Test System

Initial Setup

Right from the very start, building a system based around the ASUS Z170-DELUXE is quite different than with any other board, with the provided CPU installation tool kicking things off. You have to make sure the tool clips onto the CPU correctly, which did take some effort and left some fingerprints on the CPU's contact points. I'm not sure how good I feel about that.


Once you get the CPU clipped in place, you can open the socket to drop in the CPU.


It's actually fairly easy thanks to the CPU installation tool's huge protrusions, which force you to aim for the outside of the socket rather than that grid of pins, and they make sure the CPU is aligned BEFORE it touches those pins, rather than sitting just microns above the pins. Drop the tool with the CPU inside in place, and flip the retention bracket back over.


Mount your cooler, install the rest of your components, and you're ready to go!


Of course, I had to swap out a few things before I could begin my testing, since I need to make sure we use the same parts all the time, right? Once I had, I powered the board up, which made this glow from below the PCH heatsink appear.


And then it got brighter and brighter and dimmed back out, only to return a few moments later. I looked at the manual and software after I got everything installed, and it seems you can change the white color to many other colors to match your system (ASUS says 256 colors). Cool!


It is worth noting that ASUS has very obviously marked which ports should be used for your OS drives. I suppose things might be different if you have an NVMe device, but be that as it may, most users are going to want to use the plugs that are marked for OS drives.