choosing a z170 motherboard for non K i7 6700 processor

shamsul_arefin

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i am planning to buy a new pc,i have chosen 6700
but for motherboard i want to be little more forward as i want more ports to spare because i will upgrade after 5 years ,
current pc is also aged 5 years ,
i have chosen gigabyte z170x gaming 3,
is it too bad to chose this ? as my cpu dont have officially OC capability and I also never want to OC it.
i saw that its sound quality is better and provides lots of slots and usb type C etc...
And without processor overclocking , will i be able to use RAM at 2666/3000 mhz via intel XMP profile ?
 
Solution
D
A Z170 board will allow for XMP even with a non K CPU.

Using a Gigabyte Z170X UD5 with a 6700K and 16GB of GSkill TridentZ DDR4 3200 cas 14. I just enabled XMP and it works fine at the rated speeds. Make sure you update the new board to the latest BIOS. Most Z170 BIOS updates deal with memory compatibility since DDR4 is still a very new standard.
It's not a bad choice, but that board is meant for overclocking. Which is something you cannot do since you have a non-k chip. If you can spend a little bit more, then it would be the perfect pair.

If you do not want to overclock, consider dropping down to the B150 and H110 chipset motherboards. Or....you could get the z170 and have in case you want to upgrade to the 6700k soon. The choice is yours.
 

shamsul_arefin

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my intention is to have more featured motherboard for staying a long time.I focused on the other features of this motherboard
 


Then you should be good. I have the same motherboard, and it has done me wonders. Plus BIOS gives me a lot of control.

 

shamsul_arefin

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i am just fascinated by by this motherboard.and 5 years ago a wrong of choosing extremely cheap mobo
suffered me alot (no sata 3, no usb 3, no pci express x16) is still burning me, so i am kind of driven by the fact.
but what about the running ram at xmp ?

 

shamsul_arefin

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Oct 26, 2016
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Ok, suppose i buy a 3000mhz trident z ram, then will i be able to run at 3000mhz easily by choosing xmp profile and no more manual adjust ?(i know a little about it)
 
I use non k cpu's on z boards .. something like sli you may not get with a h or lesser board if you ever decide to go that way then find out oops not supported for NVidia sli and your back looking for another motherboard

my opinion is if I buy a board I want the full chipset features for if and when I ever need them


now '' And without processor overclocking , will i be able to use RAM at 2666/3000 mhz via intel XMP profile '' to gain them speed you may get a chip [cpu] that may not hold them speeds stable and a oc of the cpu could be needed

sklake been funny with memory

Memory Types DDR4-1866/2133, DDR3L-1333/1600 @ 1.35V

http://ark.intel.com/products/88196/Intel-Core-i7-6700-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_00-GHz

any speeds over that is considered a overclock
 


Yes, I believe default is 210mhz at the moment. But honestly, you will not notice a lot of difference. I overclocked mine to 2400mhz and it's good. What do you plan on doing?
 
D

Deleted member 217926

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A Z170 board will allow for XMP even with a non K CPU.

Using a Gigabyte Z170X UD5 with a 6700K and 16GB of GSkill TridentZ DDR4 3200 cas 14. I just enabled XMP and it works fine at the rated speeds. Make sure you update the new board to the latest BIOS. Most Z170 BIOS updates deal with memory compatibility since DDR4 is still a very new standard.
 
Solution

TJ Hooker

Titan
Ambassador

It's been that way with every CPU generation from Intel in recent memory, not just Skylake. They only list a base memory speed (typically a JEDEC standard speed), which is technically the supported memory speed, and like you said everything higher than that is an overclock.
 
ya , ok when you overclock memory you may have to overclock the cpu if any stability issue pop up its been that way for a long time as you say

higher memory can mean a bit more voltage or what not to the cpu for the memory controller to keep up

then luck of the draw on your cpu and how strong or weak the memory controller is

skylake reminds me too much of old 775 with it ddr2/3 split memory then look up guys that find there skylake boards will not set the xmp correctly or at all then look at all the bios updates the boards get for memory , I mean a fresh released platform and most got up to 10/12 bios updates all ready ??? ya.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Z170%20Extreme4/?cat=Download&os=BIOS

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/MAXIMUS-VIII-HERO/HelpDesk_Download/

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5481#bios

like how incompatable are they to start with ?? then it seem at first don't use xmp and set the memory manually cause it did not work right . [not hard to google ]

then one thing I do see are guy with issues of all sorts memory/ gpu/ stability so on after all was said and done they RMA;ed there skylake cpu's through intels rma and got a new cpu and all worked fine -0- issues after that ? then stuck with windows 10 as icing on that cake .. i'll pass

if I had to do a new build today I'd go right back to a haswell skylake don't impress me one bit

[all opinion]

good luck