GIGABYTE Intros Z170N-Gaming 5 Mini-ITX Motherboard

[btarunr]

GIGABYTE rolled out its premium SFF gaming PC motherboard that supports 6th generation Core processors, the Z170N-Gaming 5. Bearing the company's coveted G1.Gaming branding, this mini-ITX motherboard supports socket LGA1151 processors, with dual-channel DDR4 memory. The board draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, and conditions it for the CPU using a 5-phase VRM. The CPU is wired to two full-size DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel memory; and the board's lone expansion slot, a PCI-Express 3.0 x16, with a reinforcing brace.

Storage connectivity on the Z170N-Gaming 5 includes an M.2 slot with 32 Gb/s bandwidth (reverse side of the board), two SATA-Express 16 Gb/s ports, and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Display outputs include dual-link DVI and HDMI. USB connectivity includes two USB 3.1 ports (one type-C, one type-A), five USB 3.0 ports (three on the rear panel, two by header), and four USB 2.0/1.1 ports by headers. Network connectivity includes gigabit Ethernet (Killer E2200 controller), 802.11 ac WLAN (up to 867 Mbps), and Bluetooth 4.2. The onboard 8-channel audio solution combines a 115 dBA SNR CODEC with audio-grade electrolytic capacitors, and a headphones amp. Dual-UEFI BIOS makes for the rest of it. Expect premium pricing that's just north of $150.



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[Chaitanya]

Location of that USB 3.0 header is wrong, unless someone is using AIO LCS that header is going to be blocked by almost all of the small sized CPU air coolers on market. Other than that the board is fantastic as finally we are getting 6 Sata ports on a mini-ITX platform.

 

[deemon]

What's with the inferior 1x Killer NIC on this premium board vs GA-Z170N-WIFI board, that has 2 superior Intel NICs? Serious fail by Gigabyte.

Also the white accent ruins this for me. Not to mention this cyan-yellow-purple thing next to 24pin. By looks alone their previous GA-Z170N-WIFI wins bigtime.

Also written is that the board supports 32GB RAM, BUT ... on their memory support PDF ( http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5529#dl ) is exactly ZERO 16GB modules compatibility right now... so it's more like theoretical maximum maybe in the future.

Location of that USB 3.0 header is wrong, unless someone is using AIO LCS that header is going to be blocked by almost all of the small sized CPU air coolers on market. Other than that the board is fantastic as finally we are getting 6 Sata ports on a mini-ITX platform.

and what exactly do you do with 6 sata ports in miniITX? I plan to use ... 0 .... MAYBE just maybe 1 later on for some huge storage drive. M.2 is the form factor for ITX SSD-s, YET they only added 1 of those... what a let-down! (on a positive note, this is 1 more than EVGA Stinger has...)

 

[micropage7]

i never use header, just front panel

 

[Chaitanya]

What's with the inferior 1x Killer NIC on this premium board vs GA-Z170N-WIFI board, that has 2 superior Intel NICs? Serious fail by Gigabyte.

Also the white accent ruins this for me. Not to mention this cyan-yellow-purple thing next to 24pin. By looks alone their previous GA-Z170N-WIFI wins bigtime.

Also written is that the board supports 32GB RAM, BUT ... on their memory support PDF ( http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5529#dl ) is exactly ZERO 16GB modules compatibility right now... so it's more like theoretical maximum maybe in the future.



and what exactly do you do with 6 sata ports in miniITX? I plan to use ... 0 .... MAYBE just maybe 1 later on for some huge storage drive. M.2 is the form factor for ITX SSD-s, YET they only added 1 of those... what a let-down! (on a positive note, this is 1 more than EVGA Stinger has...)

I can create a storage server using this board(although its a gaming board), with current Z170 chipsets I have seen more mini-ITX boards with 6 SATA ports. Or you can go crazy by creating a RAID of more than 4 SSDs as with Skylake platform Intel has doubled the DMI bandwidth compared to previous generation chipsets so you can extract more performance from a larger RAID array.

 

[Batou1986]

Can anyone explain the benefit of wrapping a piece of metal around the PCI-E slot

 

[PLAfiller]

Can anyone explain the benefit of wrapping a piece of metal around the PCI-E slot

Technically if you install something like Asus Ares with Coppah Heatsink and weight mark at 2.85 Kg, so as not to sink and potentially disfigure somehow your PCI-e slot: