of the board there are voltage read-out points as well as Gigabytes OC-Touch buttons. In between the PCIe slots we find two M.2 slot, whereas each has been wired using four PCIe Gen 3 lanes.

  

In total you'll find seven fan header on the GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 which is more than enough, to provide a well equipped high-end or overclocking-system with fresh air. It is also very practical that six out of these seven fan headers are 4-pin PWM and only one is 3-pin. In this case it's really easy to change rotation speeds from within the BIOS or Windows. The fan headers are located around the CPU socket as well as spread over the motherboard.

  

  

Looking at the external connectors directly at the back-panel Gigabyte equipped the GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 with a P/S2 connector, eight USB 3.1 ports (seven Type-A, one Type-C), two gigabit ethernet porta, one DisplayPort, an optical out, an analogue audio panel and two threaded connectors for WiFi antennas. Apart from all this there are two special USB connectors to connect an external DAC. Gigabyte claims that thise port offer less signal noise and are therefore especially suitable for attaching high-end audio gear.