The Board - Layout

The Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming G1 sure looks good. The white and red features on the board's black PCB look sharp for sure. The back of the board is fairly busy, but not as full of parts as with some other boards.


The socket area is quite open, although the close proximity of the VRM parts above the socket is going to make insulation a task for sure. There are four DDR4 slots on the Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming G1, each capable of supporting a 16 GB DIMM, which brings total memory support to 64 GB. You can also crank the speeds up pretty high.


There are four PCIe x16 slots, separated by three PCIe x1 slots, which is possible because of a PLX PCIe bridge chip. Between the bottom three slots are two M.2 slots, ready for both SATA 6 Gb/s and PCIe x4 drive devices.


The rear I/O panel carries a host of USB ports in various flavors, as well as an HDMI, LAN, and the normal audio connectors. It's nice to see a USB 3.1 Type-C port included here. SATA connectivity includes a total of ten SATA 6 Gb/s ports, six of which can be used for SATA Express devices like the included USB 3.1 Bay box. The added ports at the bottom of these SATA ports are powered by an ASMedia controller.


The bottom board's edge has USB headers as well as a bunch of switches, plugs, and an added SATA power plug for more power with a fully populated expansion area.