The ASUS Z170-A Motherboard Review: The $165 Focal Point
by Ian Cutress on October 20, 2015 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Asus
- ATX
- Skylake
- Z170
BIOS
The system BIOS needs to perform a number of tasks. First, it needs to give access to the options that user needs, and actually implement those features when an option is changed. Secondly, the easier a user can access the options they want through a relevant interface, the better (aka ‘the user experience’). The motherboard industry has a handful of main players, a number of second tier players and several OEMs who all have to craft the BIOS into something their users want. On the enterprise side, as well as laptops or vertically integrated industries (health, finance, oil/gas), very little effort is made on the user experience side as the only person going into the BIOS should be a system administrator who should know what they are doing regardless of the interface. For the consumer market however, more users and system integrators have to go into the BIOS in order to enable various features on their builds either by virtue of bandwidth or there’s a special something that needs to be enabled which can’t be done through software (such as extreme memory profiles or NVMe).
This has led to several representations of what a ‘BIOS’ should be. (For clarification, even though these are UEFI/EFI graphical variants, BIOS is still the common term used by the manufacturers and support teams for any entry into the F2/Del firmware options on a modern PC.) At this point in history, most motherboard manufacturers have gone down the bimodal route, offering an easy and an advanced mode that caters to two main parts of the user spectrum based on experience. ASUS was one of the first companies to do this, and we’ve covered every iteration since.
For Z170, this iteration looks a lot like what we have seen in X99. The first front screen is EZ Mode, which contains a wealth of information. On the top left is the name of the motherboard, the BIOS version, the CPU installed, the current maximum speed of that CPU, the amount of DRAM installed, the speed of the DRAM, a graph of the current CPU temperature, the CPU voltage and the motherboard temperature. Underneath this is a per-slot breakdown of the memory installed, then an XMP button for memory modules that support it. There is also a breakdown per SATA port, although this does not extend to PCIe storage devices as of yet. The current fan speeds are in the bottom left, while next to it is a graph of the CPU fan profile. Selecting the QFan Control option underneath this gives the fan profile modifier:
All the fan headers support PWM and DC control, with each of the fan segments allowing for adjustments or predefined fan speeds. New for Z170 is the ‘Optimize All’ option, which performs automatic fan profile selection we had in the advanced section of the BIOS previously.
We still haven’t got a button to allow for the same fan profile to be applied across the board (such as full speed on all fans), but I've been told that it will come in a future update.
Also in the BIOS is the EZ Tuning Wizard that takes a user through the step-by-step overclocking or RAID selection options.
For the overclocking options, the BIOS will ask the user to select the type of overclock they want to focus on (daily computing vs. gaming/media) as well as the level of CPU cooling (stock cooler, tower cooler, water cooler, unknown). The combination of these two will give a recommended overclock, and an option to apply the change:
In this case we chose daily computing and a box cooler, and the system suggested a 7% boost to CPU speed and no change on the DDR4-2133 DRAM we had installed.
Beyond EZ Mode is the Advanced Mode, which in this case also has some minor tweaks to the Z170 platform but no significant changes.
At the top of the screen are the selection tabs, with the main window in the center, a hardware monitor on the right and an information banner at the bottom. From within Advanced Mode, a user can select a series of commands to be copied into the ‘My Favorites’ menu and choose to boot into this instead of EZ Mode:
For users looking to overclock, this will be pre-populated with ASUS-recommended overclocking options as shown above, which is new for Z170. These are normally found in the AI Tweaker menu.
There isn’t much more to see here than on previous ASUS Z97/X99 motherboards – a series of options to select CPU/DRAM/Cache frequencies, then voltages, then a sub-menu for power options, a sub-menu for DRAM options, a sub-menu for a ‘Tweaker’s Paradise’ and a further sub-menu for internal CPU power management. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
The Advanced Menu is also similar to previous models, with standard options for CPU core enabling, hyperthreading, SATA configurations, RAID, per-port USB control and the Onboard Devices Menu for per-controller adjustments.
For users wanting to enable SATA M.2 drives, or SATA Express, this Onboard Devices menu will be the place to come to ensure full-bandwidth is being required. For users wanting to implement any U.2 drives via an M.2 Hyper Kit, the PCH Storage Configuration Menu has the option to enable it:
This will also give another menu to enable NVMe.
ASUS has also added a HDD/SSD SMART reader, showing information on read errors and power cycles:
The Monitor tab at the top is for menu adjustments of the temperature sensors and fan controls. Again, this has been carried over from previous platforms.
If a FAN_EXT card is equipped to the board, these can be adjusted here also.
ASUS has made some small changes to the Tools menu:
Secure Erase has now moved to the channel motherboards having previously been an ASUS ROG-only option before. The EZ Flash 3 utility gets an update as well, enabling instant updates through a network connection to the latest BIOS versions.
Elsewhere in the Tools menu we have GPU Post which can give a direct breakdown of the PCIe devices installed in the system.
We are still missing a form of a ‘Board Explorer’ we see on MSI and ASRock motherboards that shows exactly what is detected at POST and what is not, which means that ASUS’ detection tools are more spread out than the others.
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Le Geek - Wednesday, October 21, 2015 - link
I believe you meant "front" USB 3.1 panel instead of "font" in the conclusion.AlexIsAlex - Thursday, October 22, 2015 - link
"Non UEFI POST Time": Could you clarify this a bit - do you mean if not booting using UEFI? If so, then why not? These days, I would have thought UEFI booting would be the more common case.The major delay I'm seeing booting with this board is between power-on and first text-on-screen. Not sure exactly what it's doing there, but it's a good few seconds of black before getting the info screen (or graphical logo, depending on configuration)
Arbie - Sunday, October 25, 2015 - link
It's amazing what a high-tech assembly of high-tech parts we can buy for $165.Anyway - please don't forget to credit Asus for their attention to fan control. I haven't checked the competition this time around but in the past Asus has been way, way ahead. This is one mobo function that reviewers *constantly* overlook and thereby undervalue, since they aren't building in a box. So Asus, who goes the extra mile and beyond, is rarely credited for doing so.
ymmv__ - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
I wish Anand Tech would use an editor to streamline Ian Cuttress' convoluted, badly written texts. This stuff is nigh unreadable.gw74 - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 - link
Sabertooth Z170 Mark 1 thoablevy - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 - link
Just finished a build with this board. For storage I used a Samsung 850 EVO SSD.for the operating system and a WD 1T hard drive. I loaded Wind 7 back on and updated to Win 10 with no problem. Loaded most of my wifes software and then it crashed. It crashed so hard I couldn't get to the BIOS! I finally found that by unplugging the SSD I could get into the BIOS. I turned the machine off and booted Into the BIOS. I noticed that the SSD was listed on the sata ports but not in the boot list. However if I went to the boot menu, the samsung drive was listed and I could boot to it. I tried a number of fixes including resetting the CMOS, updating the BIOS, reinstalling WIn 10, moving the SSD to another SATA port. No joy. Finally I spent some time on Google and found that others have run into this on previous ASUS MBs. I finally found that one of the people found that if you powered off and disconnected the power for 10-15 minutes the computer boots to the SSD. I have rebooted 3-4 times now with no problem. It's worth noting that the Samsung still doesn't show up in the boot list. Note also that I had a chat with a tech from Asus and while he made some suggestions about what to try, he was not aware of this fix. Maybe this post will get Asus to look into this issue and fix their bios.ghanz - Saturday, October 31, 2015 - link
Try enabling Sata hot plug in the bios.And when you manage to boot into windows, disable Intel RST link power management.
Some SSDs have compatibility issues on certain platforms & configurations if power saving options are enabled.
ablevy - Monday, November 2, 2015 - link
After loading a new bios, the SSD showed up on the advanced page as one of the drives in the boot list and I could move it to the top. Since then no problems with booting from the SSD.Thanks
ablevy - Saturday, November 7, 2015 - link
I spent some time exploring overclocking and found that the latest UEFI is buggy. For example trying to return to default fails under all conditions I have tried, including shorting the CMOS as Asus recommends or removing the battery. Exiting from the UEFI sets Autotune on even when you exit from the "default" and you end up in the "optimized default". A second issue I had with this board is "black screens" when the system is idle which don't respond to the keyboard or mouse. I finally noticed that the keyboard was actually off and realized tha the power option to selectively turn off the USB ports was selected. Turning off this option solved part of the "Black Screen" problem. However I still suffered from occaisonal "black screens". I have now turned off all power options and for about the last 24 hours of constant operation haven't had any "black screens". My recommendation for anyone building this system is to install Win 7 and wait a few months before installing Win 10. In my opinion the UEFI is not ready for prime time.ablevy - Wednesday, November 18, 2015 - link
I have continued to work with the machine and the "black screen" issue has not reappeared. However a new stability problem has appeared. Under some circumstances the USB ports fail to recognize the Apple iPhone. I have not isolated why, but the resulting symptoms are very reproducible. First plugging the iphone into the computer does not result in a connection to the iphone. Second turning the computer off results in the screen and apparently Windows shutting down, but the power light doesn't shut off. There also seems to be intermittent disk action given that the disk light blinks. After a few minutes I shut the computer down by holding the power down. Restarting the computer leads to a long boot time before the Windows logo comes up, but Win 10 boots normally. However the iphone will not connect either through a USB 3.0 port or a 2.0 port. Windows will also not see a memory stick in either port. Turning the machine off results in the same behavior. Power light remains on, until held down for 8-10 seconds. If however you turn the power off at the power supply and leave it off for somewhere between 5 (less than 5 min won't work)) and 15 minutes then turn the power supply back on and reboot the computer will boot normally (relatively short boot time) and again recognizes the iphone. This behavior of requiring a power off is reminiscent of the original boot problem I had in which I had to turn off the power supply for the computer to see my SSD and boot from it. My best guess is that in addition to the problem Asus has with the USB ports that cause this issue there is a problem with the shutdown cycle and things are being saved that shouldn't be.Note that I'm currently using BIOS 1302 and that the previous BIOS version also exhibited the same issue.
This is a copy of the email I sent Asus today. I am still having difficulty recommending this mb based on the bios issues.