Introduction

Although a smaller company, we all know who ECS is. They've had some pretty unforgettable board names in the more recent past and keep introducing others. ECS sent me their ECS Z170-LIGHTSABER motherboard to take a look at. That name MUST create certain expectations for the majority of us, right?

I like ECS, although that opinion might not be a popular one. Hardware-wise, their motherboards are pretty solid, but BIOS and software don't always have the same features than some of the bigger brands. That's not that big a deal for base-level CPU overclocking on modern Intel platforms as long as you can play with multipliers and the CPU's voltage, and that functionality is part of the CPUs themselves and, as such, almost guaranteed. High-speed memory support, on the other hand, well, you can only expect so much. With so many users saying that memory performance matters little that should be no big deal, right? It is not like ECS claims to offer a feature without providing it; they do pretty good on their delivery. You're not going to get what you do from other brands all the time, though.

The ECS LIGHTSABER seems to be a departure from the products ECS has offered in the past; there's buttons all over, a dual BIOS, headphone OP-AMP in a socket, and a 14-phase VRM. Overclocking Skylake isn't hard, so you don't need a lot of software or a ton of BIOS features, either. Just the basics are required.

Specifications