How to pick a Z170 motherboard?

I never thought motherboard choice would be an issue. Heck, I remember the day when motherboards were an afterthought.... how naive I was! Funny how it's so easy to pick a CPU now, but the plethora of motherboards can make things confusing!

I've decided to jump in and buy an Intel i5 6600K CPU but I'm at a loss as to which motherboard to pick. A few "recommendations" are a little too rich for my blood... what does a £300 motherboard do that a £150 can't? I'm not into extreme overclocking but I'd like to OC. Anyway, I'm here looking for recommendations for a motherboard under the £200 mark. A few candidates (ASUS ROG Maximus VIII Hero, ASRock Z170 Extreme 6+, Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD5/Gaming7) sit around the £150-170 price point which is more reasonable for me, but again, not sure which one to pick. I'm also not sure if there's a "better" board that's priced just a bit higher (£180) that I'm missing out on.

Basically, what I expect from this is good performance, good OC ability, and hoping to get 4 or 5 years before I consider upgrading again (current rig is an old i5 750!). I'm not after extreme numbers, I'm not after watercooling. This PC will be used to play games such as Fallout 4 and The Witcher 3, racing sims, flight sims, etc. Maybe some video editing work as well.

I'm hoping to get sorted and make my choice by the end of this week and hope to be able to snag a deal with the Black Friday deals.... so it is kinda rushed research really. So any recommendations would be great! Thanks!

then it sounds like you need to look at the number of sata, usb ports and things like that to make the choice.
you'll also need ddr4 ram.

I'm not sure why you say that. I'll probably only need 2, max 4 SATA ports. I have a powered USB hub for most of my gaming gear so 4-6 USB ports will be fine. RAM is cheap and easily replaced, but I'm aiming to get something that's 16GB along the 3000MHz range costing around £95. None of these help with narrowing the motherboard choices though.

with z170 as with z97 there are so few "bad" boards, that feature set, color and budget are the major factors and those are all in YOUR eyes.
I use asrock and asus boards myself and only the upper line.

Any board I pick has to have the debug LED, I need all the help I can get.
Otherwise I ask here, read our reviews and look at the boards our members use
as listed in their sigs. Middle of the road pricing is all I need and the first models
that have the LED is where I start.

Thank you ATMINSIDE, I caught a $20 MIR on that Asrock Z170 too!

Thanks for the replies guys!

What is "upper line"? What is considered "middle of the road"?

-Ice said:

Thanks for the replies guys!

What is "upper line"? What is considered "middle of the road"?

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Strictly my opinion but I consider this a "mid-range" full size board and it meets my needs nicely:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157633

When boards run from ~$70 to ~$250, $145 is my "middle of the road." This particular board has
my debug LED and I'm not a "power user" like many of our members so I don't need it all. This would
pertain to all the major board makers (IMO).

and this is where i would start, at the top, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188160


middle of the road= mid range priced boards.
upper line= the most costly boards.

I go for the upper line boards because some of the cpu's i own will kill a mid to low end board and wind up costing even more money.

I go for the upper line boards because some of the cpu's i own will kill a mid to low end board and wind up costing even more money.

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true... for amd. This is intel though.

For intel, midrange boards are fine for 99% of people. So long as it has the features you need, the color for your theme, find the cheapest one. A great midrange board is an asrock z170 extreme 6, there are many others right around that 140-160 price range that will work fine.

I bought mine at micro center Tustin, CA 92780

thin91770 said:

I bought mine at micro center Tustin, CA 92780

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I'm not sure the question was where to get one...

EarthDog said:

A great midrange board is an asrock z170 extreme 6

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I can vouch for the Extreme6.

Just buy the board that fits your color theme of your build, and know this:

If you use M.2, you disable the PCI Expressx4's that are in the same slot area, as they pull the bandwidth from that to attain the speeds they do. Some even disable some sata ports for additional bandwidth.

In my case, I needed/wanted a board with 6 USB 3.0, Room for at least two video cards(for my upgrade path), had an Orange/black/silver/White Color Scheme, and had At least 1 M.2 port. Anything past that was extra.

The Extreme 6 fit all of that criteria, except the silver in the color scheme*Corsair Air 540 Silver/Black edition.* But It was as close as it was going to get.

I was tempted to buy the Extreme 7 for the 3 M.2 ports, but my Inner budget alarm was going off, it put me quite a bit over my budget if I tried lol.

On sale, As much as an Extreme 6!

caddi daddi said:

with z170 as with z97 there are so few "bad" boards, that feature set, color and budget are the major factors and those are all in YOUR eyes.

Click to expand...

EarthDog said:

So long as it has the features you need, the color for your theme, find the cheapest one.

Click to expand...

Suppressor1137 said:

Just buy the board that fits your color theme of your build[/URL]

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I've never really been a "color" person. About 10 years ago, when having LED lights and clear side panels were the rage, I only saw them as unnecessary power waste. My case is a Corsair 500R and the only time I would look inside my case is when I'm cleaning it. I could have a neon green RAM kit alongside a fuschia pink CPU cooler and a sky-blue GPU and I would not care at all so long as it runs as I expect it to --- and color does not affect performance. Except in cars... we all know red cars with stripes go the fastest

So if I understand you guys, assuming I have the bare minimal requirements for a motherboard, I could get a £75 board (ASRock Z170 Pro4/D3) or a £417 board (Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming G1) and assuming both are connected to the same hardware (nothing fancy, just 6600K, 7970 GPU, 16GB RAM, Samsung 850 SSD), both boards will perform the same?

Well the lower end board will not oc as good because it has a weaker power delivery, but yes you get the idea. Your best bet would be to get the board that fits your budget and has the features you want.

The ASrock z170 extreme 6 or 4 would be my choice.

They would perform the same... but the REALLY low end boards, for example boards with no heatsinks on the VRMs and a 4 phase board, will likely limit your overclock a bit. But at the same clocks speeds, they perform the same. It's mostly about features.

EarthDog said:

true... for amd. This is intel though.

For intel, midrange boards are fine for 99% of people. So long as it has the features you need, the color for your theme, find the cheapest one. A great midrange board is an asrock z170 extreme 6, there are many others right around that 140-160 price range that will work fine.

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I LOVE my z170 extreme6 besides my ongoing problem I've had with the NVME pcie SSD. But since it's a minor problem (see my post a few down from this) still my favorite board since z77. So, I agree with ED on this.

Any thoughts on the Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7? It's about £8 cheaper than the Extreme 6+ but it has two M.2 slots, 3 SATA Express, and a different sound controller...

My thoughts are on the front page in my review...

SOlid board!

not a thing wrong with that board.
I use asrock extreme9 boards for my 4790K rigs, and as earthdog said my use of top line boards is a habit gained from running 8 core fx cpu's, you don't need that for intel.

I'm not sure I understand something correctly. What would happen if I plug in 2 M.2 SSDs in the two slots of the board? I'm thinking of buying the Samsung 950 Pro but I also have two SSDs already, a Crucial M4 and a Samsung 840 SATA. I don't suppose any of these drives can do SATA E?