Early Verdict
Biostar's Hi-Fi H170Z3 board accepts both DDR3 and DDR4. The trade-off is that you're limited to two sticks. With 16GB kits common, I don't expect this to matter. Whatever tasks you assign to this board, expect it to sound good doing it, thanks to upgraded audio components. This board appears able to handle most tasks, and might be a good choice for a gaming HTPC. Though I believe it deserves an award on technical merit, we won't give it our approval at this time due to uncertain availability.
Pros
- +
Sturdy • Flexible RAM options • Good storage options, including M.2 and SATA Express • Good audio components
Cons
- -
BIOS glitch • Uncertain availability • Limited to two RAM sticks • No diagnostics • Unlabeled audio jacks
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Introduction And Specifications
Today marks the culmination of a month and a half of testing an initial batch of H170 motherboards. I started out thinking I would review just three boards, but I pushed it to five since three is not much of a sample of available boards and there were enough differences to make additional boards worthwhile. Finally, I had made some revisions to my test environment and procedures that allowed me to test boards more quickly.
The H170 is an upper-mainstream chipset, with features above those provided by the more basic H110 and B150 chipset boards. There will be additional connectivity options, and features like RAID support that are not present on lesser boards. They're still not for overclocking though, and are not the best choice if you'd like to run multiple graphics cards. If you'd like those features, you'll need to step up to the Z170 chipset.
In today's round-up we're taking a look at the Gaming H170T and the Hi-Fi H170Z3 from Biostar, ASRock's H170M Pro4, MSI's H170I PRO AC and the GA-H170-D3HP from Gigabyte.
Prices on these products vary considerably, and some in particular, like those from Biostar, are difficult to find; they are not available at Newegg, Amazon, SuperBiiz or NCIX (United States and Canada). I did not focus on a particular price range so much as on the chipset itself. Various boards do distinguish themselves with specific features, as we'll see.
H170 Motherboard Features Comparison
Let's go through them quickly so that we can get to the test results.
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