Why so few USB ports on Z170 motherboards?

[LIGISTX]

Keyboard, mouse, emergency mouse, joystick, second joystick, printer, external hard drive, WiFi adapter, 2 fast charge for phone and the other for backup battery, usb hub, multimedia card reader, external cd drive reader/burner, and 4 flash drives

Edit: forgot usb dac for speakers and headphones lol

Can't forget gopro, other go pro, USB floppy, USB ethernet adapter as a fail-over against the wifi adapter, USB desk fan, and a stand alone USB GPS unit.

 

USB power through the mobo can for sure support all of that! No problem. Nothing like throwing a few hundred watts over the USB bus hahahahah

[JonU]

The Deluxe is also twice the price. Seems like there's a board missing in their lineup.

 

But if you look at the specs of the Z170-A, it has 14 USB ports total. Just becuase you don't see a bunch on the I/O shield doesn't mean they aren't there.

[Agent181]

Can't forget gopro, other go pro, USB floppy, USB ethernet adapter as a fail-over against the wifi adapter, USB desk fan, and a stand alone USB GPS unit.

USB power through the mobo can for sure support all of that! No problem. Nothing like throwing a few hundred watts over the USB bus hahahahah

You would hate to see the setup I have... Cables everywhere...

[LIGISTX]

You would hate to see the setup I have... Cables everywhere...

Lol. I seriously only have in my main rig: G500, G710+ (which is two, one for power to the hub on it that I have never used), Dell monitor hub, and a USB 3 card reader. Thats it. My webcam is plugged into my monitor hub, and thats all the devices I have. My HTPC I have 1 USB, a dongle for my wireless keyboard and mouse. lol

[jono20]

But if you look at the specs of the Z170-A, it has 14 USB ports total. Just becuase you don't see a bunch on the I/O shield doesn't mean they aren't there.

 

I think that logic is a bit off. You're going to hang nine devices off the front panel of your case?

[Agent181]

Lol. I seriously only have in my main rig: G500, G710+ (which is two, one for power to the hub on it that I have never used), Dell monitor hub, and a USB 3 card reader. Thats it. My webcam is plugged into my monitor hub, and thats all the devices I have. My HTPC I have 1 USB, a dongle for my wireless keyboard and mouse. lol

This is clean on a good day, don't have any pics of the cables behind my case on my phone but yea....

Still to get: Webcam, and a macro keypad so add 2 more usb ports

[bomerr]

Maybe this is a sign that LGA2011 is a better path for me...

 

if you can afford it a 5820k is a really good buy right now. 

 

and to answer your question it's because asus wants to upsell you to their high-end mobos. 

[jono20]

if you can afford it a 5820k is a really good buy right now. 

 

and to answer your question it's because asus wants to upsell you to their high-end mobos. 

 

I think that's why I was really trying to get at with this thread. It seems like the value of the motherboards has gone down quite a bit. This generation is more expensive but yields fewer features than those of the past.

[bomerr]

I think that's why I was really trying to get at with this thread. It seems like the value of the motherboards has gone down quite a bit. This generation is more expensive but yields fewer features than those of the past.

I have a Gigabyte X99-UD4 and it's really good.  It was buggy at first but the newest BIOS are solid. Only issue I have is that the m.2 port is only 2x instead of 4x but besides that it was a great buy. I got 10 USB ports on the back too. 

 

I would recommenced looking into the entry level x99 boards instead of Z170. And with the 5820k (hope you live next to a microcenter) you get much more bang for your buck. 

 

FYI if you really wanted to save money then you can get mobo front panel USB 3.0 header to regular Type A plugs cables on eBay. 

[JonU]

I think people with more than 6 things plugged in at a time is not all that much. Here on a tech forum, you see it much more, but average user is probably only plugging 2 or 3 things in at the rear and the rest gets plugged into the front as needed. Right now on my PC, I'm using two ports for my keyboard, 1 mouse, 1 mic, a cable for my Xbone controller, and a receiver for a wireless keyboard and mouse. Thumb drives and external drives get plugged into the front two ports as I need them in order to reduce clutter as much as possible.

[jono20]

I think people with more than 6 things plugged in at a time is not all that much. Here on a tech forum, you see it much more, but average user is probably only plugging 2 or 3 things in at the rear and the rest gets plugged into the front as needed. Right now on my PC, I'm using two ports for my keyboard, 1 mouse, 1 mic, a cable for my Xbone controller, and a receiver for a wireless keyboard and mouse. Thumb drives and external drives get plugged into the front two ports as I need them in order to reduce clutter as much as possible.

1. Average PC users don't purchase gaming/enthusiast motherboards.

2. You yourself would have already saturated all of the available rear USB ports. If you ever purchased a DAC or a joystick or a printer or something you'd have to unplug something to use it.

Five is not enough for the type of user that purchases this type of hardware.

[JonU]

The thing is I still have available ports in the rear. This is why I buy motherboards that have what I need instead of to a price.