Introduction

ECS has re-vamped its product stack and is now driving back into the enthusiast market after a brief hiatus. I've had ECS's LIVA mini-PCs in the meantime, so it's not like the company disappeared, but many users have noted that ECS did not release any Intel X99 Express board products. With Intel's Z170 chipset being a bit more value-oriented, ECS is back to motherboards, and they've sent me one of them to take a look at—the ECS Z170-CLAYMORE.

The ECS Z170-CLAYMORE is very moderately priced, taking a new focus highlighted by those LIVA PCs and introducing that ideal to the motherboard market. The ECS Z170-CLAYMORE isn't a flashy high-end product that will drain your wallet. It won't set any benchmarking records. It also won't support SLI. What it will do is provide a high level of PCIe connectivity for all your expansion needs, which is truly one of the new thing Intel's latest mainstream chipset has on offer. We've got the ability to use dual GPUs, dual PCIe x4 drives, an M.2 drive, and a SATA Express device, all at the same time. We've also got Realtek's DRAGON LAN Chip, the RTL8118AS, for the latest in LAN technologies. There are USB 3.1 Type-A ports, so all your current USB hardware can be plugged into any USB port. When ECS says you can roll all this together for less than $170 USD, you might want to give them a moment and take a look. Shall we?

Specifications