Intel Skylake Z170 Motherboards: A Quick Look at 55+ New Products
by Ian Cutress on August 5, 2015 7:59 AM ESTECS Z170
Despite rumors of ECS leaving the motherboard market first being widespread, refuted and then that refutation ignored, we are in constant contact with the team at ECS USA and they were more than happy to discuss a few of their upcoming motherboards for the Z170 chipset. ECS’ fortunes in the consumer motherboard market is actually to the tune of several million a year, but above the base cheap designs in Asia there has been not so much of a push into North America or Europe. For the couple of years ECS has been introducing its’ L33T (‘leet’) brand for gaming, although the nuance might be wearing a bit thin for some as the naming might not necessarily gel with anyone over 14. Nonetheless, the ECS Z170 motherboards came to our attention at Computex due to their use of the new Realtek Dragon 8118AS network controller which aims to compete in the same space as the Rivet Network’s Killer offering for gaming and network traffic prioritization.
ECS Z170 Claymore
At the front is the ATX offering, called the Claymore. Unfortunately not in Scots colors, but the general black theme I am told is so that the Claymore can integrate more easily into many different builds. Aside from the Realtek Dragon 8118AS network controller, ECS goes all out with the PCIe slots offering a combination of x8/x4/x4 from the CPU as well as a couple of others from the chipset – these are mostly likely x1 or x4, or may share bandwidth.
In the middle of the PCIe slots is an M.2 port, although for some reason this only supports M.2 in PCIe 2.0 x2 mode for PCIe based storage. Given how many lanes are available on the Z170 chipset, it makes me wonder why it is not using a full PCIe 3.0 x4. Nevertheless we also get six SATA ports with two bundled with a SATA Express port. Audio comes from the Realtek ALC1150, and USB 3.1-A ports on the rear panel are from an ASMedia ASM1142 controller.
Perhaps surprising here, but ECS is listing the Claymore as supporting HDMI 2.0. This means, because there isn’t an Alpine Ridge controller onboard, that they are using an LS-Pcon in order to do so and are the only ones who are doing it as far as I can tell. I am doubly confirming as this is being written.
ECS Z170-Blade
Despite seeing the Blade at Computex, ECS is not too ready to give details on how the board will look when launched because it is still begin decided. Nonetheless, a good micro-ATX motherboard is always respected, and the Blade will also carry the Dragon Ethernet part alongside USB 3.1.
ECS Z170IU-C43 – Image from 4gamer.net
For the low end of the market, ECS is providing the Z170IU-C43 – a mini-ITX motherboard with a somewhat odd design arrangement. Here the 24-pin ATX connector is at the edge of the board, but due to the CPU and chipset arrangement the 8-pin CPU connector is in no-mans land to the bottom left of the socket. This means that with a GPU in play this connector is very hard to get to and means that cables will be all over the chassis. It’s a design point that all the motherboard manufacturers have had to contend with at some point.
ECS is stating again that we have HDMI 2.0 connectivity on this board, while other functions include the Intel I219-V based networking, the Realtek ALC892 codec for audio, two USB 3.1-A ports on the rear panel and a single PCIe 3.0 x16 slot.
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Oyster - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Ian, do you think it is possible to supply us with a tabular breakdown of all the motherboards? Not sure about others, but going through page-by-page is a bit overwhelming, and confusing at the very least. Good coverage as usual!Eidigean - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
I second this. looking for number of M.2 slots, PCIe slots, USB 3.1 ports w/ type of controller (Alpine or otherwise). I'm shocked so few support 3 M.2 slots.MrBowmore - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Why not just use the pcie? Is there anything better than a intel 750 and demands M.2? I dont get the need for M.2.Eidigean - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Well, the SM951 is quite interesting. Also, if the M.2 slots are used, the PCIe slots can be used for 4 GPUs, NICs, or RAID cards. The ASUS workstation board in this article is interesting.Gadgety - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Tabular would be great.The_Assimilator - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Z170X-UD5 and Z170X-UD3 galleries are swapped.I'm glad to see that Gigabyte is exposing 2x USB 3.0 internal headers on almost all their boards - USB 2.0 needs to die. Now if only they would replace the dual USB 2.0 headers with an additional 3.0, giving 3x USB 3.0 headers, then I would be ecstatic. My Z77X-UD5H is still the only decently-priced motherboard around with a trio of USB 3.0 headers, and it's not getting any newer!
Regardless, I'm probably going to skip Skylake, for the simple reason that I'm not interested in buying a board equipped with the useless SATA Express. By the time Cannonlake rolls around, M.2/NGFF should have killed SATAe and there will be even more USB 3.0 ports from the chipset.
DanNeely - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
I bought a GB board for a 4790k earlier this year for the dual headers. At least in the medium term though, I think they do need to keep 1 or 2 2.0 headers around. Not everyone buys a new case for their new builds, and older cases have built in 2.0 ports on the front/top panel. The same thing for front panel SD card readers; there are USB 3.0 versions out now, but the SD reader won't benefit from the faster connection so why spend money to replace it. I can't remember who makes it, but there's one OEM who sells some PSUs with an internal USB2 header for monitoring purposes.Beyond all of that, the chipset itself provides 14USB ports only 10 of which can be 3; so the mobo makers have 2 "free" headers to do something with. Dell/HP/etc will ignore them; but in the box ticking consumer market they're going to get used either for internal headers or a pairs of ports in the back. Anyone clinging to w7 who doesn't have PS2 peripherals in the closet will need those since 7 doesn't have a USB3 class driver; and at least in my case refused to talk to a 2.0 device in a 3.0 port until I got drivers installed.
Impulses - Thursday, August 6, 2015 - link
If you're using an SD reader for a modern camera with modern SD cards then it'll absolutely benefit from USB 3.0... Last 128GB SD I bought for like $58 can read at 150MB/s (or about 3x USB 2.0 speeds), Lexar UHS-II card. Most recent mirrorless bodies can take advantage of it too...8steve8 - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
when will these actually be for sale?Ian Cutress - Wednesday, August 5, 2015 - link
Depends on the motherboard and what region you are in, but some are listed already: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-...