The Board - A Closer Look

Gigabyte's "G1" moniker has been around for some time now, and with it, Gigabyte has a history they need to uphold. The first part of that is in the BIOS design, with two BIOSes installed onto the Z170X-Gaming G1's surface.


The BIOSes can both be used, the secondary BIOS a fail-safe boot method or completely isolated, only one BIOS accessible. You can set which chip is the primary BIOS by using the two switches at the board's bottom edge shown above. There are a bunch of other buttons you would expect to be there too, with CMOS Clearing, RESET, and Power buttons all here, along with a couple hardware-based buttons for your overclocking adventures. I've never found such switches useful in daily usage, but am sure they come in handy when pushing for those extreme clocks.


The logo seen at the buttons isn't a standard logo, either. Flip the board over and you'll see the large number of LEDs that will make it light up after the board has been powered on.


Speaking of power, the Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming G1 has a true dual-channel DIMM VRM design, and just above those slots, you can find a set of measuring points to check your voltages in real-time. I actually used these pads to confirm CPU-Z was displaying erroneous information in regards to CPU voltage.


The Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming G1 has more than enough cooling installed, with a large thick cooler sitting over the board's VRM section. If the cooler's mass is not enough, you can easily watercool the board's CPU VRM section through the watercooling ports. Peering inside reveals a copper channel through the cooler, but I'm not sure what metal is used for the fittings themselves.


The cooling continues around the socket and connects to the cooler placed mid-board. Under that cooler sits the PLX PCIe bridge chip that makes all those PCIe x16 slots possible. The same theme is continued on down to the PCH cooler that connects to the PLX cooler via a single heatpipe.


Audio has been a big part of Gigabyte's Gaming G1 boards for some time, with their Amp Up Audio solution. This time around, it begins with a Creative SoundCore3D CODEC.


The OP-AMPs (operational amplifiers) on the Z170X-Gaming G1 are replaceable, which allows end users to change the sonic signature the board provides. There are three different OP-AMPs here, with all three residing in sockets that allow them to be easily replaced. One is for the front channels while the other two are used for the rear, with one OP-AMP present for each rear channel, left and right respectively. Past Gigabyte boards had the tool and a different OP-AMP in the box, but this time around, you'll have to buy the OP-AMPs and removal tool separately.


Pulling the plastic cover off the audio circuit exposes the good bits. There is a line of electrical isolation that runs through the board, highlighted by more LEDs on the bottom of the board. There are also two switches that allow you to change the gain. One switch is for the front channels while the other is for the rear channels.


There are a huge number of USB 3.1 ports on the Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming G1, with Intel-built controllers taking up most of those duties. The ASMedia chip pictured above is a PCIe switch I found between all the slots. I'm not sure what it connects to, but given the large number of devices here, it is no surprise to find one.


There's not just one but two KillerNICs on the Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming G1 (Killer E2400). These can be used in a form of "teaming mode", which optimizes connectivity (such as game data on one NIC, while the other takes care of streaming your gameplay onto the Internet). I say a form of teaming because it's not true teaming. However, the provided software will be more than happy to manage all of that functionality for you. The MegaChips MCDP2800 shown above helps enable HDMI 2.0 support. There is also a chip similar to those seen on other Intel Z170 products to help with BCLK scaling, yet on the Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming G1, this chipset is covered by an EMI shield, which might help in how well it scales.