The Gigabyte GA-Z170-Gaming K3 motherboard was built from scratch for the mainstream segment but this does not mean that it is not a capable product: it is packed with support for some of the latest technologies as USB 3.1, metallic shielding over the main PCI-E slot, a Gen3 x4 M.2 connector for installing additional storage, 2 SATA Express connector(plus two regular SATA 3), one ALC1150 HD Audio codec with built-in rear audio amplifier, a Killer E2200 Gigabit LAN adapter for minimizing in-game lag and more.

There is enough space between the top PCI-Express x16 slots in order to install dual-slot video cards in a CrossFire setup and if we do not use the SATA Express interface, we can consider that the board has a total of 6 SATA 3 ports available.

The board is not equipped with a Debug LED display or Power/Reset buttons as we have seen on more expensive models, but the configurable LED segments on the sides kind of make it up for it, since we are able to set it up on our choice by using the supplied Ambient LED software.

The Z170-Gaming K3 motherboard is also equipped with a fully-featured UEFI interface, which is quite easy to work with because of the accessible settings in the M.I.T. section. Since the Loadline Calibration settings are not as aggressive as we have seen with other boards, the voltage drops a bit during load so we needed to raise the values a bit further in order to attain stability at 4.6GHz.

As we have seen with other Gigabyte boards, the memory XMP support is great! The tested 3200MHz memory module, while it booted first at 3066MHz, we could be able to make it work at the desired frequency by altering a bit the System Agent voltage at 1V.

Kaby Lake support is also included with this board, thanks to the latest BIOS so no need to swap it when upgrading from the Skylake generation.

This specific model does also come with an affordable price of 122.85 Euros at the moment of the review!

Gigabyte Z170-Gaming K3 LGA1151 Motherboard is Recommended for:

We would like to thank again to GIGABYTE for making this review possible!