Gigabyte GA-Z270X-Ultra Gaming LGA1151 Motherboard Review

Motherboards/Intel S1151 by stefan @ 2017-03-31

The GA-Z270X-Ultra Gaming board comes with quite a bit of features also found on the high-end offerings of Gigabyte with the same chipset such as: UEFI DualBIOS, support for Intel’s Thunderbolt 3 interface, Smart Fan 5 with Hybrid Fan Headers, the Swappable LED Overlay for more customization, RGB Fusion, USB DAC-UP 2 with adjustable voltage settings, support for Intel’s Optane technology, the latest Realtek ALC1220 CODEC with 120dB SNR HD Audio and many more.

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Product Features Part I

RGB FUSION - Set the Color that Matches Your Style

 

GIGABYTE's 200 series motherboards boast the most advanced LED system in the market today. With more customizability than ever and a convenient and intuitive UI thanks to the RGB Fusion App, you’ll have a blast making your GIGABYTE your own. LED enthusiasts now have even more options with the ability to customize multiple zones independently. For a more functional use, the bright and vibrant LEDs can be configured to display the PC’s temperature or load. For even more LED goodness RGBW strips are now supported for more true and vibrant whites.

 

Multi-Zone Light Show Design

 

• 16.8M RGB Colors

• 2 Programmable Sections

• 7 Different Lighting Effects

• 1 RGBW Light Strip Pin Header

• Accent LED with Interchangeable Overlay

• Advanced Mode for Extreme Customizability

 

GIGABYTE RGB Fusion APP

 

Don't just make your PC shine, make it a work of art that friends will envy. With the GIGABYTE RGB Fusion mobile app users can watch as they control the lighting within their gaming PC. This gives users ease of access as they try and adjust colors and speeds for different modes, all this can be done away from the keyboard and monitor of their PC.

 

Surround Lighting

 

Now offering more LED customizations than ever, users can truly adapt their PC to represent their lifestyle. With full RGB support and a redesigned RGB Fusion application, the user has complete control over the LEDs that surround the motherboard.

 

Swappable Overlay for Accent LED

 

GIGABYTE brings even more color and life to your system with an Accent LED Overlay. This overlay complements the RGB Fusion technology in GIGABYTE Motherboards adding more flare and style to your gaming machine. With the swappable overlay users can utilize different patterns and designs to make their system their own.

 

Supports RGBW Light Strips - Independently Programmable Onboard Pin Header for RGBW LED Strips

 

Not bright enough? You can install standard 12V external RGB or RGBW light strips on the RGBW pin header and control its color from the RGB Fusion software. With RGBW light strips that have a dedicated white color LED, you can have brighter and more vibrant colors.

 

No need to worry when choosing light strips as the GIGABYTE motherboards support a wide variety of RGBW light strips on the market thanks to the RGB Fusion software that allows users to redefine the pin location for the R/G/B Signal.

 

RGB Fusion (Advanced mode)

 

With the all new RGB Fusion software, users have access to different preset LED lighting configurations with choice of colors. You can even set the LEDs to synchronize with your favorite music or have them change colors to indicate the CPU temperature.

 

For true lighting experts there is an Advanced Mode, which can be fully customized by individual area with its own effects and color transitions, along with specific duration and transition times.

 

Once done, it’s simple to save and share your lighting profile with others.

 

Smart Fan 5

 

With Smart Fan 5 users can ensure that their gaming PC can maintain its performance while staying cool. Smart Fan 5 allows users to interchange their fan headers to reflect different thermal sensors at different locations on the motherboard. Not only that, with Smart Fan 5 more hybrid fan headers that support both PWM and Voltage mode fans have been introduced to make the motherboard more liquid cooling friendly.

 

All Hybrid Fan Pin Headers

 

• All Hybrid Fan Headers can automatically detect the type of cooling device whether it be fan or pump with different PWM or Voltage mode.

• Supports up to 2 amps with built-in overcurrent protection—a must for high-end high current fans.

 

Customize fan curves based on specific temperatures with the intuitive graphical UI.

 

Choose from different modes, Quiet to Full Speed, to match your system usage scenario. For each fan or pump, you can use the intuitive fan curve to define trigger thresholds and corresponding fan speeds.

 

Enhanced BIOS Interface

 

The enhanced BIOS interface also has the advanced features seen in the Smart Fan 5 UI, such as: the ability to set triggers based on different temperature sensors on the board, fan curve definition and the temperature interval setting, which can prevent fan rotation noise caused by sudden temperature change—all without having to load Windows.

 

ALC 1220 120dB SNR HD Audio

 

The ALC1220 is a high-performance multi-channel High Definition Audio Codec with up to 120dB SNR for crystal clear audio and features such as Smart Headphone Amp, 114dB SNR recording for precise voice chats and hardware decoding of DSD128, ensuring users get the best possible audio quality from their PC.

 

Smart Headphone Amp

 

Automatically detects impedance of your head-worn audio device, whether earbuds or high-end headphones to provide optimal audio dynamics—preventing issues such as low volume and distortion.

 

High-End Audio Capacitors

 

GIGABYTE Gaming motherboards use high-end Chemicon audio capacitors. These high quality capacitors help deliver high resolution and high fidelity audio to provide the most realistic sound effects for gamers.

 

USB DAC-UP 2- Adjustable Voltage USB Port with Dedicated Power Design

 

GIGABYTE improves upon USB DAC-UP technologies with USB DAC-UP 2.

 

USB DAC-UP 2 continues to provide clean, isolated and low-noise power while adding the ability to compensate for voltage drop.

Virtual reality pioneers and gamers alike can rest assured that their expensive accessories and peripherals will not encounter connectivity or power deficiency issues with the GIGABYTE USB DAC-UP 2. With Gaming Gear drawing large amounts of power and having firm specification requirements USB DAC-UP 2 is up for the challenge.

 

Immersive VR - Gaming Experience

 

> VR requires more performance than Full HD graphics for a steady 90FPS or greater.

> Only Gaming PCs can provide the best VR experience.

 

To create a seamless VR experience GIGABYTE Motherboards offer the best features to make your virtual reality feel like your actual reality. With technologies such as NVMe support via M.2 or U.2 and a one piece metal shielding to brace for heavier discrete graphics cards it's obvious that GIGABYTE has the tools you need to start your journey in VR. To set the mood GIGABYTE Motherboards include RGB Fusion to put you in the center of action.

 

Any copyrighted images or trademarks displayed are the property of their respective owners and are shown for reference purposes only. Reference herein does not constitute or imply affiliation or endorsement of Gigabyte products by the respective trademark owners. VR Gaming photo for reference only.

 

Intel® GbE LAN with cFosSpeed Internet Accelerator Networking

 

Intel® GbE LAN features cFosSpeed, a network traffic management application which helps to improve network latency and maintain low ping times to deliver better responsiveness in crowded LAN environments.

 

U.2 Onboard (NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4) - NVMe Performance for PCIe SSDs

 

The new Intel 750 series SSDs offer an incredible increase in performance over SATA drives. Using the NVMe protocol which takes advantage of the fast bandwidth of PCIe Gen3 x4 lanes (32 Gb/s), the drives are a clear advantage for users looking to boot their OS faster, load their games in a flash and access large files without waiting. By implementing the U.2 port onboard to support the 2.5” Intel 750 Series drive, GIGABYTE ensures that the users can benefit from the best performance.

 

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