Your favorite Z170 board-design ?

[Senzelian]

I just scrolled through some of the new Z170 mainboards for Skylake.

They all looks pretty nice. One thing that bothers me is that all of those boards seem to be either white, golden or red, which is boring.

BUT, there is one board that just looks amazing. The only board that actually looked great in my opinion.

The new MSI X-Power. What do you think and do you have a favorite so far?

[Arty]

This one.

i just wish that red line was blue.

[Senzelian]

This one.

i just wish that red line was blue.

Yup. It looks really good. It needs some blue, tho.

[TheGeeker]

I really like this one. 

[Arty]

Yup. It looks really good. It needs some blue, tho.

@LinusTech mod it i know you like blue

[MegaDave91]

This one is very appealing 

 

[Damikiller37]

Yeah the one in OP is my favourite. EVGA and Asrock boards are pretty slick too. Not a massive fan of the other new MSI and Gigabyte ones, I liked their more elegant design with z97.

[Senzelian]

This one is very appealing 

Yup, I just saw the new ASRock boards and they look better than most of the other boards.

ASRock is really stepping up.

I think MSI and Gigabyte have by far the ugliest boards apart from the XPower.

I wonder what the MPower will look like.

Or even a new Krait? :3

New Sabertooth Mark S? *-*

[TheSLSAMG]

I think MSI dropped the ball in terms of design, none of the manufacturers understand how to put a sufficient amount of fan headers on their boards and that there aren't enough good mATX offerings.

 

My favorite designs are the Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming 5, the EVGA Z170 FTW, the EVGA Z170 Classified, the AsRock Z170 Extreme4, the ASUS Z170 Sabertooth Mark 1 and the ASUS Z170 Maximus VIII Gene.

 

[amp88]

I quite like the look of the ASUS Z170-A (some pictures via AnandTech here). I think this might be the board I get for my planned build. It seems like quite a good balance in terms of features and pricing.

[Luke]

[tomas710]

I really like the Asus maximus VIII Hero, but, is there anything more subjective than mobo aesthetics?

[XxDeadpool67xX]

Asus Maximus Viii hero Gigabyte board and asrock gaming k6 board for me.

[Senzelian]

I think MSI dropped the ball in terms of design, none of the manufacturers understand how to put a sufficient amount of fan headers on their boards and that there aren't enough good mATX offerings.

 

My favorite designs are the Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming 5, the EVGA Z170 FTW, the EVGA Z170 Classified, the AsRock Z170 Extreme4, the ASUS Z170 Sabertooth Mark 1 and the ASUS Z170 Maximus VIII Gene.

MSI has just as much fan headers as all the other brands. I think ASRock has even more than most of them.

LTT made a video about entry level ATX motherboards and there was a section about fan headers. They were only different by one header afaik.

My ASUS board has I think 4 more headers than my old Z87 MSI, but they are also in a different price category.

I think the GB Gaming motherboards look like cheap plastic and they don't even fit their own graphics card color cheme.

[Emkryan]

So I guess Mobo shrouds are a ubiquitous thing now? I wish matte black was instead, and im still pissed that gigabyte ditched the light blue heatsinks. nothing to match with my sleeving and mod kit

[TheSLSAMG]

MSI has just as much fan headers as all the other brands. I think ASRock has even more than most of them.

LTT made a video about entry level ATX motherboards and there was a section about fan headers. They were only different by one header afaik.

My ASUS board has I think 4 more headers than my old Z87 MSI, but they are also in a different price category.

I think the GB Gaming motherboards look like cheap plastic and they don't even fit their own graphics card color cheme.

I said MSI dropped the ball on design, not the amount of fan headers... The fan header complaint was to all of the boards, I just think most lower end boards don't have enough of them.

[Ceatra]

VIII Gene and

 

SABERTOOTH!!!! :wub:  :wub:  :wub:  :wub: 

[Senzelian]

I said MSI dropped the ball on design, not the amount of fan headers... The fan header complaint was to all of the boards, I just think most lower end boards don't have enough of them.

Oh I'm sorry.

Now I understand it.

But you're right. Most boards just need either more fan headers or at least some fan splitter cables. What is so hard about giving us some 2-way or 3-way fan splitters  if the ports don't fit on the board itself <.<

Edit: That just reminded me of one of the lower end M-ATX AsRock boards I used. It only had 2 fan headers...

And one of them was for the CPU! WTF?!  :angry:

[CurlyCucumber]

I'm not quite sure. Probably EVGAs, since it's one of the only boards that is black. Every Z170 board I've seen so far is either black and red, black and gold or black and white...

 

I WANT BLUE, DAMNIT!

[Senzelian]

I'm not quite sure. Probably EVGAs, since it's one of the only boards that is black. Every Z170 board I've seen so far is either black and red, black and gold or black and white...

 

I WANT BLUE, DAMNIT!

I think we will see more blue motherboards with the release of the lower end models such as the MSI G43/G45 or the PC Mate.

Edit: Just checked... The PC Mate is completly black and the G43 has almost no blue and a brown PCB.... GOD DAMNIT!

ASROCK SAFE US!!!

Edit2:

ASUS to the rescue!

[NumLock21]

[CurlyCucumber]

I think we will see more blue motherboards with the release of the lower end models such as the MSI G43/G45 or the PC Mate.

Edit: Just checked... The PC Mate is completly black and the G43 has almost no blue and a brown PCB.... GOD DAMNIT!

ASROCK SAFE US!!!

Edit2:

ASUS to the rescue!

I noticed the same thing with the PC Mate.. I cried.

 

Ooh.. that looks nice. I might get it and go with a white and blue theme, with some black.. but still..

 

ASROCK SAVE US!

[Norman_the_Owl]

I didn't even notice they had one of them...

 

Does it have thunderbolt 3?

 

If it doesn't, why does it even exist?

[NumLock21]

I didn't even notice they had one of them...

Does it have thunderbolt 3?

If it doesn't, why does it even exist?

Does the rest of the skylake boards have tb3? Maybe all of them should not exist.

[Norman_the_Owl]

Does the rest of the skylake boards have tb3? Maybe all of them should not exist.

It's a workstation board. They should probably have thunderbolt, seeing as that's the only reasonable use for thunderbolt ATM.