Layout

At a first glance the Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 leaves a very good impression with its interesting new design. There is a matte black PCB as well as a big white cover, which reaches over the back I/O-panel as well as the audio implementation. Apart from that there are the solid, aluminium heatsinks, which are basically black and coverd with sheet metal with a combination of white, silver, and red color. The layout itself is well thought and there is for example plenty of space around the CPU socket to install even todays largest CPU coolers. Looking for the M.2 slots, we find them in between the second and the thrid as well as in between the thrid and the fourth full-size PCIe slot. The fact that there are SATA connectors which have been angled by 90 degrees allows for an easy installation of oversized graphics cards.

The Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 comes with a digital 22 phase power design. It's important to Gigabyte that hight quality componentns are being used for this motherboard. Each individual phase is equipped power stages from International Rectifyer (IR3553M), which are able to withstand loads of up to 40A. Additionally there are black capacitors from Chemi Con which offer a minimum lifespan of 10'000 hours at 105°C.

There are four DIMM-slots on the GA-Z170X-Gaming G1. Officially supported are DDR4, 3666 (O.C) / 3400 (O.C.) / 3333 (O.C.) / 3300 (O.C.) / 3200 (O.C.) / 3000 (O.C.) / 2800 (O.C.) / 2666 (O.C.) / 2400 (O.C.) / 2133. There is engough space between the DIMM-slots and the CPU socket which means that you wont encounter compatibility problems with big coolers even when you choose to install RAM with big heatspreaders. Also supported are Xtreme Memory Profiles (XMP) in version 2.0.

Southbrigde, power design as well as the PLX chip are being held at adequate temperatures via individual passive heatsinks. The fact that the cooling blocks around the CPU socket aren't too big makes it comfortable to install a big aircooler. We also noticed the heatsinks excellent build quality due to their weight which is quite immense. All heatsinks have been connected using one heatpipe and apart from that there are G1/4'' watercooling threads to integrate the motherboard cooling into a custom watercooling loop.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 14 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery	Page 15 - UC Bench
Page 3 - Features	Page 16 - Super Pi 1M / 32M
Page 4 - Layout	Page 17 - wPrime 1024M Multi Core
Page 5 - Connectors and I/O	Page 18 - Cinebench
Page 6 - BIOS	Page 19 - Tomb Raider
Page 7 - Test setup	Page 20 - Metro Last Light
Page 8 - Preview / Gallery	Page 21 - Sleeping Dogs
Page 9 - 3D Mark	Page 22 - Power Consumption
Page 10 - 3D Mark 11	Page 23 - Performance Rating
Page 11 - 3D Mark Vantage	Page 24 - Price Comparison
Page 12 - PC Mark 8	Page 25 - Conclusion
Page 13 - SiSoft Sandra 1