Skylake-Based Z170 Gaming Mini ITX Motherboard

I am looking forward to building myself a hackintosh system and over the last 4 generations, the gigabytes although represent compatibility, have the most terrible fan control system as Mackan mentions.

My Asrock Z87 has the Best! BIOS level fan control by far, and with the development a few key members have put into it, make it a very compatible board. Hopefully the Asrock A170 board builds upon this. I am excited to see what they have to offer with this new board. The third fan header is a very over-due addition.
 
okwchin said:
My Asrock Z87 has the Best! BIOS level fan control by far, and with the development a few key members have put into it, make it a very compatible board. Hopefully the Asrock A170 board builds upon this. I am excited to see what they have to offer with this new board. The third fan header is a very over-due addition.
Click to expand...

Full specs here for the AsRock board, which apparently suddenly goes under the Fatal1ty brand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awqDTsGWtLI

I think it's only improvements over their Z97e-itx board. Also says something about Gaming Armor, whatever that is.

The board is very competitive specs-wise, but again, red-white-black theme, with a flat mounted green wifi card with white sticker and antenna cables routed all over the board to the top? Not really a clean design.

Unless Gigabyte has magically fixed their fan control, this AsRock board, or the yet unknown Asus offering, will be the main contenders for me.
 
EVGA has a Z170 Mini-ITX to offer:)
Z170_Stinger_w_600.jpg
 
It seems to be a proper layout, although the VRM heatsink left of the CPU socket might be an issue.
Just above the battery there seems to be a socket for a daughterboard, I'm curious what it is. It's probably WiFi but maybe it's also for an M.2 slot ! Also a strange port-like object above the SATA ports, is that U.2 with some kind of cover ?
 
Found a higher-res version at http://www.tomshardware.com/news/evga-z170-stinger-ftw-classified,29570.html.

The first board of the lot is the Z170 Stinger, which is a mini-ITX board. You'll find an LGA1151 socket wired to two DDR4 memory slots and a single PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slot. You'll also find four SATA3 (6 Gb/s) ports, a USB 3.0 header, and two fan headers. You may not see an M.2 slot, but upon closer inspection you'll see that there actually is one above the USB 3.0 header, which is labeled "M.2" and has a screw hole near it. It should be safe to say that EVGA will include a bracket to mount M.2 SSDs here.
Click to expand...

xqKRZp0.jpg
 
Ah that's much more useful :D
So the weird thingie above the SATA ports is just a BIOS chip with some sort of locking mechanism and the socket above the CMOS battery is for an M.2 slot as I thought.

I'm hoping for Intel networking and Realtek ALC1150 sound, those have proven to be good choices on mITX for me.
 
I'm guessing that double-row header is to hold an m.2 riser, but where would the m.2 card itself go? Vertical (rising 'out' of the board) would rule out 2280 and 22110 SSDs, and probably 2260 as well. There are too many ports for the m.2 card to lie 'flat' over the right side of the board, and the heatsink would get in the way if it extended up. Maybe the riser card rotates the m.2 card to it slots in-between the VRM heatsink and the I/O shroud, but that would be a rather tight squeeze, and get rather ward from the heatsink.
 
Yeah I suspect them to use that orientation. Hopefully the riser will include screw holes to actually secure the drives, that would be swell.
 
iFreilicht said:
Yeah I suspect them to use that orientation. Hopefully the riser will include screw holes to actually secure the drives, that would be swell.
Click to expand...

You can see the hole for the screw directly left of the battery on the enlarged picture
There is also an 'M.2' label directly above the right side of the battery

I would say that is fairly conclusive that it'll be an m.2 riser w/ single screw bracket to secure it

jPG3Xqq.png
 
It's most likely a vertical M.2 for WiFi. Not SSD. Check the Z97 Stinger WiFi motherboard they have.
 
Eurgh that would be a huge disappointment: only SATA storage.

It does indeed look like it's going to be used for WiFi:

111-HR-E972-KR_XL_5.jpg


Very identical layout overall.
 
I think that is the exact reason why they have this complicated riser-business going on: because people were disappointed with the Z97 Stinger for not having mSATA and they didn't have space directly on the board to actually put a long M.2 drive. I don't see why they would put that restriction on users when they now have the entire depth of the board for the M.2 drive.

Siba said:
You can see the hole for the screw directly left of the battery on the enlarged picture
There is also an 'M.2' label directly above the right side of the battery

I would say that is fairly conclusive that it'll be an m.2 riser w/ single screw bracket to secure it

jPG3Xqq.png
Click to expand...

Yeah I see that hole, but how would you secure a drive to it? To me it seemed that the board would come with a metal bracket that had the riser on it. You could secure the drive to the riser and then plug the riser into the mainboard, securing that with a screw through the hole in the picture.
 
EVGA has kept the same mini-itx board layout for 3-4 generations, and it's mostly about looks, not features. As you can see, still only get SATA ports. The board is unchanged from the Z97 board, except for new CPU socket. And I strongly suspect the M.2 there is for WiFi only.
 
Mackan said:
EVGA has kept the same mini-itx board layout for 3-4 generations, and it's mostly about looks, not features. As you can see, still only get SATA ports. The board is unchanged from the Z97 board, except for new CPU socket. And I strongly suspect the M.2 there is for WiFi only.
Click to expand...

Well and I suspect the opposite. Why wouldn't they use the space that they gain by using this riser solution for a full-length M.2 SSD?
 
iFreilicht said:
Well and I suspect the opposite. Why wouldn't they use the space that they gain by using this riser solution for a full-length M.2 SSD?
Click to expand...

Did you actually look at the Stinger WiFi board (not the Core3D)?

http://www.evga.com/articles/00835/

They have an M.2 there used for wifi card. That strongly tells me this is the same solution.

If it isn't, yes, then they would need to have a horizontal combo-card there as on the Impact board, taking both a wifi and ssd M.2. But I highly doubt they will. It might even reach over that last SATA port.

I guess we'll know soon. I look forward to hear about Asus offering as well.
 
Mackan said:
Did you actually look at the Stinger WiFi board (not the Core3D)?

http://www.evga.com/articles/00835/

They have an M.2 there used for wifi card. That strongly tells me this is the same solution.

If it isn't, yes, then they would need to have a horizontal combo-card there as on the Impact board, taking both a wifi and ssd M.2. But I highly doubt they will. It might even reach over that last SATA port.

I guess we'll know soon. I look forward to hear about Asus offering as well.
Click to expand...

I actually did, but I assumed that it just used a regular vertical M.2 Slot like on this board, but upon closer inspection they seem to use a riser with the exact same pin block on the mainboard like the one seen on the Z170 Stinger, so I guess you're right that the slot is only intended for Wifi and will use the same riser. I guess it would still be possible to get an SSD working in there, but you need quite a bit of headroom for that to work or design a custom riser yourself that placed the SSD on its edge.

Yeah it will be interesting to see what sort of features the "VIII Impact" (I'll just call it that) will offer.
 
iFreilicht said:
Yeah it will be interesting to see what sort of features the "VIII Impact" (I'll just call it that) will offer.
Click to expand...

Leaked motherboard names tells us we are waiting for a Z170i-Pro Gaming mobo, for their mini-itx solution. It's hard to say if they skip an Impact board this year, or launch it with 3 months delay like last year. Or perhaps they will change name of it to Impact VIII when launching in August. I just hope they leak it soon... the wait is killing me.
 
Has EVGA improved their bios skills, and do they actually fix issues now?

When I bought their first Stinger board years ago it was horrible... and all their motherboards at that time had bios issues. I personally won't touch another of their boards until there's something documented on the net about them actually fixing issues in a reasonable period of time... granted, I haven't researched their boards since buying and returning the Stinger board.
 
Diverge said:
Has EVGA improved their bios skills, and do they actually fix issues now?

When I bought their Stinger board years ago it was horrible... and all their motherboards at that time had bios issues. I personally won't touch another of their boards until there's something documented on the net about them actually fixing issues in a reasonable period of time... granted, I haven't researched their boards since buying and returning the Stinger board.
Click to expand...

I did research on their forum for a while when I contemplated the Z97 Stinger, and there was still too many strange issues popping up that tells me the bios is immature. Simple questions went unanswered, promised bios manual never happened, bios fixes definitely never happened. While things probably have improved over the years, buying their board is still taking a risk, that's for sure.
 
The ASRock board has 4xSATA and 1xSATA express. That SATA express port can be used for 2 individual drives, effectively bringing the SATA port count up to 6, correct?
 
Mackan said:
Also mentions "complete lineup of Z170 Asus motherboards", where no mini-itx nor micro-atx boards seem present. Granted, I don't trust this is the "complete" line up, but doesn't look so good for mini-itx builders on August 5th. Still a week or so for more leaks.
Click to expand...

The Gene is microATX. The Impact is usually delayed though the lack of any other Mini-ITX boards is strange.
 
As expected, the EVGA Z170 Stinger only has a Key E M.2 port, meant for wifi-card or similar. You can check the official specs now on their webpage.

It's very strange that they continue to not include a wifi-card for that price. Even stranger that they don't include a Key M M.2 for SSD.
 
Mackan said:
As expected, the EVGA Z170 Stinger only has a Key E M.2 port, meant for wifi-card or similar. You can check the official specs now on their webpage.

It's very strange that they continue to not include a wifi-card for that price. Even stranger that they don't include a Key M M.2 for SSD.
Click to expand...
Sad how Evga made my favorite X58 motherboards and now I don't even pay attention to them.
 
Gigabyte Z170N-WIFI (already mentioned upthread with a youtube link)
MG_4580-580x524.jpg

Gigabyte Z170N-GAMING 5
027.jpg

Pretty similar other than the USB3.1 TypeC, the EPS 8pin, a heatsink w/ a heatpipe, the "Steel Armor" shielded PCIe slot, a fewer caps, and the red and silver against black theme.
 
All blurps from anandtech's motherboard article.

ASUS Maximus VIII Gene mATX
Gallery - http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/4478
The Gene is ASUS’s micro-ATX gaming option, and I’m glad we get one here given that X99 went without. When the board goes smaller, it gets slightly more difficult to fit everything on, and compared to the Extreme it is safe to say that the other motherboards in the line focus a little more on gaming but come with as many overclocking utilities as possible as well. Hardware-wise we have support for x16 or x8/x8 graphics combinations, the SupremeFX audio solution and the Intel I219-V network controller. USB 3.1 comes via the usual A+C combination, which I’m sure at this point after writing about 20-odd motherboards is going to become the standard on any board that has USB 3.1.
....

The chipset heatsink has an embedded red LED in it, and sits next to the six SATA 6 Gbps ports which also house two SATA Express ports. We also get the M.2 slot in the middle of the board, supporting PCIe 3.0 x4.
Click to expand...

ASRock Z170 Gaming-ITX/ac
Gallery - http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/4502#6
Mini-ITX boards are notorious for getting things right, but ASRock has had a go with this one to implement a number of features. Top of the list is probably USB 3.1, where we have both Type-C and Type-A ports on the rear panel. The rear panel also shows an 802.11ac 2T2R dual band WiFi connection, dual HDMI ports and a single DisplayPort. Other networking is from the Intel I219V, while the half-width audio block comes from the higher end ALC1150 codec. My specifications sheet says there is a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot on board, and by the looks of it we would probably find it on the rear as the half-sized mini-PCIe slot is occupied by the WiFi card. There is a total of six SATA 6 Gbps ports on board with a SATA Express as well, and we’re still in the realm of DDR4.
Click to expand...

ASRock Z170M-ITX/ac

Gallery - http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/4502#11
The solitary mini-ITX board from ASRock being announced publicly is the Z170M-ITX/AC. Not quite sure why they need an M in the name with the ITX being there, but it must be said the board isn’t necessarily built for style:
....

I’m sure that this board is more aligned with the Pro motherboards than the Extreme motherboards, namely due to the lack of USB 3.1, but it does oddly enough have dual network ports in the form of an Intel I219-V and the Realtek RTL8111E as well as an 802.11ac 2T2R dual band solution included, sitting upright in the mini-PCIe slot. Audio is provided by the ALC892 codec and a total of four SATA 6 Gbps ports are found just past the DDR4 memory slots. These ports are somewhat annoying, meaning that locking cables will easily block out the last cable from being removed without removing all others first. There is an mSATA slot on board as well, and it would seem to be on the rear similar to previous ASRock mini-ITX designs.
Click to expand...

GIGABYTE Z170N-Gaming 5
Gallery - http://images.anandtech.com/doci/9485/Z170N-Gaming 5-Rev10.jpg
Marching into the mini-ITX arena for the gaming range is the Z170N-Gaming 5, with a heatsink/heatpipe arrangement that looks a little different than normal. The power delivery is adjusted too as a result. Functionality here by virtue of the small size extends to a Killer network port as well as the Intel 802.11ac 2T2R dual band AC-8260, Intel’s 3rd generation AC adapter which also supports Bluetooth 4.2. For such a small motherboard we also get the Alpine Ridge controller providing the usual USB 3.1 A+C combination, and it’s worth noting that the power connectors are on the outside of the motherboard which should make it easier to install than some previous GIGABYTE motherboards.
Click to expand...

GIGABYTE Z170N-WIFI

Gallery - http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/4491
The Z170N-WIFI follows a line of N-WIFI boards from GIGABYTE that has gone back several generations. The aim here is to make something that fits in similar to the Z170N-Gaming 5 but under that on the Ultra Durable line and that costs a little bit less. So while there are no power delivery heatsinks to speak of there are dual Intel I219-V network ports as well as the Intel AC-8260 dual band wireless card. Audio is an upgraded relatek solution and an ASMedia controller gives USB 3.1 A+C. GIGABYTE historically gives this board dual HDMI ports, and we get them here in 1.4b form.
Click to expand...

EVGA Z170 Stinger

Gallery - http://images.anandtech.com/doci/9485/Z170_Stinger.jpg
The Stinger is the mini-ITX solution, keeping the line alive after several generations. Taking on board previous comments, the power connectors are now on the outside of the DRAM slots or at the top of the motherboard, along with the important front panel connectors. There seems to be enough space around the CPU slot for larger air coolers, although the SATA connector placement will be a nightmare when locking cables and large PCIe cards are used. EVGA does list the Stinger as having a 10-layer PCB, which might make it one of the mini-ITX motherboards with the most layers, although this just makes the design of the board easier and pushes up cost. Similar to the FTW, we don’t get USB 3.1 on this model with only an Intel I219-V network port and Realtek audio.
Click to expand...
 
The side-facing SATA express ports on the Gigabyte boards seem like a big mistake to me.
 
vipz said:
The side-facing SATA express ports on the Gigabyte boards seem like a big mistake to me.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's seriously bad considering up till the angled sata connectors was very rarely put on mITX boards (while it was a trend for big formats), at least I haven't seen one like this before.

The thing is, most of people may use M.2 instead if they don't need a big drive for system.

Anyway let's hope that won't become a standard for most of the upcoming boards.
 
If the ASUS Maximus Impact VIII has daughterboards again, I suggest everyone avoid that motherboard. My MI7 is plagued with issues with the daughterboards. And ASUS's customer's service is severely lacking when dealing with that.
 
I personally wouldn't want to push people to avoid the board, but be very wary about issues. I was expecting the best of the best for €240 for the VII Impact and while it has proven to be stable, I find over-tightened screws, only one true PWM fan header, iffy software, useless thick I/O shield and a lacking quality control to not be features the most expensive mITX Z97 board should have.
 
My Impact has been rock solid and the daughterboards haven't given me any issue yet. Using Wifi and M.2 everyday.

I went with Asus for Z87, Asrock for Z97, and I was thinking of going Asrock again for Z170 since it looks very similar to there previous offerings (Z87 & Z97). Only thing that is making me wait it out is that Skylake removed the FIVR this round so the VRMs on the motherboard might play a bigger role in OC abilities. Any ideas?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top