Final Thoughts
Having a mini-ITX motherboard is great as you can build an extremely small system with it that you can take with you to events and LAN parties. The thing about many mini-ITX motherboards is that they lack many of the features of full-size motherboards. With the Z170N-Gaming 5 Gigabyte was able to pack in quite a lot of features in a very small package!
Starting off with the gaming features since this board is part of Gigabyte’s Gaming line we have Killer E2200 gaming networking. This high-performance, adaptive gigabit Ethernet controller offers better online gaming and online media performance compared to standard solutions. The board has Realtek ALC1150 115dB SNR HD Audio and comes with the Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 software suite. This suite is a powerful audio platform offering premium audio quality, effects and features for gamers. Gigabyte has also added their PCI-Express metallic shielding to this board.
When it comes to storage you have a PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot, two SATA Express ports and a total of 6 SATA 6GB/s ports if you don’t use SATA Express. It is really nice to see a dedicated M.2 slot on this board. Gigabyte has Intel’s USB 3.1 controller, this is PCIe 3.0 x2 so you get up to 16 Gb/s of bandwidth. This is compared to the typical 10 Gb/s you get with PCIe 2.0 x2 controllers. The board has both Type-C and Type-A ports. At a friends house and don’t have a LAN connection? The board has 802.11ac wireless!
When it comes to overclocking and stability we were able to bring our Core i7-6700K up to 4.7 GHz stable, which is on par with all of the other Skylake motherboards we’ve tested. I was actually impressed with this as the board only has a 5-phase VRM. You could easily run a 24/7 overclock on this board.
After spending quite a long time with this board I really can’t find anything I can complain about. I mean the software and BIOS are nothing to write home about, but those are not major factors. This has to be one of the most feature-packed mini-ITX boards we’ve reviewed!
Right now you can pick up this board at our favorite online retailer for $149.99, which is not a bad price at all. Overall ThinkComputers gives the Gigabyte Z170N-Gaming 5 Mini-ITX Motherboard a 10 out of 10 score and our Recommended Award!
Pros:
– Killer E2200 WiFi
– Dedicated audio and Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 software suite
– PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 slot
– USB 3.1
– 802.11ac WiFi
– Good overclocking
Cons:
– None that I found
But how is the Wifi on it? I can see that you tested the LAN but what I’m really looking for is information on how good is the built-in wifi adapter.
I haven’t done any kind of testing of anything specific, but I was able to play Rocket League over the wi-fi in a busy hospital, so it can’t be terrible.
They’re marketing to a clueless audience. You can’t build a good gaming rig in most if not all ITX cases because they don’t have good enough airflow for mid to high end CPU and video cards. Then again a decent video card will be full height so the case at least has to accommodate that unless you get some kind of right angle riser board or cable involved, which means there would be enough space to stuff a 120mm fan on the side, cutting a hole for it if the case didn’t have a mount there already.
Besides the better than avg. integrated audio, this board makes more sense to me as a NAS or fileserver board, where you use the integrated video which otherwise is more of a waste of I/O panel space than a benefit, and stuff an SATA RAID card into the 16X PCIe slot, then underclock the CPU to reduce cooling and power consumption, EXCEPT the problem with this is that the board is bound to cost at least twice as much as other boards that are almost as capable for that purpose, and a multi-drive 3.5″ HDD capable case tends not to be ITX so the size reduction basically only takes away a few PCIe slots that could be used for any features the board lacked and still come in under the cost of the Z170N.
In the end I suspect that Gigabyte thinks they can make gamers pay more for less, that they don’t have any common sense or something, lol. However I wouldn’t mind this board for a HTPC if the video could do 4K @ 60Hz, but it can’t even do a lowly 30Hz:
Quote Gigabyte Product Page: “Integrated Graphics Processor-Intel® HD Graphics support:
1 x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920×1200@60 Hz
1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096×2160@24 Hz
* Support for HDMI 1.4 version.
are audio connections rca or 3,5mm jack input?
The USB 3.0 connector on the motherboard is placed in the wrong place. I ruined my connector once I attached my CPU cooler.
Node 304. 1050 Ti 4GB. SF450 PSU. One SSD. One HDD. Skylake i5. 16GB RAM. With this setup, you can literally build a shoebox for a grand and change that will run anything pre-2015 at 1080P with decent framerates. And the cooling will be pretty decent, too, since the CPU and GPU together won’t pull more than 140W combined and the total theoretical maximum power draw will be less than 250W. Hell, I’m planning this exact build for my birthday since my laptop’s measly 840M is long obsolete.
I LOL’d at NAS board. I have this board with i7 6700k OC’d to 4.6GHz, a GTX 1080 installed, in a silverstone RVZ01 case. CPU temp never exceeds 65C at gaming for hours.
You must be living under a rock or sumthing mate!
WHAT????????????????
Node 304 with a 1070 here. What the hell are you talking about, dude? With a Noctua U12 I never exceed 62°C in game.
Admit it, little child: you know jack squat about rig building. FFS, go back to playing on your Xbox One and leave gaming builds to adults: you’re pathetically embarassing…
Do not waste time with him, he probably owns a Vibox prebuilt PC or something of equally abysmal quality.
You’re an idiot.