Asus Z170 A Motherboard

At $165, power users might dismiss ASUS’ Z170-A as a budget-friendly Z170 motherboard, but one look at the board’s big heatsinks tells you this is not a run-ofthe- mill board that merely replicates the stock Z170 chipset. In particular, ASUS adds several overclocking and system optimization enhancements. The PRO Clock technology, for instance, is a dedicated base-clock control that works with the ASUS TPU (Turbo Processor Unit) to let you increase performance. With PRO Clock, you can extend the BCLK overclocking range well past Skylake’s standard 170MHz. If you’d rather, though, you can use ASUS’ 5-way Optimization to auto-tune your system. You can even set targets for CPU frequency and voltage, as well as temperature limits, so 5-way Optimization can help you reach specific performance objectives. One of our favorite features is the Turbo App, where you can save various overclocking profiles and assign network priorities to quickly load the ideal presets for the task at hand. Gamers will be able to load up the Z170-A with high-powered GPUs. There are three PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, and ASUS allows for up to quad-GPU SLI or CrossFire with dual-GPU graphics cards. If you plan on using single-GPU cards, the Z170-A supports a maximum configuration of 2-way SLI (x8/x8) and 3-way CrossFire (x8/x4/x4). (If you are considering a 3-way CrossFire build, be aware that the bottom PCIe x16 slot shares bandwidth with the fifth and sixth SATA ports.) The Z170-A also offers three PCIe x1 slots and one legacy PCI slot. The Z170-A is ready for high-capacity, high-speed DDR4. You can install up to 64GB of DDR4-3400 memory. ASUS uses its second-generation T-Topology that provides a customized trace layout, which the company says reduces crosstalk and coupling noise for better stability and compatibility. When it comes to cooling and system noise, ASUS gives you complete control of the fans, as well as the water pump headers, inside its UEFI BIOS. For example, you can control fan speed and fan spin down time to prevent rapid fluctuations in fan speed and noise. Storage enthusiasts will like that the Z170-A includes native M.2 and NVMe RAID 0 support. You can even create a RAID from a mix of M.2 storage and a PCIe add-in storage card. The onboard M.2 slot supports both SATA- and PCIe-based storage devices (types 2242/2260/2280/22110). There’s also a SATA Express port and six 6Gbps SATA ports. Above the third and fourth SATA ports, ASUS smartly adds an “OS Drive” sticker to forestall booting from the fifth and sixth SATA ports, which share bandwidth with the bottom PCIe x16 slot. Next-gen external storage is supported with two USB 3.1 ports on the rear panel. One port is of the reversible Type-C variety and the other is a standard Type-A port. High-fidelity audio is delivered by ASUS Crystal Sound 3. Here, you’ll find all of the big-time features with modern onboard audio, including audio shielding on the PCB, EMI protection, onboard amplification, and power regulation for a consistent, clean sound. The ASUS Z170-A might be up against higher-priced competition, but you wouldn’t know it from the benchmarks. This board delivered the top score in PCMark 8’s Creative Test (4865) and was second in many of Sandra’s processor-intensive benchmarks. ASUS T-Topology advantages shine through in SiSoftware Sandra’s Memory Bandwidth benchmarks, where the Z710-A produced 28.89GBps in the Integer test and 28.73 in the Floating test. Overall, the Z170-A did well in our game benchmarks, and it posted the best frames per second in Metro: Last Light (62fps). Despite its budget- friendly price tag, the Z170-A incorporates several of the most helpful hardware enhancements from ASUS’ higher-end motherboards, such as the PRO Clock, T-Topology, and 5-way Optimization features. The hardware and software additions allow performance enthusiasts to push the envelope, while smart design choices (such as the M.2 port that supports both SATA- and PCIe-based storage) maximize component flexibility without raising costs. Props to the ASUS team on a job well done.