Is there a z170 overclocking champion mobo yet? Which z170 is most popular?

[blackjackel]

I'm getting ready to decide whether or not I want to upgrade, I've already decided on my ram and processor, all that's left is the mobo.

I want to take my 6700 skylake as far as I can possibly take it, so I'd like to know two things:

- Which motherboard is (so far) the #1 overclocker for the 6700 skylake chip?
(If I can hit 5ghz, I will try, and I need the best overclocking mobo to do it.)

- Do we know which z170 mobo is the most popular yet? Is there even such a thing?

 

[Woomack]

There is no clear winner and I doubt there will ever be. Most depends from CPU, not the motherboard.
Generally all high end overclocking series will overclock CPU the same. The only difference is in memory clock but still all boards will run at ~3600.

ASUS Maximus VIII series are pretty solid. Ranger is slightly worse for memory overclocking but all of them will overclock CPU the same.
ASRock has its OC Formula board which is great but I wouldn't expect better CPU overclocking. Maybe memory as it's one of the few motherboards with actually tested DDR4-4200 memory in dual channel.
Gigabyte will release something from OC series soon but also I wouldn't expect anything better than ASUS or ASRock.
MSI already has its high end boards with similar max clock results.

I was testing ASUS M8 Hero and Ranger, ASRock Z170 Gaming ITX and since yesterday I'm testing MSI Z170I Gaming AC which is also ITX board. On all of these boards my 6600K is overclocking the same using water cooling. I had no chance to test ASRock and MSI on sub 0 temps.

None of retail 6600K/6700K which I saw could make 5GHz stable on ambient temps. Most hit a wall at about 4.7-4.8GHz regardless of used motherboard.

 

[EarthDog]

As far as you can take it with ambient cooling? Any midrange board or higher will do that. There is no need for a 'champion' motherboard for ambient cooling. If you want it, that is another story. As woomack alluded, you will be limited by the CPU in some capacity be it voltage or heat before the board gets in the way.

Something like an MSI Gaming 5, or ASRock Gaming K6 or Extreme 6... etc