Biostar Racing Z170GT7

Z170GT7 - Introduction For a lot of people, the idea of spending $300 on motherboard is bordering on the surreal. Even the very idea of spending $200 is a bridge too far as that means going with a less powerful video card(s), less ram, or other noticeably large cuts in a new system build…. all for extra features that may not even be used. Put bluntly, motherboards are the one area of a new system that spending a lot of money does not necessarily mean getting a noticeably 'better' board. As we have shown in the past, with the MSI KRAIT , there are a lot of good deals to be found if you know what to look for. Of course there are more bad 'deals' than good, so the trick is knowing how to tell the difference between the two. On first glance the BIOSTAR RACING Z170GT7 appears to be another great example of the former and not latter. Based on literally decades of experience in building systems with all manner of budgets, there is a fairly easy way to separate the wheat from the chafe when it comes to entry level motherboards. Basically by focusing in on just a few keys areas, areas that consumers should not skimp on, the 'good' motherboards quickly become noticeable and a short list can be compiled. Then all it takes is paying careful attention to a few reviews on them to then further narrow down the choices. These areas loosely group as: overall layout and aesthetics, power subsystem, storage features, sound subsystem, BIOS, and value added features. Each consumer will place more (or less) emphasis on each of these sections depending on what they want to do, but these are the key areas that most experienced builders will look at. For example, someone looking for an overclocking friendly system will care a lot more about the VRMs and power controller than the number of SATA ports, whereas someone looking for NAS will not care about how robust the power subsystem is but will care a lot about the number of SATA ports and how easy it is to add even more. What this means is that a true value motherboard has to be good at all of these areas; but does not necessarily have to knock any one out of the park as long as it does not disappoint in another to do so. Put another way, a great value motherboard has to be highly adaptable and more a jack of all trades; rather than a master in any one key area. This is what the Biostar Racing Z170GT7 seems to offer. While not draped in plastic fascia, or other aesthetic boosting options this motherboard has a nice clean look that includes a nice racing motif silk-screened on a custom black PCB. As an added bonus it offers built in LEDS, an impressive LED lighting controller, and comes with a LED light strip. More importantly these added features do not come at the expense of a clean layout, instead all the various components are easy to use. The power subsystem may not be Gigabyte 'Super OverClock' levels, but a multi phase desing built upon 10K caps is still darn good and above average compared to many in this price range. Mix in six SATA ports, three SE ports, a four lane capable M.2 port, a decent BIOS, and some nifty little features we will go over in this review, and this motherboard appears to be a veritable diamond in the rough. Today we will see if this is indeed the case. Z170GT7 - Specifications Z170GT7 - Closer Look Closer Look TL;DR While the Biostar Racing Z170GT7 is certainly not perfect, and could do with more USB ports, the overall layout and design of this motherboard gets more right than it does wrong. The racing motif backstopped by LEDs and LED controller certainly does look better than what is usually found in this price range, the power subsystem is darn decent. The extra features like dual BIOS – with a physical switch- is also darn nice. The only consumers who may feel differently are those looking for advanced RAM overclocking abilities (this board tops out at DDR4-3200 and uses as single phase power design for the DIMMS), those looking for a high end sound solution, or those interested in a motherboard covered in plastic fascia. A Closer Look All things considered we have seen much worse shipping containers accompany motherboards costing twice as much as what the Biostar Racing Z170GT7 costs. That is to say it is attention getting, without being overly garish. More importantly while the front underscores the whole 'racing' theme of the motherboard the back is covered in details that cover off all the features and abilities this motherboard has to offer. The included accessory list is a curious mixture of bare necessities and advanced features usually not seen in this end of the marketplace. On the one hand Biostar has not included any case badges, SATA labeling stickers, or even SLI ribbon cables; on the other all the bases are nicely covered as they include a software and driver's DVD, four SATA cables, a rear IO panel and a LED strip that connects directly into the motherboard to further enhance the look of your custom build. All in all, it is very decent given the price range, though we do wish the rear I/O panel was the padded insulated variety and not the old-fashioned stamped metal style. Over the years many a person – including ourselves - have gotten a nasty cut while installing those bare metal rear IO panels. The Biostar Racing Z170GT7 boasts a very monochromatic look with a custom black PCB, black storage ports, black DIMMS, black PCIe slots, and black with white accents heatsinks. On the surface this would make for a rather low key looking motherboard; however, nothing could be further from the truth. First and foremost, the custom black PCB has a rather large checkered flag silk screened on to the PCB. This does give a nice dash of color for when the system is off. Further helping to boost this board well beyond average is the fact that the VRM and PCH heatsinks – as well as the edge of the motherboard - have built in LEDs that are capable of millions of color combinations. While not as nice as say what comes built into the MSI X99A Gaming Pro Carbon it does give a nice splash of color. Though to be honest, what does push things into the above average end of the spectrum is the fact that there is onboard header for adding LED light strips to this board and it comes with them! For a sub $150 that came out long before the whole X99 refresh… that is simply amazing. Beyond the overall looks and aesthetics of the Biostar Racing Z170GT7 this motherboard features a very nice and clean layout with all the various connectors and ports easily accessible, and free from possible obstruction. The heatsinks may lack connector heat pipes, or the robustness of some other higher end motherboards we have looked at but given the rather low asking price this is more than acceptable. Basically we doubt that overheating of the power delivery subsystem will be a bottleneck for 99.999% of customers interested in this model. Instead lack of expensive CPU cooling solutions that cost almost as much – and sometimes more – than this model will cause a heat-related bottleneck long before people have to be worried about the VRM components frying! The back of the motherboard is equally well thought out with almost no major components located back here. Instead about the only thing you will find is the screws and springs used to secure the three heat sinks to the motherboard. Yes that is correct this inexpensive motherboard does not use push-pins and instead has a professional grade mounting system. Color us impressed as certainly not the majority do this in the Racing Z170GT7's price range. Hidden underneath these heatsinks is a very decent power delivery subsystem that consists of an Instersil ISL95855 controller, PowerPAK MOSFETs, Super Durable Ferrite Chokes, and 10K Solid Capacitors. Now with that being said, this power delivery subsystem is not a 'true' 8-phase design and rather it is technically a 3-phase design with each phase being doubled up with an addition virtual phase (via Intersil ISL6611 phase doublers) to spread out the load. The other 'two' phases are for the iGPU. While 3 phases is low, by spreading the load out over six phases worth of components most owners will never run into problems. Also it is not an all-digital based design so voltage fluctuation is going to be a bit of concern – however in testing Biostart load-line calibration was darn decent and kept voltages fairly stable. The four DIMMs of course also get their own power susbsytem, to be specific it is fed by a fairly typical single phase power design controlled by a UPI uP1514 controller. Though once again it also gets its own 'Super Durable' components. For most owners a single phase vs dual phase design will not matter all that much – especial considering this motherboard 'only' supports up to DDR4-3200 speeds. Of especial note is the eLAN 8-bit microcontroller. This microcontroller has been included because instead of using physical buttons Biostar has instead opted for a small panel which in addition to a Power and Reset options also includes an Eco mode (which reduces power consumption at the expense of shear performance – regardless of what Biostar claims) and "Sport" mode which basically is a very light factory preset overclocking option. Strangely enough, just above the touch panel is an honest to god LN2 switch. This is an option that some companies call a 'slow switch' as it reduces the chances of the dreaded 'cold bug' from causing a crash when you take the CPU well below 0° when cooling with LN2. Basically it hard sets the CPU ratio to 8 and keeps it at that until the switch is turned off. You do not need to reboot for the changes to occur as they happen in real time. Needless to say, while other companies do include such a feature very, very few do so on their models which cost as little as this motherboard! Next to this touch panel is an actual 2-digit LED debug diagnostics display. We always love seeing this feature included as it makes troubleshoot a lot easier. More to the point we must admit to being surprised at its inclusion. ASUS certainly does not feel the need to include it on their similarly priced models, and yet Biostar has been able to do it. Color us impressed. Due to the touch panel Biostar was unable to place the front USB 3.0 headers in their usual location – next to 24pin power connector. Instead Biostar has only include one header and it is located about half way in at the bottom of the motherboard. This may cause problems with some cases that come with shorter cables. On the positive side this motherboard not only includes two BIOS chips, and a physical switch to choose which BIOS switch will be used by the system, but also has gone the extra mile and used sockets for the BIOS chips instead of soldering them directly to the motherboard. This means in worst case scenarios a corrupted BIOS chip can be removed and easily replaced. Color us impressed as this is one of the very few in this price range that do this – even though they all should! In between the 24-pin header and the BIOS sockets is the included storage ports and we must admit that Biostar has included a very nice selection. In grand total you can expect to find three SATA Express ports, and six SATA 6Gb/s ports. Of course as each of the ESATA ports requires two SATA 6Gb/s ports worth of bandwidth this does not mean consumers can use 6 SATA and 3 SE devices. Instead its 4 SATA + 1 SE, 2 SATA + 2SE, or 6 SATA and no SE devices. This is still very decent and should cover off the needs of the average consumer nicely. Moving on, while the PCIe layout is also outstanding and does lend itself well to multi-GPU configurations, this motherboard is not SLI or CrossFire certified. Instead to get this feature enthusiast will have to step up to the Biostar Gaming Z170 models. In quick testing with a pair of PNY 960s, SLI did indeed work, but it may be hit or miss and is not guaranteed . Basically if you are interested in SLI or Crossfire you may want to look elsewhere. Given the asking price of this motherboard we doubt many owners will be interested in dual GPU configurations but this is a shame as the layout of x16 followed by an x1 slot means that four dual slot video cards could fit on this motherboard! As this is a Z170 based motherboard it is not surprising to see that only the top two 'x16' ports are connected directly to the CPU and the other two are 'x16' slots are only x4 and go through the Z170 PCH. What this means is that if owners do use the third or fourth PCIe 'x16' slots that other storage components are going to be disabled. Basically these x16 slots and the M.2 and some of the SATA-Express ports all share the same lanes. Since no 'PLX' PCIe lane hub is included you will have to choose carefully between what features you want to use, and which ones you need to use. With that being said, ESATA devices are as rare as honest politicians, and if you so choose you can indeed use one of the bottom x16 slots for a x4 device and M.2 device… just as long as the M.2 solid state drive is a SATA and not NVMe or PCIe controller based model. Also nice to see the included M.2 port is not only a x4 enabled port but is compatible with up to M2280 devices. However, if you have an extra-long M22110 drive you will want to use a (not included) M.2 to PCIe daughtercard… and use one of the two bottom x16 slots! Nestled between the first x16 PCIe slot and the rearmost VRM heatsink is a pair of 4-pin fan headers which have been dedicated to CPU cooling solutions. While we would have preferred to have seen a third (for water pumps) two should be more than satisfactory for most owners of this motherboard. Just below these two crucial headers (towards the rear IO panel) is the 5050 RGB LED header. We must admit that is a downright odd place to put this feature as it means you will have to drape any 5050 compatible led strips either over the VRM heatsinks or the PCIe slots. In either case its inclusion is still noteworthy and well above average. One of the very interesting additions to this motherboard is the onboard audio. These days even the most basic of motherboard has to include a decent onboard audio solution and while the Biostar Racing Z170GT7 will not win any awards it is still very decent. As expected the onboard solution has been electronically separated from the rest of the motherboard and this alone will make for a much, much better sound solution. In addition, Biostar has opted for the very respectable Realtek ALC887 codec. The Realtek ALC887 is an older audio 'controller' and certainly not as potent as the ALC1150, but it still is a very decent option. This is especially true since they have included an EMI shield for it (to further reduce 'noise), four 'Hi-Fi' audio capacitors, and two IDT 36135 op-amps (one dedicated to the headphone port and the other to surround sound duties). Another main selling feature of this motherboard is its USB 3.1 abilities. Since the Z170 chipset does not come standard with USB 3.1 (aka USB 3.1 gen 2, aka USB 3.1 10Gb/s) Biostar has opted for a ASMEDIA ASM1142 USB 3.1 dual port controller. This controller may not be as powerful as the Intel option that are now available, but it is still a very decent choice. Also included on the rear IO is a single 10/100/1000 Ethernet 'LAN' port. This port is controlled via the extremely potent Intel i219v that many enthusiasts prefer over the various 'Killer' NIC options. Rounding out the rear I/O panel is a PS/2 keyboard & mouse port, four USB 3.0 ports, and six audio ports that allow for 7.1 surround sound. Biostar has also included a full size HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI-D, and even an analog VGA port. The latter of which is powered by a Realtek RTD2168 controller. The only disappointment is the lack of even more USB 3.0 port, zero USB 2.0 ports and no S/PDIF port for digital sound output. Other than that, this is a very good rear IO features list. Also on the positive side is the fascia covering for the rear I/O ports is made out of metal and not plastic like most. Z170GT7 - BIOS BIOS TL;DR If there was one area that Biostar was not known for excelling at in the past it was their BIOS. That is not to say previous generations had bad BIOS or a poor interface per say, but they were certainly behind the curve when compared to ASUS, GIGABYTE, or MSI. Thankfully, the ultra-conservative BIOS team managers at Biostar have taken all the constructive criticism to heart and polished and refined the Biostar Racing Z170GT7 BIOS to a razor edge. Put simply this new BIOS layout and design is just as good as what can be found from the more well-known companies…. and in many cases it is better. Simply marvelous! A closer look at the BIOS Basically for those who have used Biostar motherboards in the past and 'know' what to expect from them in the BIOS department you will be in for one heck of surprise. Gone is the outmoded and outdated configuration and instead is a GUI based BIOS that is as easy to navigate as it is pretty to look at. Obviously Biostar have spent a lot of time and effort on this BIOS and have learned a thing or two from MSI, ASUS, and others. Instead of having two separate interface options – simple and advanced – Biostar has rolled them all into one and the end result is a unique interface that has flavors or MSI and ASUS but is entirely unique. Basically instead of entering one and then having to exit it and manually entre the other Biostar has taken the best of both melded into one. From the simple or 'easy' interface options that others use Biostar has taken the idea of large easy to see and use icons and yet instead of having them be very shallow in their options taken the usual 'advanced' interface options and layered them in underneath these icons. This however only touches on the surface of the UI. The easiest way to think of this UI is, much like with a MSI motherboard, this User-Interface is a web portal. Much like an old-school webpage you have a menu bar, and three columns. Unlike MSI however the layout makes much better use of the screen's limited real-estate. Running along the left side of the screen is a static column, in this approximately 25% of the screen you will be able to easily see what speed your CPU and RAM are running at, the voltage being applied to these two critical components, your fan's speed, the temperature of your CPU, and what the date and time has been set to. This is basic data that covers a lot of ground albeit it still takes up more room than we would have liked it to. Along the bottom of the screen is a short row that is best described as this BIOS's menu. While it may be odd to have the menu at the bottom (a 'footer' so to speak) instead of at the top (aka 'header') this minor quirk does not interfere in the overall ease of use. It is just different – and neither good nor bad… just different. In this area you will find the main sections of the BIOS – just as you would in another manufactures 'advanced' BIOS mode. These sections are Main, Advanced, Chipset, Boot, Security, 'ONE', and Save & Exit. The Main section offers a brief over-view of the system and allows for basic configuration such as changing the date, time, and the language used. The Chipset section allows modifying basic chipset features such as the PCIe configuration, enabling/disabling the Intel NIC and audio controllers, and other basic features. The Advanced section is more accurately described as the advanced chipset section as it goes into more fine grain control of things such as SATA port configuration, USB configuration and the like. The Boot section allows you to change the Boot priority order, fast boot options, full screen logo, and some nifty advanced features like how long the Prompt Timeout will be set to. The 'ONE' section need a bit of explaining. This is the overclocking page and if you plan on overclocking your system this is where you will spend most of your time. Everything to CPU base clock, uncore ratio, memory speeds, voltages, all will be found here. This section is filled with sub-sections and each is detailed and should provide enough options to satisfy most average consumers. Save & Exit, and Security are fairly self-evident. One goes over setting up an admin password and modifying the secure boot menu, while the other allows you to… save and exit the BIOS. Z170GT7 - Software Software TL;DR While the included software package may be lacking in quantity it more than makes up for it with quality. To be blunt this is a software package that is extremely potent and does not feel like a last minute addition. The fact that it allows owners to easily control the built in LED lighting controller is just icing on the cake. Included Software Consumers interested in massive amounts of 'free' software included with their next motherboard purchase will not be overly impressed with Biostar has included. The same holds true of consumers who actually want bloatware to be preinstalled along with the necessary drivers. On the other hand, if you just want a low overhead program that gets the job done then this package is sure to please… as it even offers things you may have not even known you wanted. Also on the positive side Biostar does not expect you to install numerous packages instead Biostar has rolled all their various applications into one centralized app. Aptly named Biostar Racing GT, this app is your one stop shop for viewing and controlling many of the advanced features include with this motherboard. To be precise this application is basically made up of five smaller apps, each one which is focused with laser intensity on one small area of features. The first tab is the System Information viewer application and as the name suggests it gives you a very detailed over-view of your system. While this may not sound all that important it can come in handy when troubleshooting an issue -as the first step in TS is to ensure the system is actually recognizing the misbehaving hardware – so as to determine if the problem is indeed hardware or software based. The Smart Ear tab allows you to adjust the volume output as well as the gain. Once again this is an app that really will not appeal to many people, and certainly not if it was its own application that needed to be installed, but when you do need a quick way of over-riding the OS audio settings it just may come in handy to say the least. The third tab is easily the most important and the most value added feature of this software package. What the Vivid LED DJ allows you to do is not only control the integrated LEDs on the motherboard but also any LED strips attached the 5050 Led header on the motherboard. More impressive still is you can not only choose a very specific color combination but Biostar has include some very nice presets… that can all be customized depending on which mode (normal, Eco, or Sport) the system is in. This too is very nice addition as with just a quick glance you can tell if the system is overclocked or not. Better still is you can choose which mode the system will be in via pressing one of those three big icons at the top – further making it even more useful. The H/W Monitor tab gives you a real time over-view of temperature, FAN sped, and voltages. It also allows you to control the fans in a fairly sophisticated manner so that noise is minimized while still keeping CPU temperatures in check. Overall a very nice little software package that has almost no filler. We wish more companies would take the 'less is more' approach and stop bloating out their software package with nearly useless applications. Z170GT7 - Testing Methodology To test the abilities of a given motherboard, we have broken down testing into multiple categories: 1) System Benchmarks, which consists of test that stress the entire system in synthetic and real world scenarios. 2) Synthetic Game Benchmarks which mainly stress the GPU and CPU combination, and consists of various games builtin benchmark. 3) Real World In-Game Benchmarks which consist of timed real world game play results using FRAPS and multiple modern PC games. The full list of the applications that we utilized in our benchmarking suite: Cinebench R15 3DMark 8 WinRAR x264 HD Benchmark AIDA64 Sleeping Dogs Metro: Last Light BioShock Infinite Crysis 3 Batman: Arkham Origins Tomb Raider Battliefield 4 Assassins Creed: Black Flag Call of Duty: Ghosts System Components Used: Processor: Intel 6700K Memory: 32GB Corsair Vengegance DDR4-3333 Cooling: Corsair H110i AIO Video Card(s): NIVIDIA GTX 980 SSD: 1x Seagate 600 Pro 400GB, 2x Intel DC S3700 800GB SSDs. Power Supply: Corsair AX860i Monitor: Dell U2714H OS: Windows 8.1 Z170GT7 - CINEBENCH, 3DMark, winRAR and X264 Benchmarks CINEBENCH R15 CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. 3DMark Fire Strike Benchmark The latest version of 3DMark from FutureMark includes numerous benchmarks including one they have dubbed "Fire Strike" and we have used the 'Extreme' settings. Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. Fire Strike features real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today. winRAR Benchmark WinRAR is a popular file compression and decompression tool that also happens to be multi-threaded application. While it does have a built in benchmark we have opted to use a custom 3GB test consisting of small, medium, and moderately large files. We then time how long it takes to compress the files into one .rar file with all WinRAR settings left at their defaults. x264 HD Benchmark x264 HD Benchmark is a benchmark that allows you to measure how fast your PC can encode a 1080p video clip into a high quality x264 video file. It allows for an easy comparison because everyone running it will use the same video clip and software. The x264 video encoder has a fairly accurate internal benchmark (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encode and it also uses multi-core processors very efficiently. All these factors make the x264 HD Benchmark an ideal tool in comparing the video encoding performance of different processors and systems. Z170GT7 - Synthetic Game Benchmarks Sleeping Dogs Gaming Benchmark Sleeping Dogs is an open world action-adventure video game developed by United Front Games in conjunction with Square Enix London Studios and published by Square Enix, released on August 2012. Sleeping Dogs has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are the Extreme display settings and a resolution of 1920x1080. World density is set to extreme, Vsync disabled, high-res textures are enabled, and shadow resolution, shadow filtering, screen space ambient occlusion, and quality motion blur are all set to high. Metro: Last Light Gaming Benchmark Metro: Last Light is a DX11 first-person shooter video game developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games and published by Deep Silver released in May 2013. The game is set in a post-apocalyptic world and features action-oriented gameplay. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play. Scene D6 was used and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Very High for quality and a resolution of 1920x1080. DirectX 11 is used, texture filtering is set to AF 16X, motion blur is normal, SSA turned on and tessellation is set to high. BioShock Infinite Gaming Benchmark BioShock Infinite is a first-person shooter video game developed by Irrational Games, and published by 2K Games released in March 2013. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are UltraDX11 (option 3) for quality and a resolution of 1920x1800. Tomb Raider Gaming Benchmark Tomb Raider is an action-adventure video game published by Square Enix and released in March 2013. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Ultimate default settings for quality (sans 'hair' shading), VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Batman Arkham Origins Gaming Benchmark Batman: AO is an action-adventure video game published by Warner Bros and released in October 2013. The game has a benchmark component to it that mimics game play and an average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Anti-Aliasing is set to TXAA (high). Motion blur, Distortion, Lens Flare, Light Shafts, and Reflections set to On. Geometry, Dynamic Shadows, Depth of Field, and Ambient Occlusion all set to DX11 Enhanced. Z170GT7 - Real World In-Game Benchmarks Battlefield 4 Gaming Benchmark Battlefield 4 is first person shooter video game, published by EA Digital Illusions CE and released in October 2013. Unlike most, this games does not include an in-game benchmark. This makes it perfect for more real world gaming tests. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded the first 90 seconds of the single player Tashgar level. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are Ultra pre-set for quality, with VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Assassins Creed: Black Flag Gaming Benchmark Assassins Creed: BF is an historical action-adventure video game, published by published by Ubisoft and released in October 2013. Like Battlefield 4 this games does not include an in-game benchmark. This makes it perfect for more real world gaming testing. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded a custom run through Havana’s marketplace. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Environment quality was set to very high, Anti-Aliasing was set to TXAA 4X, Ambient Occlusion set to HBAO+ (high), Shadow Quality set to ‘soft shadow’, Motion Blur and Volumetric Blur both set to On. Texture Quality, Reflection Quality, and God Rays all set to High. Call of Duty: Ghosts Gaming Benchmark Call of Duty: Ghosts is a first person shooter video game, published by Activision and released in October 2013. Since it does not include an in-game benchmark, it perfect for more real world gaming testing. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded 90 seconds of the single player ‘Ghost Stories' level, starting as soon as we resume control of Logan back on Earth. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Image Quality, Textures Resolution, Normal Map Resolution, and Specular Map Resolution set to Extra. Screen Space Ambient Occlusion and Antistrophic Filtering set to High, Terrain Detail set to ON, and Anti-Aliasing was set to TXAA 4X. With Shadows, Distortion, Motion Blue and Depth of Field set to Yes. Crysis 3 Gaming Benchmark Crysis 3 is a first person shooter video game, published by Electronic Arts and released in February 2013. While older than some of the others it is one of the most visually stunning games released to date and puts a lot of demands on the GPU. This makes it perfect for more real world gaming testing. To obtain repeatable results we have used FRAPs and recorded 90 seconds of the single player ‘Post Human' level, starting as soon as soon as prophet is handed a Hammer II pistol by Psycho. An average of four runs was taken. The settings used in the testing below are highest settings for quality, VSync disabled and a resolution of 1920x1080. Texture Quality, Game Effects, Objects, Particles, Post Processing, Shadows, Shading, Water, and System Specs all set to Very High. Motion Blur was set to High and Lens Flare was set to On. Anti-Aliasing was set to MSAA 8X and Antistrophic Filtering was set to 16x. Z170GT7 - Overclocking Let's start with this motherboards "built in" overclocking abilities as that is the easiest to explain. Basically it doesn’t. What the 'sport' option will do to a 6700K is make the all core maximum CPU ratio be the same as the single core's max ratio. That really is not saying all that much and most other manufactures do not consider this to be 'overclocking' and rather consider it to be standard feature offered in the BIOS. In fact, many other motherboards do this by default and if you so choose you can change this default back to Intel's standard. All in all, if you are interested in a motherboard that will automatically and -significantly - boost performance this is not the motherboard for you. On the positive side the combination of a decent BIOS with a decent power subsystem combined with a rather low(ish) demanding processor means that hitting 4.5 to 4.6Ghz rather easy. Now with that being said the lack of an all-digital VRM controller means that voltages will fluctuate a bit more than they otherwise would on some other similarly priced models (for example the ASUS Z170-A and Pro models use all digital VRM controller). This will make getting the absolute most out of your CPU a bit more difficult. For consumers interested in budget boards we doubt that the resulting difference will mean all that much as it will take good cooling to keep from hitting a thermal wall at even 4.6Ghz! Rather most will find 4.5Ghz to be a good safe goal to aim for as it will not require the use of expensive CPU coolers to keep the CPU below its limits - but will still give a nice boost to overall performance! The same also holds true of the BIOS. While it is a good and easy to use UI Biostar really needs to add in a fully populated 'Favorites' page as having to manually navigate to one section to change one setting, then manually go to another for another setting… gets old very, very fast. Last but not least is while this board technically only supports DD4-3200 speeds on the RAM, actually going higher than this artificial limitation is a relatively straightforward affair. In our case we found the simplest expedient was to use the base clock options this generation brings to the table and opt for a higher base clock but a lower RAM ratio. Now with that said we would not want to use this motherboard for pushing uber expensive DDR4 kits to their limits… as trying to hit DDR4-4000 for example would get tedious to say the least. Of course this is really not that big an issue as this is an inexpensive motherboard and few owners will be interested in spending that much money on RAM! More importantly, what this motherboard does offer is darn decent and a bit better than average for most budget ordinary Z170 motherboards. Z170GT7 - Onboard Audio Performance To test a motherboard's onboard audio solution's abilities we have used RightMark Audio Analyzer. Obviously this integrated sound solution is not as powerful as some we have seen, but for most it still is more than good enough. Basically we doubt most consumers interested in sub-200 (let alone sub-150) USD motherboards will have access to monitor grade headphones that will be able to highlight the difference in abilities between this motherboard and what say a MSI X99A Gaming Carbon Pro is capable of. Z170GT7 - USB 3.1 Performance For the USB 3.1 device we have used an Asus USB 3.1 enclosure. This enclosure uses a pair of Samsung 840 EVO 250GB drives in a simple RAID 0 configuration, and is powered by an ASMedia ASM1352R chipset. To help replicate worse case real world scenarios we have devised a real world test consisting of copying to and from the devices, using MS RichCopy and logging the performance of the drive. This test consists of copying to and from a folder containing hundreds of subfolders containing files varying in length for a grand total of 20 GB total. While these results are slightly inferior to what Intel USB 3.1 based motherboard have to offer they are still darn decent, and will more than enough to bottleneck the average consumer's external (and probably internal) storage device. Z170GT7 - TL;DRs We know that not everyone has time to sit down and read a 8 - 10 thousand word review on one item. So in order to make things as clear and concise as possible we have not only including included "Too Long; Didn't Read" synopsis for the main section. To really get a good idea of the pros and cons we recommend reading the entire review, but this page and the Score Card section will give you a good overview of the 'board. A Closer Look While the Biostar Racing Z170GT7 is certainly not perfect, and could do with more USB ports, the overall layout and design of this motherboard gets more right than it does wrong. The racing motif backstopped by LEDs and LED controller certainly does look better than what is usually found in this price range, the power subsystem is darn decent. The extra features like dual BIOS – with a physical switch- is also darn nice. The only consumers who may feel differently are those looking for advanced RAM overclocking abilities (this board tops out at DDR4-3200 and uses as single phase power design for the DIMMS), those looking for a high end sound solution, or those interested in a motherboard covered in plastic fascia. BIOS If there was one area that Biostar was not known for excelling in it was there BIOS. That is not to say previous generations had bad BIOS or a poor interface, but they were certainly behind the curve when compared to ASUS, GIGABYTE, or MSI. Thankfully, the ultra-conservative managers at Biostar have taken all the constructive criticism to heart and polished and refined the Biostar Racing Z170GT7 BIOS to a razor edge. Put simply this new BIOS layout and design is just as good as what can be found from the more well-known companies…. and in many cases it is better. Simply marvelous! Software While the included software package may be lacking in quantity it more than makes up for it with quality. To be blunt this is a software package that is extremely potent and does not feel like a last minute addition. The fact that it allows owners to easily control the built in LED lighting controller is just icing on the cake. System Performance The lack of real automatic overclocking abilities does hinder this motherboard somewhat, but overall it still makes a good foundation upon which to build a powerful system… without breaking the bank in the process. Gaming Performance This motherboard is a very good option for single GPU configurations as long as you are willing to manually overclock your system even more performance can be found from the typical 6700K. Overclocking Its combination of a decent (but not great) power subsystem combined with decent (but not great) RAM support should more than satisfy the average consumer; however, if you wish to push your CPU to the very limits this board may not be a great match. Z170GT7 - Score Card Packaging & Accessories: 3.5 out of 5 If it was not for the include LED 5050 strip light this would be a solid 2.5 out 5; however, including a LED controller and LED light strip is impressive given the frugal asking price of this motherboard. To us that does boost the score by a point and place it in the slightly above average category. Layout & Aesthetics: 13 out of 15 We are not overly enamored with LED lighting and prefer a nice clean look to our builds, nonetheless this motherboard is darn good looking, is easy to work with and there is almost no missteps on the layout side of the equation. Once again we consider this board to be above average in this category. Build Quality & Warranty: 15.5 out of 20 On the one hand this motherboard is not precisely built like a tank, nor does it come with anything beyond an industry standard warranty. On the other Biostar does have a good reputation in the industry for standing behind their products. More importantly this motherboard is built better than most in its price range. BIOS & Software: 16 out of 20 The BIOS certainly is unique in its layout and for the most part this added quirkiness just adds to the overall appeal of it. With that being said Biostar may have made great strides in the BIOS department but a fully populate Favorites shortcut section is sorely missed. This does make the BIOS a touch harder to work with and we would have docked it even more points if not for the fact that the included software is darn decent and bloat free. Special Features: 16 out 20 The combination of integrated LEDs, a dedicated LED header for adding more LEDs, and an easy to use controller for said LEDs is a darn impressive given the price range of this board. On the other hand, this board lacks SLI and CrossFire certification and really only has two x8 or greater PCIe slots. All the other features (good if not great onboard sound, USB 3.1, M.2 x4 port, etc) are all pretty standard fare these days. As such it is slightly above average but you may feel differently. You may consider the LED controller to be amazing and a true homerun. Value: 19 out 20 This motherboard is best described as Jack of All Trades motherboard in that it may not be the absolute best in anyone category but when combined the end result is darn impressive. For most consumers this motherboard is going to be a great value and it is only audiophiles, storage enthusiast, and overclocking enthusiasts that will feel it is a little lacking. OF course, those selfsame consumers will find darn near any motherboard in this price range lacking. Overall this board is a great value for its asking price. Final Score: 84 out of 100 Z170GT7 - Closing Statement Usually in the sub 150-dollar price range people can expect to get a rock bottom, 'entry level' motherboard that has as many corners cut as possible so as to hit the rather low asking price. Usually this corner cutting does not matter all that much but certain lowered expectations usually have to be taken into account. Sometimes however there is a diamond in the rough which can not only take on all comers in its own price bracket but can also be favorably compared to more expensive options. Basically when looking at such inexpensive motherboards most are going to be cheap but with some careful attention to details consumers can sometimes find one that may not cost all that much but is anything but a 'cheap' motherboard. The GT7 really is one such example as it proves the average buyer does not need to spend a fortune to get a solid motherboard with a good feature set. Yes compromises have been made, but this motherboard has a darn good mix of features that are well beyond what you will usually find in this price range. This motherboard may not have as many value added features as say $200 motherboards, but what it does offer is well executed and are in excess of what is usually found on sub $150 priced motherboards. Features such as not only offering dual BIOS chips and a physical switch but actually taking things to the next level and using sockets for the BIOS chips. Trust us when we say that this one feature alone can make all the difference between an expensive RMA and a simple trip to a depot to pick-up a 'good' chip. More importantly this piece of mind is darn hard to find on anything but premium priced motherboards. The same holds true of the onboard diagnostic panel and onboard power and reset buttons. While these are more touch-sensitive than we would like the very fact this inexpensive motherboard has them is a step up from the average entry level motherboard. This however is only the thin edge of the wedge as Biostar has also included a surprisingly good BIOS with decent RAM abilities. All of which add up to a surprisingly capable motherboard. Now with all that said there are a few areas that are touch less than optimal, and may turn some consumers off. For instance, this motherboard is lacking in the number of USB ports on the rear IO area with zero USB 2.0 included. The rear IO should have enough for most consumers, but some may feel underwhelmed. The same holds true of the onboard sound solution. While it is indeed electronically separated from the rest of the motherboard, and while yes the onboard controller does have its own EMI shield, the use of the lower performance Realtek ALC898 instead of 1150 and less than audiophile grade op-amps is a touch disappointing. It should be good enough for most, but some will find it a bit underwhelming. On the positive side this motherboard does have an ace up its sleeve in the form of not only a very good onboard LED lighting controller, but actually comes with an LED light strip! That too is well beyond what consumers can expect to usually find in this price range. Overall this motherboard certainly will not win any extreme overclocking records, nor will it be mistaken for a $350 (USD) 'Deluxe' motherboard, but we doubt many will ever guess its actual asking price. Instead most will guess it to be in the $175 -$180 (USD) range… and that is impressive to say the least considering it only cost about $140 (USD).

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