ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming Motherboard Review

Intel’s Skylake processors are just the latest Intel CPU architecture to see many of the critical system operations handled by the processor. As such, benchmarking a motherboard becomes more of a test to certify that the part operates correctly and meets the anticipated performance levels.

Z170 Motherboard Test System:

• Processor: Intel Core i7-6700K (4.2GHz all-core turbo).
• Memory: 16GB (4x4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws V 3200MHz 16-16-16-36 DDR4 @ 1.35V.
• Graphics Card: Nvidia GTX 980 Ti.
• System Drive: Mushkin Chronos 120GB
• Storage Test Drive: OCZ Trion 150 480GB (with a USB 3.0 to SATA adapter for USB 3.0 testing.)
• CPU Cooler: Antec Kuhler H20 1200
• Power Supply: Seasonic Platinum 760W.
• Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit.

Comparison Z170 Motherboards:

• Gigabyte Z170-Gaming K3
• MSI Z170A Tomahawk

Software:

• ASUS BIOS 1206 (Release Date 09/03/2016)
• Nvidia GeForce 364.72 WHQL Driver

Tests:

• Cinebench R15 – all core CPU test and CPU power consumption figures.
• Handbrake – converting a short 720p movie file into a smartphone suitable format using the Android preset.
• SiSoft Sandra – processor arithmetic and memory bandwidth test sequences.
• AIDA 64 Engineer – memory and cache test.
• 3DMark – Firestrike (1080p) test.
• Ashes of the Singularity – built-in benchmark tool @ 1080p using the Crazy preset.
• Unigine Valley – built-in benchmark using the Extreme HD preset.
• Rightmark Audio Analyser – record and playback test using a line-in to line-out loopback on a high quality gold-plated 3.5mm cable.
• ATTO – default disk benchmark for SATA and USB testing

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