ASUS Z170-A Motherboard Review

Skylake is officially here! Since Skylake brings with it a brand new architecture and chipset that means we have a bunch of motherboards launching today! The biggest improvement on Z170 chipset is that you get 40% more high-speed I/O lanes (PCI-Express / USB 3.0) compared to Intel’s 9 Series chipsets. If you want the low-down on Intel’s Core i7-6700K processor be sure to check out our review, which went up earlier today. Our first Z170 motherboard review will be ASUS’s Z170-A, which is designed to bring you all of the features of the Z170 chipset, but at a very low cost. This motherboard has great hardware features like USB 3.1, SATA Express and M.2, but also great tuning options like auto-tuning, fan-tuning, and even the ability to use your mobile device as your keyboard and mouse. Let’s take a look and see what ASUS has in store for us with the Z170 chipset!

Special thanks to ASUS for providing us with the Z170-A motherboard to review.

Packaging
The ASUS Z170-A comes in nice retail package. On the front there is a photo of the motherboard and ASUS highlights their 5-way optimization and USB 3.1 support. This packaging is what you are going to see for ASUS’s Z170 mainstream line of motherboards.

ASUS Z170-A Motherboard

Flipping the box over to the back we have a full overview of the motherboard and it goes into detail on many of the different features of the board itself.

ASUS Z170-A Motherboard

Taking everything out of the box we have a very modest accessories package. Included we have 4 SATA cables, a very plain jane I/O shield, SLI connector, Q-connector for your front panel connections, CPU installation tool, user’s guide, and a software and driver CD.

ASUS Z170-A Motherboard

For a full unboxing and overview of the Z170-A motherboard be sure to check out our video below.

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