ASUS Z170 Deluxe LGA 1151 Motherboard Review @ [H]

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ASUS Z170 Deluxe LGA 1151 Motherboard Review - Today we review ASUS’ new Z170-Deluxe which is based on the new Intel Z170 Chipset supporting Skylake processors. We overclock Skylake and push the Z170-Deluxe to its limits. We find out about this solid new motherboard platform and we have to say we come away impressed.
 
Excellent review as always, the new look of their mainstream line is pretty appealing IMO, at the very least it's different from everybody else. Glad to see Z170 debut in such a mature state, we may be several BIOS updates in by the time 6700K are actually available. :p
 
Great review , i`m really torn between this ultra-feature rich offering and the 'cool' ROG or Gigabyte gaming series.

seems like this board simply has everything and it doesn't have to scream it does with wild color schemes or crazy 'armor' setups.

i`d prefer not to have the WIFI and save a few $$$.

personally i`m waiting to see reviews for the ROG Hero or Ranger hopping it will offer a better bang for buck
 
Impulse said:
Excellent review as always, the new look of their mainstream line is pretty appealing IMO, at the very least it's different from everybody else. Glad to see Z170 debut in such a mature state, we may be several BIOS updates in by the time 6700K are actually available. :p
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The ASUS offerings feel mature. I can't say the same about all manufacturers. We haven't reviewed every brand yet so we'll have to wait and see.
 
T_A said:
Great review , i`m really torn between this ultra-feature rich offering and the 'cool' ROG or Gigabyte gaming series.

seems like this board simply has everything and it doesn't have to scream it does with wild color schemes or crazy 'armor' setups.

i`d prefer not to have the WIFI and save a few $$$.

personally i`m waiting to see reviews for the ROG Hero or Ranger hopping it will offer a better bang for buck
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There are more feature rich offerings out there than this Z170-Deluxe. Though some are saddled with gimmicks and features which raise costs and have little benefit. Just like always. :) I think ASUS has a good balance here. Although the second NIC and WiFi won't appeal to everyone.
 
I like the way you guys are breaking this down.

First there was the cpu article, followed by the chipset discussion and now a nice review of the Asus MB.

This iteration looks to be pretty well targeted at an audience that likes to overclock.

It will be worth the wait to get a review of an enthusiast board and see how much more one can squeeze out of these CPUs.:D
 
My asus z170 deluxe came in yesterday, and while i have no 6700k to do anything with it yet, the one thing i will say is that this thing is HEAVY. I don't think my x79 eatx classified was even this heavy. The motherboard just feels subperb in every way and I can't wait to get it up and running.

The deluxe was really a no brainier for me.
I would have needed to purchase a wifi adapted anyway as my current setup doesn't have access to an Ethernet connection and I can drop one in my current house.
My system is white and black themed
I use all pwm fans and I wanted good control for my waterpump
I wanted a board that was fully nvme ready
I wanted a board that would OC both the cpu and memory as well
Finally I wanted something with a very user friendly bios

ASUS just nailed all of my requirements. Really excited about getting this one going.
 
Dan_D said:
There are more feature rich offerings out there than this Z170-Deluxe. Though some are saddled with gimmicks and features which raise costs and have little benefit. Just like always. :) I think ASUS has a good balance here. Although the second NIC and WiFi won't appeal to everyone.
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I hope you get the chance to review and compare the MAXIMUS VIII HERO.

It seems like it is an equally good board only without the WiFi and extra NIC. I will most likely buy it even if you do not review it, but since I cant buy the CPU yet I need more to read :D

Great write up on the Deluxe, if it wasn't for the large price difference I would consider it.
 
zaniix said:
I hope you get the chance to review and compare the MAXIMUS VIII HERO.

It seems like it is an equally good board only without the WiFi and extra NIC. I will most likely buy it even if you do not review it, but since I cant buy the CPU yet I need more to read :D

Great write up on the Deluxe, if it wasn't for the large price difference I would consider it.
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I just build on a Hero VII for my son.
The board was superb in every way, not too much and not too skimpy.
Different Gen of course, but the model has just about everything you could need and has an excellent BIOS.
 
So this is the second [H] article commenting on the limitations of DMI 3.0. Quick question, isn't not just the m2 drives that will saturate DMI, but also the SATA drives and USB ports that share this "narrow" gateway to the CPU? How about the main 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes?

The oh-so-unbiased semiaccurate was railing about how everything was supposed to be running through the DMI link.

Edit for a separate thought: Would this board / chipset benefit from a reverse layout so the VRM's and northbridge can be cooled by floor level intake fans?
 
Teenyman45 said:
So this is the second [H] article commenting on the limitations of DMI 3.0. Quick question, isn't not just the m2 drives that will saturate DMI, but also the SATA drives and USB ports that share this "narrow" gateway to the CPU? How about the main 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes?

The oh-so-unbiased semiaccurate was railing about how everything was supposed to be running through the DMI link.

Edit for a separate thought: Would this board / chipset benefit from a reverse layout so the VRM's and northbridge can be cooled by floor level intake fans?
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I hate to agree with semiaccurate about anything, but for once I have to.

If you look at the chipset block diagram in the Z170 article or the board diagrams for any Z170 motherboard you can see what connects where. Basically there are 16 lanes off the CPU. Everything, and I mean everything else goes through the PCH and thus the DMI 3.0 link. That link, according to Intel has a 40Gbps limit. Why? I have no idea. The math says it should be 64Gbps. All your network, audio, M.2 devices and PCIe cards not in the primary or secondary PEG slots will go through that link. Tests have already shown limitations when using multiple M.2 NVMe drives in RAID 0.

As I've said, this limit isn't something I'd worry about too much because your devices are rarely going to use their maximum theoretical bandwidth very often. But if you RAID multiple drives via M.2 or through the PCH, expect only 1.3-1.5x scaling in reads. Writes on the other hand scale correctly.

As to your second question: Possibly. I haven't ever tried that. Any air you can direct there can't hurt.
 
Why aren't people complaining about the price of motherboards going through the roof? Video cards are constantly being bashed for rising prices.

I am sure the board is great, but I stopped reading when it was mentioned that it was going for $320. What happened to $80-$120 boards? Yes I realize these are the high end "Z" variants, but those used to be the "rediculous" $150-$200 boards. Why did they keep getting more and more expensive as less and less was actually on the board and integrated onto the CPU?
 
There are plenty of inexpensive motherboards. This just isn't one of them.
 
Dan: Remember when Asus used to include a small, noisy blower fan with the more expensive motherboards in case people used a water block rather than a downwards directing cooler like the stock cooler from most other Intel products?

My TH-10 has my X79 board is in a reverse layout because I wanted the case window on the left. Three GT intake fans are nearby so the VRMs and northbridge on the board stay cool even when I used to stability test with Prime95. A separate fan directed at the VRMs of my aging tri-fire array also keeps the southbridge cool as an intended side effect.
 
Teenyman45 said:
Dan: Remember when Asus used to include a small, noisy blower fan with the more expensive motherboards in case people used a water block rather than a downwards directing cooler like the stock cooler from most other Intel products?

My TH-10 has my X79 board is in a reverse layout because I wanted the case window on the left. Three GT intake fans are nearby so the VRMs and northbridge on the board stay cool even when I used to stability test with Prime95. A separate fan directed at the VRMs of my aging tri-fire array also keeps the southbridge cool as an intended side effect.
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Yes, I remember.
 
AVogel said:
Why aren't people complaining about the price of motherboards going through the roof? Video cards are constantly being bashed for rising prices.

I am sure the board is great, but I stopped reading when it was mentioned that it was going for $320. What happened to $80-$120 boards? Yes I realize these are the high end "Z" variants, but those used to be the "rediculous" $150-$200 boards. Why did they keep getting more and more expensive as less and less was actually on the board and integrated onto the CPU?
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This is one of the more costly boards, the majority I have seen are in the $180 - $240 range.
 
Props for FINALLY putting together a board with no USB2 or PS2 ports. On a device like this there is NO reason for such ports.
 
AVogel said:
Why aren't people complaining about the price of motherboards going through the roof? Video cards are constantly being bashed for rising prices.

I am sure the board is great, but I stopped reading when it was mentioned that it was going for $320. What happened to $80-$120 boards? Yes I realize these are the high end "Z" variants, but those used to be the "rediculous" $150-$200 boards. Why did they keep getting more and more expensive as less and less was actually on the board and integrated onto the CPU?
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They've been like this for a while, I paid $150 or $160 for my MSI P67 (not even Z68), and it wasn't their top of the line model or anything... That was four years ago I think. The ASUS P45 board was their Pro model and it too ran about that much.

The ASUS A8V I had for my A64 might've been a little cheaper, flakier too, high end boards with a bunch of extra features cost more. If you need those you factor it into the price, if you don't you look elsewhere... It's not like they've stopped making more pared down mobos.
 
Teenyman45 said:
Edit for a separate thought: Would this board / chipset benefit from a reverse layout so the VRM's and northbridge can be cooled by floor level intake fans?
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Wouldn't every board? The S path most cases force for airflow has never made any sense to me... Add to that the fact that we moved the PSU away from the hot CPU area only to place it below hotter GPU(s).

I like cases with more direct airflow, currently using the Corsair Air 540 but I like some of Silverstone's 90 degree designs too... Dunno why they aren't all more popular. IYou can get pretty direct airflow on any cheap case as long as you can dump enough 5.25" bays and strap a fan up there somewhere tho.

On the cheap Thermaltake I had before i just moved the 3.5" cage (which had a fan attached in front) up to like the 3rd thru 5th bays so it was almost in line with the CPU area, then added a window fan for the GPUs.
 
Nice review! I'm looking forward to a G1 and M9 review since those are the ones I'm interested in.
 
Modred189 said:
Props for FINALLY putting together a board with no USB2 or PS2 ports. On a device like this there is NO reason for such ports.
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Sure there is. I've got split keyboards that use PS/2 and the ones I use are no longer made. I've also got an old MX 1000 mouse, and it doesn't work well over USB. Now I'm willing to use my Revolution mouse, which eliminates the issue with the mouse and I can use an adapter for my keyboards, but that means I'm using 2 USB ports to for I/O. At 300 bucks, they might as well toss in a PS/2 port...that way I only use the PS/2 and the USB 2 port (which serves no other purpose).

It's probably OK, but I'd be down to 2 free ports (not counting the c connector), which doesn't leave much room for growth.
 
ps/2 to usb adapter. Not like ps/2 is native to the platform anyways, only reason to put usb 2.0 ports is that it costs less bandwidth to service them fully. So you can have more 2.0 ports else why not just have 3.0 ports. You're using 2 ports no matter what for I/O does it really matter if it's usb 3.0 2.0 or ps/2 it's hardly a complaint. Plus the motherboard can service 8 more usb ports 4 2.0 ports off of rear pci bracket/front panel, 4 3.0 ports rear pci bracket/front panel.
 
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Dirty Butler said:
Nice review! I'm looking forward to a G1 and M9 review since those are the ones I'm interested in.
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Wow, that G1 is $500 and has that giant 5.25 slot USB 3.1 box I wonder what kind of tricks they pulled to get 4 way SLI to work and how it compares to an x99 board when doing so.
What I do not understand is how a PLX chip can increase PCIe lanes. If the CPU only has a set amount of PCIe lanes then how can you claim to to do x16x/0x/16x/0x for 2 way SLI. Kind of confusing to me.
I also saw his in one review which would be enough for me to stay clear of this board since I am not going the SLI route
"Single GPU Performance: Since the Z170X-Gaming G1 has a PLX bridge chip, the PEX8747, the chip adds a bit of latency which is apparent when only a single GPU is used. While this is true about most boards with a PEX8747 (there are some notable exceptions), it is still a downside to using that chip."

I am more interested in the MSI M7 and ASUS Hero,
 
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zaniix said:
Wow, that G1 is $500 and has that giant 5.25 slot USB 3.1 box I wonder what kind of tricks they pulled to get 4 way SLI to work and how it compares to an x99 board when doing so.
What I do not understand is how a PLX chip can increase PCIe lanes. If the CPU only has a set amount of PCIe lanes then how can you claim to to do x16x/0x/16x/0x for 2 way SLI. Kind of confusing to me.

I am more interested in the MSI M7 and ASUS Hero,
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The G1 is that expensive because of the PLX chip and fully certified Thunderbolt 3.0 via the Alpine Ridge controller. The integrated Sound Blaster doesn't help keep the costs down either.

And your correct. The PLX does add lanes the way the PCH does. However it only has the 16x lanes off the CPU for communication to the CPU. So basically while you do have 32x lanes for devices the data path necks down to 16 at the CPU. The only real benefit to Crossfire and SLI setups is equal bandwidth for all their video cards. This is a requirement of 3 & 4-Way SLi. Or at least having 8 lanes as a minimum for each card is. In truth it works well enough because modern GPUS do not fully saturate 8x PCIe 3.0 lanes or even 4x lanes most of the time.

There are some rare instances where that's not always true, and where high resolution displays come into play . But for the most part Z97 and by extension Z170 should be mostly as capable as X99 in performance terms. If you could fully utilize GPU 3 & 4 in such a configuration then it could be a bigger problem.
 
Semantics said:
ps/2 to usb adapter not like ps/2 is native to the platform anyways, only reason to put usb 2.0 ports is that it costs less bandwidth to service them fully so you can just have more ports else why not just have 3.0 ports. You're using 2 ports no matter what for I/O does it really matter if it's usb 3.0 2.0 or ps/2 it's hardly a complaint.
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As long as you have an adapter (I do) then no, but it's not like this machine has a lot of USB ports on the back. I've got more on my 5 year old p55 board. Once you chew up a bunch on non usb3 things (printer, keyboard, mouse) and an external drive, you have very little room to grow. A PS/2 port would free on up. Maybe I'll never need it, but it's year 1 on this platform, and I'd rather have a little more room to grow, because there's a good chance I'll be using this system for 3-5 years.
 
The USB 2.0 ports are typically used for keyboards and mice. There are issues with using USB 3.0 ports in some boot environments.
 
I wish ASUS didn't make you walk on coals to get them to honor their warranties. I would def buy from them if it weren't for this.
 
Just wondering if the second video card in an 980Ti SLI configuration (specifically an EVGA 980Ti Hybrid card) would obstruct the use of an NVMe card in the Asus Z170 Deluxe, as this looks to occupy a potentially overlapping space on the motherboard. I see that one must use the supplied "Hyperkit Adapter" to permit use of NVMe storage cards, and this appears to stick up off the motherboard a bit - increasing my concern.

Thanks for any insight!
 
It does look it would be tight fit at best, just another reason to use PCIe NVMe drive
 
Thanks for your reply. I may just go with an AHCI M.2 drive. I am looking for a really fast dedicated boot/OS drive (Win10) for a new build I'm putting together with the Asus Z170 Deluxe - I think that 128GB is more than enough for this (e.g. SM951 AHCI 128GB). Not sure if NVMe will make much practical difference. Was also considering a more conventional 2.5" SSD (like an 850 EVO) for this purpose (more capacity at a lower price point) as the realized difference (e.g. boot up speed / typical OS I/O) may be minimal...

Thoughts welcome!
 
M.2 drives should fit under the PCIe devices l. The only problem you run into is with heat. The GPUs tend to bake the shit out of the drive. I haven't actually done the test but I'm told you can see up to a 20c increase in the drives temperature.
 
Why are these drives getting so hot on their own anyways? Don't sata SSDs never get above room temperature?
 
ZeqOBpf6 said:
Why are these drives getting so hot on their own anyways? Don't sata SSDs never get above room temperature?
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Not sure what have you that idea. I've never seen an SSD run at room temperature. They don't exactly get scorching hot either, but parking one under / between a pair of Titan Xs will warm them up quite a bit.
 
Seems like maybe this is the scenario where a U.2 connection makes sense. We talk a lot about how cool it is to have less cables, but there is so much heat on the board already
 
Thanks. I've also heard that heat from graphics cards could raise the temps around the M.2 drive. I'm hoping that the Hybrid 980Tis I'm planning to install in this motherboard will be a bit better in this regard, as several reviews say that the card doesn't even reach 60deg C at full load. The SM951 M.2 seems to reach a max of around 80degC on its own. I also will have 3x120mm fans blowing into the case, very close to where the M.2 slot is, so hopefully that will also keep things from completely melting down!
 
ZeqOBpf6 said:
Why are these drives getting so hot on their own anyways? Don't sata SSDs never get above room temperature?
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Two things, 2.5" SSD have a metal case which does act as a bit of a heatsink... There's often thermal pads between the case and controller or NAND, etc. Second, the controller on some of the hot running PCI-E/M.2 drives is doing a lot more work than that on any SATA drive... Pushing 4x the bandwidth over similar silicon is bound to generate more heat.

I've bought a 256GB M.2 AHCI SM951 that I intend to try using on a Z170-A along with a 2x R9 290 CF setup (GB Windforce 3X open coolers). From what I've read, attaching a small heatsink or having any amount of airflow will dramatically drop temps on the SM951, but the GPU's heat is still a concern so it's something I'll have to stress test ands evaluate. (can't do jack sans 6700K)

Worst case scenario I'll run it on a PCI-E riser card, I think I lose two SATA ports like that but I gain back the two from the SATA Express cluster (shared with M.2 IIRC) so i end up at 4 anyway. For as much as people worry about throttling, you'd need to basically fill the drive or dump as much data as the drive can hold to reach a state where throttling will impact performance.

Anandtech's entire Destroyer test only sees like a 5% loss from throttling and that's way beyond the average usage case... Granted if you are gonna use it to transfer over a couple hundred gigs of 4K video or something like that then throttling might impact you, tho you'd have to be doing so from something that can be read as fast as the SM951 can write... :p
 
ilikesushi123 said:
Thanks. I've also heard that heat from graphics cards could raise the temps around the M.2 drive. I'm hoping that the Hybrid 980Tis I'm planning to install in this motherboard will be a bit better in this regard, as several reviews say that the card doesn't even reach 60deg C at full load. The SM951 M.2 seems to reach a max of around 80degC on its own. I also will have 3x120mm fans blowing into the case, very close to where the M.2 slot is, so hopefully that will also keep things from completely melting down!
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From what I've seen, any kind of direct airflow or heatsink will dramatically lower SM951 temps; GPU might counteract that tho...
 
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