Supermicro launched the first socket LGA1151 motherboard featuring a PCIe bridge chip that expands the board's lane budget, something that not even the $600 ASUS Maximus VIII Extreme features. The new CZ170-OCE from the traditionally server/workstation motherboard maker is based on Intel Z170 Express chipset, and features a PCI-Express gen 3.0 x48 bridge chip (likely the PLX PEX-8747), which takes the PCI-Express 3.0 x16 PEG port from the CPU, and puts out 32 lanes, which are wired to the board's three PCIe 3.0 x16 slots.

The topmost slot runs at x16 full-time, while the middle and bottom slots are x8/x8 when both are populated (x16/NC/x16 or x16/x8/x8). The designers lavishly spent its remaining lane budget on two PCI-Express 3.0 x4 slots, and a 32 Gb/s M.2-22110 slot. Besides the 32 Gb/s M.2 slot, storage connectivity includes six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Other modern connectivity includes two USB 3.1 ports (one each of type-A and type-C), two gigabit Ethernet connections (one driven by Intel I219V and another by Intel I210-AT), HD audio, and four other USB 3.0 ports.