Last week when Kaby Lake launched, Biostar announced its Racing Z270GT9 motherboard as the company’s lone Z270 board. Now, the company announced three additional boards to fill out its Z270 product line.
Below the Racing Z270GT9 is the Racing Z70GT8, which looks rather similar to its bigger brother. It has six PCI-E x16 slots that can support quad-SLI or quad-Crossfire multi-GPU configurations, but just two of these PCI-E x16 slots are connected to the motherboard’s PCH, and those ports support Intel’s new Optane SSD technology.
The most significant difference between the Z270GT9 and Z270GT8 is in their networking capabilities. Whereas the Z270GT9 has a 10Gbit NIC, the Z270GT8 just has an Intel i219v gigabit NIC.
The two lower-end boards, the Racing Z270GT6 and Racing Z270GT4, are limited to DDR4 RAM clocked at 3,200MHz and lower. All of the boards support Intel’s Optane storage technology, though.
All three of the new boards announced today have relatively high-end audio based on Realtek’s ALC1220 audio codec.
Similar to the Z270GT9, the Z270GT8 will be available, bundled with an Intel 600p 256GB M.2 SSD, for $329. If you opt for the bundle, the SSD will come pre-installed on the motherboard. The Racing Z270GT6 is available bundled with a Biostar G300 240GB SSD for $209. Biostar didn’t reveal how much these boards would cost outside of the bundles.
The Racing Z270GT4 is not offered in a bundle, but it will cost $129. There is no word on a release date.
| Model | RACING Z270GT8 | RACING Z270GT6 | RACING Z270GT4 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chipset | Intel Z270 | ||
| CPU Support | Intel Core i7 LGA 1151 ProcessorIntel Core i5 LGA 1151 ProcessorIntel Core i3 LGA 1151 ProcessorIntel Pentium LGA 1151 ProcessorIntel Celeron LGA 1151 ProcessorMaximum CPU TDP (Thermal Design Power) : 95Watt | ||
| Memory Support | -Support Dual Channel DDR4 3600(OC)/ 2400/ 2133/ 1866 MHz-4 x DDR4 DIMM Memory SlotMax. -Supports up to 64GB Memory | -Support Dual Channel DDR4 3200(OC)/ 2400/ 2133/ 1866 MHz-4 x DDR4 DIMM Memory SlotMax. -Supports up to 64GB Memory | -Support Dual Channel DDR4 3200(OC)/ 2400/ 2133/ 1866 MHz-4 x DDR4 DIMM Memory SlotMax. -Supports up to 64GB Memory |
| Expansion Slots | -4 x PCI-E x16 3.0 Slot(x16, x8, x4, x4)-2 x PCI-E x16 3.0 Slot(x4)(Intel Optane Technology ready) | -1 x PCI-E x16 3.0 Slot(x16)-2 x PCI-E x16 3.0 Slot(x4)(Intel Optane Technology ready)-4 x PCI-E x1 3.0 Slot | -2 x PCI-E x16 3.0 Slot(x16, x4)-2 x PCI-E x1 3.0 Slot |
| Storage | -6 x SATA3-2 x U.2 32Gb/s-1 x M.2 Key M 32Gb/s Connector (Intel Optane Memory ready) | -6 x SATA3-1 x U.2 32Gb/s-1 x M.2 Key M 32Gb/s Connector(Intel Optane Memory ready) | -6 x SATA3-1 x U.2 32Gb/s-1 x M.2 Key M 32Gb/s Connector(Intel Optane Memory ready) |
| USB | -1 x USB 3.1 Type-C Port-1 x USB 3.1 Port-4 x USB 3.0 Port-1 x USB 3.0 Header-2 x USB 2.0 Header | -1 x USB 3.0 Type-C Port-4 x USB 3.0 Port-1 x USB 3.0 Header-2 x USB 2.0 Port-2 x USB 2.0 Header | -1 x USB 3.0 Type-C Port-3 x USB 3.0 Port-1 x USB 3.0 Header-2 x USB 2.0 Port-2 x USB 2.0 Header |
| Network | Intel I219V - Gigabit Ethernet PHY | ||
| Audio | Realtek ALC1220 8-Channel Blu-ray AudioSupport Blu-ray AudioSupport HD AudioSupport Biostar Hi-Fi | ||
| MSRP | $329 With Intel 600p 256GB M.2 SSD | $209 With Biostar G300 Series 240GB SSD | $129 |
