ASUS Announces Z170 Pro Gaming/Aura

[HardOCP News]

ASUS today announced Z170 Pro Gaming/Aura, the world’s first 3D-printing-friendly motherboard with a patent-pending mounting design, plus Aura RGB LED lighting to enable the creation of exciting color-matched custom builds with ease. Z170 Pro Gaming/Aura is packed with many exclusive features optimized for the best gaming experience and incorporating multiple performance-boosting overclocking technologies. Features include flawless gaming audio with SupremeFX and Sonic Radar II, plus superior gaming networking and speed with Intel Gigabit Ethernet, LANGuard, GameFirst IV and RAMCache technologies. The new motherboard even protects itself and the gamer with Gamer’s Guardian components, multiple smart DIY features and the all-new, reinforced SafeSlot PCIe®. Based on the Intel® Z170 chipset, Z170 Pro Gaming/Aura’s ASUS-exclusive performance-enhancing features include 5-Way Optimization auto-tuning technology for instant speed boosts, second-generation T-Topology for next-level DDR4 memory overclocking, and Pro Clock technology for turbo-charged base-clock (BCLK) frequencies.

 

[burton14e7]

I don't 3d print so what the heck is a 3d printing friendly motherboard?

 

[Croak]

I don't 3d print so what the heck is a 3d printing friendly motherboard?

"This year, the Z170 Pro Gaming/Aura ups the ante by adding mounting for 3D-printed parts (shown below) to allow you to modify the board with ease, we're excited to see what all you people can come up with! A new wave of 3D-printed creations were shown off at COMPUTEX 2016, the potential is tremendous, and 3D source files will be available for download so all you have to do is print"

 

[AK0tA]

Not the most attractive board on the market but some nice features and others I would not be interested in. I am not yet into 3d printing but should give it a look over with a new project I am about to embark on.
I like the gaming features and would be interested in a stripped down gamer version.

 

[burton14e7]

"This year, the Z170 Pro Gaming/Aura ups the ante by adding mounting for 3D-printed parts (shown below) to allow you to modify the board with ease, we're excited to see what all you people can come up with! A new wave of 3D-printed creations were shown off at COMPUTEX 2016, the potential is tremendous, and 3D source files will be available for download so all you have to do is print"

That's pretty silly since if you have a 3d printer you could design something to mount on anything you wanted but I assume they will be sending the printing files to people that are already designed to use their mounts. I stopped buying windowed cases awhile ago, I don't need to look inside my case when I'm on my computer. But that's just me, I'm sure they wouldn't have made this if they didn't think there was a market for it.

 

[Seventyfive]

Was tempted to print a 3D backlplate for my 980 Ti but since I'm already itching to upgrade it to a 1080 ti whenever that comes out, I guess it's not such a priority anymore =P

 

[DrLobotomy]

Sweet. My motherboard got mad as hell when I got my 3D printer. Racist motherboard, that will teach you. You are so outta here!!

 

[Croak]

That's pretty silly since if you have a 3d printer you could design something to mount on anything you wanted but I assume they will be sending the printing files to people that are already designed to use their mounts. I stopped buying windowed cases awhile ago, I don't need to look inside my case when I'm on my computer. But that's just me, I'm sure they wouldn't have made this if they didn't think there was a market for it.

It's no different than say, case manufacturers adding options for mounting points for fans, rads, reservoirs, lighting, etc. You can use it to bling up your build, or you can use it to make a fan mount for GPUs, or whatever.

 

[burton14e7]

It's no different than say, case manufacturers adding options for mounting points for fans, rads, reservoirs, lighting, etc. You can use it to bling up your build, or you can use it to make a fan mount for GPUs, or whatever.

Is that what those fans were for in the pictures? I clicked on the link and they had motherboards lined up and some of them looked like they had a fan at a 45 degree angle attached to the board. I actually think that is a really cool idea if that's what is being intended.

 

[Raxiel]

So I get that this board allows the adding of 3d printed parts, but is there anything about every other board that makes them particularly 3d printer unfriendly?

Or is this just another case of marketing making a statement that is technically true but meaningless? Like the Gigabyte NB-Z170-NoBearXtreme which features composite materials that don't attract bears to your room?

On another point, where the hell is the M.2 port on that thing?

 

[rsquared]

Or is this just another case of marketing making a statement that is technically true but meaningless? Like the Gigabyte NB-Z170-NoBearXtreme which features composite materials that don't attract bears to your room?

On another point, where the hell is the M.2 port on that thing?

Yeah, I really hope Gigabyte releases a mini-ITX version of the NoBearXtreme; I'm tired of chasing bears away from my place.

Looks like the M.2 connector is right below the SATA-port stack, and the M.2 screw-down is somewhere under the gray Asus plate. All those covers like in the right--side photo might be a bad idea for anyone with a Samsung 950 Pro or other hot-running M.2 drive.

 

[Raxiel]

Looks like the M.2 connector is right below the SATA-port stack, and the M.2 screw-down is somewhere under the gray Asus plate. All those covers like in the right--side photo might be a bad idea for anyone with a Samsung 950 Pro or other hot-running M.2 drive.

Hmm, yeah I see it now thanks. If it lets you fix a heatsink to an m.2 ssd, (rather than potentially warranty-voiding self-adhesive sinks directly to the chips) that could be pretty useful - if you care about such things anyway.