August 8, 2016
Featured Announcement, Motherboard, Reviews
Founded in 2006, Asus is celebrating 10 years of creating gaming-orientated enthusiast hardware through its Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand. And what better way to celebrate a 10-year anniversary than with a special edition of the company’s flagship motherboard? An enhanced version of the Rampage V Extreme, the Rampage V …
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June 17, 2016
Component, Featured Tech News, Motherboard
MSI's Godlike Gaming X99 motherboard first made an appearance mid last year with a striking design and a brazen claim to X99 motherboard superiority. Positioned against the ASUS Rampage V Extreme, now the Rampage V Edition 10, the Godlike Gaming motherboard is MSI's no holds barred X99 implementation. The refreshed …
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June 8, 2016
Component, Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
With Intel's new range of Broadwell-E enthusiast grade CPUs now available, including the 10-core Core i7 6950X, it's only fitting that motherboard vendors have refreshed ageing X99 portfolios. ASUS was quick off the mark releasing the X99-A II, X99-DELUXE II, Rampage V Edition 10 and ROG STRIX X99 Gaming. The …
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May 5, 2016
Component, Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
MSI has delivered a bold and uniquely styled range of gaming motherboards for the Z170 platform since it's launch, the XPower Gaming Titanium and Gaming M7 are two excellent examples that we've tested here at KitGuru. Yet those motherboards are relatively expensive for any buyer looking for an affordable entry …
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May 3, 2016
Component, Featured Announcement, Motherboard
Gigabyte’s Z170-Gaming K3 motherboard plays along nicely with that idea, costing just £95 which makes it the most affordable Gaming branded Z170 motherboard in the UK. Yet, you may still be pleasantly surprised by how much you get for your money with the Z170-Gaming K3 – few sacrifices have been made to reach such an aggressive price point.
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April 27, 2016
Component, Featured Announcement, Motherboard
There are an extraordinary number of Z170 motherboards currently available to buy, of which a substantial proportion of these directly target the growing PC Gaming market. While it is true that Gaming motherboards tend to be more expensive than non-Gaming counterparts, due to the extra design work and features implemented …
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April 8, 2016
Highlights-new, Motherboard
Retailing just under £110, MSI's Z170A SLI Plus is targeting Skylake users with an eye on SLI support for their graphics subsystem. With the Z170A SLI Plus motherboard's use of an Intel NIC and largely black colour scheme, MSI is aiming to perk the interest of mainstream users who may …
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March 14, 2016
Featured Announcement, Motherboard, Workstation
ASRock has really upped its game over the last few years. A decade ago, the company was most successful at the budget end of the market. But that image has long gone. Recently, we looked at a decidedly high-end X99 chipset board in the shape of the ASRock X99 WS-E/10G. …
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February 23, 2016
Featured Announcement, Motherboard
Hitting the mid-high end market hard is the Supermicro C7Z170-SQ. Taking inspiration from the past and adding modern components is sure to rock the competition with server grade components, high-speed M.2 and USB-C 3.1 included. Perched precariously at £210, the Supermicro C7Z170-SQ looks to be the motherboard that has been …
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February 17, 2016
Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
It seems like the AM3+ platform has been around forever, yet competitive value options on the CPU side mean that motherboard vendors are still battling for a slice of the pie with 970 and 990FX offerings. How do you make a chipset approaching its 5th birthday valid in 2016? Gigabyte …
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January 22, 2016
Featured Tech News, Motherboard, Workstation
Motherboards aimed at professional usage have quite different requirements to those aimed at consumer activities like gaming. For a start, whilst gamers are swiftly moving onto the Z170 chipset and Intel Skylake procesors, because quad-core is usually enough, workstations have generally stuck with X99 and Haswell E processors, due to …
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January 18, 2016
Featured Tech News, Motherboard
Right now, the mini-ITX scene is extremely popular for gamers and enthusiasts. A combined effort by component manufacturers has seen greater emphasis being put on innovative mini-ITX cases, short graphics cards, and more confined cooling solutions. And let's not forget the system builders deploying small form-factor (SFF) offerings such as …
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January 11, 2016
Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
Tackling the premium gaming market, MSI outfits the Z170A Gaming M7 with a number of features that will have eager buyers licking their lips. Alongside the eye-catching red and black colour scheme, hardware features include an enhanced audio system, two high-speed M.2 slots, and USB 3.1 Type-A and Type-C ports. …
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January 6, 2016
Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
The availability of multiplier-locked Skylake chips has sparked an even greater emphasis on the need for low-cost motherboards to partner with such processors. ASRock's affordable Z170 Extreme4 utilises the Z170 chipset's host of worthwhile features but minimises add-on components in order to maintain aggressive pricing. Aside from the Z170 chipset's …
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November 19, 2015
Featured Tech News, Motherboard
With Skylake chips still selling through retailers for a significantly greater price than Intel may have intended, the HEDT X99 platform quickly becomes an even more appealing option to power users. The six-core Haswell-E 5820K is faster than Skylake's flagship 6700K and is available for around £40 less. The next …
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November 4, 2015
Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
Asus' TUF series of motherboards takes a different approach towards the market when compared to the gaming, overclocking, and ‘standard' line-ups each vendors has in its product catalogue. Built primarily for reliable stability through enhanced thermal management and validated industrial design, can the Sabertooth Z170 Mark 1 live up to …
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October 16, 2015
Featured Announcement, Motherboard
It is almost undeniable that performance is the primary currency when purchasing components for a pixel-pushing gaming machine. But in the same way that enthusiasts may appreciate a fast car for its sleek lines and eye-catching paint job, appearance is another of the important parameters to gamers building a system …
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September 25, 2015
Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
MSI has made a bold move by giving the company's Z170 XPower motherboard a Titanium theme. What exactly does that mean? Well firstly the motherboard features a unique metallic styling which is sure to turn heads. And then there's the application of a sixteen phase power delivery system that makes …
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August 28, 2015
Featured Announcement, Motherboard
Gigabyte's Z170XP-SLI is aiming to tempt users looking for a motherboard that offers the Z170 platform's core features, but without requiring a significant cash outlay. In the Z170XP-SLI, Gigabyte offers one of the lowest cost boards to support SLI, while also retaining features such as USB 3.1, USB Type-C, and …
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August 13, 2015
Featured Tech News, Motherboard
Exploiting the Skylake CPUs for their allure to gamers, ASRock's Fatal1ty Z170 Gaming K6+ is a motherboard that targets the enthusiast gaming audience by offering a wide range of the bells and whistles they may desire. Can pumped-up audio, a Killer NIC, strong multi-GPU support, and high-speed storage interfaces persuade …
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August 5, 2015
Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
The launch of Intel's Skylake CPUs sees the introduction of a whole new platform based around the LGA 1151 socket. Making use of Intel's feature-healthy Z170 chipset, Asus is targeting gamers who value premium aesthetics and enhanced gaming-grade features with the Maximus VIII Hero. Will the Republic of Gamers (ROG) …
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June 23, 2015
Featured Tech News, Motherboard
When it comes to performance processors for the consumer market, Intel's Haswell-E chips are the fastest around. With such great performance potential are enthusiasts who want to squeeze every last bit of juice out of their system in order to break world records. That's where MSI's X99A XPOWER AC motherboard …
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June 19, 2015
Featured Tech News, Motherboard
MSI's mid-range Z97 motherboard is the first to market with on-board USB 3.1 in the connection's Type-C form. With the port providing transfer rates of up to 10Gbps and support for new reversible USB Type-C devices, can MSI's Z97A Gaming 6 prove itself as a good option for users wanting …
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June 16, 2015
Featured Announcement, Motherboard
Retrofitted with Gigabytes new pin-enhanced socket, the X99-Gaming 5P is targeting enthusiast gamers with an eye for multi-GPU configurations and an ear for high-quality audio hardware. Can the red and black-themed design appeal to gamers shopping for a mid-priced X99 motherboard? Branded as part of the G1 Gaming series, Gigabyte's …
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June 11, 2015
Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
The push for small yet powerful computers has been evident over the past few years. Many enthusiasts are no longer happy with an ATX motherboard and full tower chassis to house their single graphics card and pair of storage drives. Instead, budding aficionados are challenging themselves to create smaller and …
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March 18, 2015
Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
Guaranteed reliability and enhanced thermal performance are the crucial principles upon which Asus' TUF series motherboards are forged. A variety of military-grade certification tests, as well as five years' worth of warranty, tackle the ‘guaranteed' part of guaranteed reliability. The physical elements of reliability and thermal performance, however, are handled …
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March 16, 2015
Featured Announcement, Motherboard
ASRock's Fatal1ty series of motherboards caters for gaming enthusiasts and today we have the line-up's flagship in for review – the X99 Professional. With 4-card SLI and CrossFire support, Killer and Intel NICs, and enhanced audio, does ASRock's red-and-black Fatal1ty X99 Professional live up to its top-of-the-line status by carrying …
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February 27, 2015
Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
Longevity and reliability are particularly important purchasing decisions for a component such as a motherboard. Quite simply, your system's motherboard failing can be considered not too far off a personal disaster. Gigabyte aims to put those reliability concerns at ease with the 168 hour, server-level validation process used on its …
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February 11, 2015
Featured Announcement, Motherboard
ASRock is aiming to offer gamers an uncompromising set of features with its micro-ATX X99M Fatal1ty Killer motherboard. Doing so will require integration of the X99 chipset's features and the plentiful PCIe connectivity of Haswell-E CPUs. How does ASRock's gaming-series mATX offering stack up to the tough competition that is …
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January 23, 2015
Featured Tech Reviews, Motherboard
If you want to reduce the space taken up by your computer, without significant reduction in performance or functionality, opting for a micro ATX system has long been the most effective way of doing so. Can the performance of ATX parts be matched when the Gigabyte X99M-Gaming 5 motherboard's LGA 2011-3 …
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