Gigabyte's Impressive Z170X SOC Force Motherboard Unveiled - Built For Overclockers With Several Tuning Switches

Gigabyte is preparing an impressive Z170 motherboards lineup for the launch of 6th generation Intel Skylake processors. We take detailed several motherboards from Gigabyte based on the Z170 chipset just the one we will be talking about today is the nearly impressive of them all. Today, we will be looking at the Gigabyte Z170X SOC Force which has been unveiled by itfree4U, showcasing its brilliant, overclocking focused pattern scheme.

Image Credits: IT4FreeU

Gigabyte Z170X SOC Force Motherboard Unveiled - An Overclocker's Dream Board

With the launch of Skylake nearing up (5th August 2022), motherboard manufacturer'due south are on a scroll to prep up their latest products which will be available for consumers to buy. Gigabyte, being the acme motherboard maker in the earth has so far unveiled several Z170 chipset motherboards which include the Z170X Gaming G1, Z170X Gaming 7, Z170X Gaming 5, Z170X Gaming three, Z170X-UD7-TH, Z170X-UD5-TH, Z170X-UD3 and a Mini-ITX Z170X lath which was showcased at Computex 2022 in June. The one motherboard I was anticipating to see was the Gigabyte Z170X SOC Force motherboard which although specifically built for overclockers, comes with loftier-end features and best components with a corking design scheme covered in a theme of orange and blackness colors. This lath just happened to brandish it self today and now we are going to go in the details of this overclocking heavy product.

The Gigabyte GA-Z170X SOC Force motherboard is an Due east-ATX (Extended ATX) form factor motherboard. The board has a n orange and black color scheme with silver labels across the lath. Start upwards, we tin can see the LGA 1151 socket which will back up the 6th generation Skylake Core processors. The starting time round of CPUs include the Core i7-6700K and Cadre i5-6600K which being unlocked fries are the perfect partner for this board. Around the socket is a IR/Infineon based 20 Digital Phase Power design (16+4 CPU/PLL/Retentiveness) with a Gen.4 IR Digital Controller and Gen.iii PowIRstage ICs. There's more, aside from the high-end black capacitors, at that place"s a Turbo B-Clock fleck (Built-in Avant-garde Performance Tuning IC) that is able to push broad range of BCLK frequency tuning in ranges from 90-200 MHz (aside from 100, 125, 167 MHz) which were previously available. The whole VRM block is powered past a eight+four Pivot power connector configuration that is situated fine art the top of the large estrus sink block that cools the PWM. This heatsink incorporates rut pipe cooling across the three PWM heatsinks and comes with water cooling inlets for even better cooling performance nether overclocks.

In that location are four DDR4 DIMM slots that support up to 64 GB of memory with speeds of up to 3400 MHz (O.C+). Right next to the DDR4 memory slots is the OC Touch Panel which is the legacy design of the SOC boards. The Z170X SOC Force does away with the extra switches and only keeps the ones which were necessary, we see OC TAG, OC Gear, OC Turbo, Voltage Boost switches nevertheless intact. There are switches to increase and decrease CPU clock and voltages adjacent to the On/Off switch. Several knobs can exist adapted to disable actress PCI-E ports and even the retentivity slots. Voltage check-points are also featured and a Diagnostic LED can be spotted to the top right side of the lath. Gigabyte has given the panel a facial uplift by roofing it with a plastic shielding which looks great.

Expansion slots include four PCI-Due east three.0 x16 slots (x16/x8/x16/x8), three PCI-e 3.0 x1 slots and three G.2 slots. You might be wondering if the board will accept plenty PCI-e lanes to bulldoze all ports at once, simply in that location's no need to worry since a PLX bit is allocated on the board which is subconscious on the bottom most PWM heatsink to add more lanes. Storage options include 8 SATA III half dozen GB/s ports, three SATA Express (xvi GB/south) ports, 2 USB 3.0 internal headers, ii USB 2.0 internal headers, 2 USB ii.0 internal ports which can exist used by overclockers. Surprisingly, an 8-Pin connector is establish but between the USB 2.0 and SATA ports that adds more power to the PCI-e slots when four graphics cards are equipped. Gigabyte features their AMP-UP Sound technology on the board while I/O includes 4 USB iii.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, OC Push button, PS/2 port, DVI/Display port output, HDMI output, a type-C USB three.0 port, E-SATA, Gigabit Ethernet LAN port and a vii.1 Channel audio jack.