ASUS Announces Z170 Series Motherboards
High-performance ROG & Pro Gaming Series, Signature Series, and TUF Series motherboards for 6th-generation Intel Core processors
ASUS today announced a complete lineup of Z170 motherboards designed to maximize the potential of 6th-generation Intel® Core™ processors. The high-end ROG and mid-range Pro Gaming motherboards, feature-rich ASUS Signature, and TUF Series motherboards feature exclusive technologies that ensure better performance stability, ease-of-use, and comprehensive upgrade options. These motherboards are also compatible with the first 100W USB 3.1 power delivery (UPD) front panel.
ROG prides itself in combining exceptional performance with stunning design. The ROG Maximus VIII Series dominated the 2D, Legacy, and Unigine Heaven benchmarks – setting eight world records and achieving 12 first global places.
The Sabertooth Z170 Mark 1 brings a completely new design language to TUF motherboards, with its futuristic battle-inspired sleek and stealthy Thermal Armor finished in black and metal gray color — a powerful statement of style and strength. TUF ICe, Thermal Radar 2, and TUF Detective 2 deliver complete and customizable system cooling and monitoring that can be controlled via Thermal Radar software or mobile devices. The military-grade components used in TUF motherboards undergo the industry’s most-punishing tests to ensure reliable 24/7 durability.
“With over 500 million motherboards sold, ASUS is the No.1 motherboard maker and as always keen to offer breakthrough, easy-to-use, stable and trusted motherboards to the market. We are proud to introduce our complete Z170 Series motherboard lineup for extreme performance and the best user experience,” said Jackie Hsu, Corporate Vice President and General Manager of Worldwide Sales, ASUS Open Platform Business Group.
Innovative overclocking-friendly technologies
ASUS Pro Clock technology has a dedicated base-clock (BCLK) generator designed for 6th-generation Intel® processors for overclocked base clock frequencies of up to 400MHz and beyond. It works in tandem with the ASUS TurboV Processing Unit (TPU) to enhance voltage and base-clock overclocking control, and boosts performance up to 5.2GHz or more.
Second-generation ASUS T-Topology takes DDR4 memory overclocking to new heights. A customized trace layout reduces crosstalk and coupling noise to ensure time-aligned signal transfer for improved memory stability and compatibility. There is also enhanced DDR3/3L support on select motherboards for additional flexibility and compatibility.
5-Way Optimization, another ASUS-exclusive technology, dynamically optimizes essential aspects of the system based on real-time use, ensuring superb processor performance, everyday energy savings, ultra-stable digital power, cool and quiet fans and networking and audio settings that are tailored for preferred apps — perfect for gaming, entertainment, productivity or just about anything else. This latest iteration now includes a dedicated water-pump header so users can tweak pump speeds via the UEFI BIOS or Windows.
Record-breaking ROG performance
The ROG Maximus VIII Series has set eight world records (WR) and achieved 12 global first places (GFP) in benchmarks. It achieved the best CPU frequency for an i5-6600K processor, with a frequency of 6.808GHz; and the highest reference clock (BCLK) with a frequency of 552.27MHz. Other records are highlighted in the table below.
|
Category |
Benchmark |
New score |
WR/GFP* |
|
2D benchmarks |
Cinebench R11.5 - 4x |
15.83 |
GFP |
|
Cinebench R15 - 4x |
1410 |
GFP |
|
|
GPU Pi for CPU 1B - 4x |
4mn 01sec 055ms |
GFP |
|
|
Geekbench3 - single core |
6946 |
WR |
|
|
Geekbench3 - x4 |
27271 |
GFP |
|
|
HWBOT Prime - 4x |
7675.29 |
GFP |
|
|
PiFast |
9 sec 470ms |
WR |
|
|
wPrime 32M - 4x |
3sec 152ms |
GFP |
|
|
wPrime 1024M - 4x |
1mn 38sec 967ms |
GFP |
|
|
XTU - 4x |
1712 |
GFP |
|
Category |
Benchmark |
New score |
WR / GFP |
|
Legacy Benchmarks |
Aquamark |
||
|
1x GPU |
596039 |
WR |
|
|
3DMark2001 SE |
|||
|
1x GPU |
194767 |
WR |
|
|
3DMark03 |
|||
|
1x GPU |
294423 |
GFP |
|
|
2x GPU |
307658 |
WR |
|
|
3DMark05 |
|||
|
1x GPU |
78917 |
WR |
|
|
3Dmark06 |
|||
|
1x GPU |
61613 |
WR |
|
|
Category |
Benchmark |
New score |
WR / GFP |
|
3D Benchmark |
Unigine Heaven - Xtreme preset |
||
|
1x GPU |
7619.962 |
GFP |
|
|
2x GPU |
9511.916 |
WR |
|
Unparalleled connectivity: first 100W UPD front panel & onboard U.2 connector for Z170 platform
The new Z170 Series motherboards feature onboard USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A and Type-C ports to provide users with data transfer speeds of up to 10Gbit/s. On top of that, ASUS also offers the first 100W UPD front panel with two USB 3.1 Type-C ports. The upcoming Maximus VIII Extreme will be the first Z170 motherboard to feature an onboard U.2 connector along with ThunderboltTM 3 support. Future models, such as the Z170-Premium and Z170-Pro motherboards, will feature ThunderboltTM 3 and Intel USB 3.1 support respectively. The entire Z170 motherboard range supports the latest PCI Express® and M.2 NVM Express SSDs to deliver 32Gbit/s data transfer speeds.
All motherboards feature either 5X Protection II or Gamer’s Guardian, ensuring the finest components, exceptional circuit design, and exacting standards. The motherboards also feature LANGuard, overvoltage protection, precise digital power, overcurrent protection and a stainless-steel back I/O to ensure product quality, durability, and all-round protection.
Further details of the full range of Z170 Series motherboards can be found in the individual press releases distributed with this release.