GIGABYTE Z170X-UD5 LGA 1151 Motherboard Review @ [H]

GIGABYTE Z170X-UD5 LGA 1151 Motherboard Review - GIGABYTE’s mid-range Z170X-UD5 has some impressive specifications, a lengthy feature set, and comes in with a sub-$200 street price. This motherboard has all the ingredients for a spectacular enthusiast option on paper. But how does it do in the real world when you put it to the test? It actually does very well.

Thorough review as always. I'm a little surprised that there is that much variance between the two Intel Gb NICs.

Sucks that this one has the same issue as the UD3 I have, the "top" m.2 above the x16 slot shuts off most of the SATA ports.

LigTasm said:

Sucks that this one has the same issue as the UD3 I have, the "top" m.2 above the x16 slot shuts off most of the SATA ports.

Click to expand...

Yeah. This board really has my attention. I'm thinking about a skylake build, and I like the 8 sata ports this offers. Most, anywhere near this price range, only have 6.

The m2 is discussed in the manual. Here are the relevant pages:



"H" is the lower m.2, between the two x16 slots. "D" is the m.2 above the first x16 slot.

The manual has a table:



It indicates that using the "H" m.2 port, and setting it to AHCI, allows fully SATA bandwidth/throughput to the sata ports (at least, the 6 which are on the intel controller.) The other 2 sata ports seem to be dedicated to just being sata ports), UNLESS you set it as an SSD?

I'm still trying to figure out that table and what it means. It seems that "full" bandwidth on the m2 (H) will knock out the Sata3_0 port, but setting that same SSD to x4 will not. Now, I'm only confused on what the difference is between the two.

Ken

c3k said:

I'm still trying to figure out that table and what it means. It seems that "full" bandwidth on the m2 (H) will knock out the Sata3_0 port, but setting that same SSD to x4 will not. Now, I'm only confused on what the difference is between the two.

Ken

Click to expand...

If you use the upper m.2 with an x4 3.0 drive, you get 2 SATA ports to use. If you use the lower, you get 4. I learned this through testing it because I couldn't figure out which way it was supposed to go based on the chart (SATA m.2 has a different effect than PCIE, etc).

Yeah, it's confusing. Looking at the table, if I use the M2H slot, in AHCI, how the hell do I know if my SSD is "M.2 SATA SSD" or M.2 PCIe x4 SSD"? I mean, it's the same SSD in the same "H" slot. How does it become "sata" vs. "PCIe x4"? That seems to change how it interferes with the sata ports.

It's this kind of confusion which is aggravating.

c3k said:

Yeah, it's confusing. Looking at the table, if I use the M2H slot, in AHCI, how the hell do I know if my SSD is "M.2 SATA SSD" or M.2 PCIe x4 SSD"? I mean, it's the same SSD in the same "H" slot. How does it become "sata" vs. "PCIe x4"? That seems to change how it interferes with the sata ports.

It's this kind of confusion which is aggravating.

Click to expand...

EDIT for clarity: The m.2 slot can fit both types of devices, which one it acts as is dependent on the drive you buy and install. Some m.2 slots on other/older boards can physically fit both types but are only electrically compatible with one type so you have to check before you buy a drive for them.

Here is a pic to illustrate, top is a PCI-E B-key m.2 while the bottom is a normal SATA m.2, both fit in the same slot.

c3k said:

Yeah, it's confusing. Looking at the table, if I use the M2H slot, in AHCI, how the hell do I know if my SSD is "M.2 SATA SSD" or M.2 PCIe x4 SSD"? I mean, it's the same SSD in the same "H" slot. How does it become "sata" vs. "PCIe x4"? That seems to change how it interferes with the sata ports.

It's this kind of confusion which is aggravating.

Click to expand...

GIGABYTE is using SATA Express ports. They share bandwidth with the M.2 slots. SATA Express is backwards compatible with SATA. Notice that all the "SATA" ports aside from the ones lacking the SATA Express notch are actually SATA Express ports. So if you use a bunch of PCIe M.2 devices you will start losing out on the SATA ports. They will become disabled as the lanes connecting them to the PCH will be rerouted to the M.2 slots via PCIe switches. You can populate all three slots with PCIe x4 M.2 drives. You will simply lose a lot of SATA ports in the process.

LigTasm said:

EDIT for clarity: The m.2 slot can fit both types of devices, which one it acts as is dependent on the drive you buy and install. Some m.2 slots on other/older boards can physically fit both types but are only electrically compatible with one type so you have to check before you buy a drive for them.

Here is a pic to illustrate, top is a PCI-E B-key m.2 while the bottom is a normal SATA m.2, both fit in the same slot.

Click to expand...

That explains it! I did not know that the m.2 ssd could have kinds of interfaces.
Thanks.

Thanks to this review, I've got my new Gigabyte z170 UD5 sitting on the table waiting for the i7 chip to arrive.

Why I chose Gigabyte over Asus and MSI:
Asus has the flashing blue light when sleeping. I want my blue light, I don't want a police car in the room. Disconnecting it or covering with tape is not an option. I wish Asus had an option for how the power light behaved.
MSI did not have the combination of intel NIC and/or the number of SATA ports that Gigabyte offers. I tend to use a lot of harddrives in my builds.

This board has a LOT of good reviews. I've used Gigabyte in the past and have been happy.

I'll see what kind of OC I can get when the i7 arrives.

Thanks!

To whom it may concern, i have tested the F5 stable BIOS release (2016/03/07), with the following settings, i got a much better measure in dpc latency,

EIST: C1E enabled, C3,C6 disabled
High Precision Event Timer (HPET): disabled

The average dpc latency is somewhere between 20~40µs, and the highest latency (after 75 minutes normal usage including internet) is 182.9µs, which demonstrates a significant improvement compare to the test performed by HardOCP. Perhaps not the best among its class, that should be acceptable to all but the most demanding users.

My RAM experiences so far on F5 bios and stock clocks:

F4-3200C16Q-32GVK Works fine at default XMP settings.
F4-3400C16Q-64GVK Wont post on default timings over 3000MHz.

Weird.

Really considering this board, What RAM should I get with it? Looking for an 8GB kit.

c3k said:

Thanks to this review, I've got my new Gigabyte z170 UD5 sitting on the table waiting for the i7 chip to arrive.

Why I chose Gigabyte over Asus and MSI:
Asus has the flashing blue light when sleeping. I want my blue light, I don't want a police car in the room. Disconnecting it or covering with tape is not an option. I wish Asus had an option for how the power light behaved.
MSI did not have the combination of intel NIC and/or the number of SATA ports that Gigabyte offers. I tend to use a lot of harddrives in my builds.

This board has a LOT of good reviews. I've used Gigabyte in the past and have been happy.

I'll see what kind of OC I can get when the i7 arrives.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Ha, I have the opposite issue. I want an LED to blink when the PC is sleeping!