The Z170 Pro Gaming/Aura LGA 1151 ATX Motherboard from ASUS combines all your internal components together to create a 6th-generation Intel-based system that is capable of supporting up to three dedicated graphics cards. The motherboard comes with an Intel Z170 chipset along with an LGA 1151 socket to support Intel's Core, Pentium, and Celeron processors. For personalizing the style of the motherboard, ASUS provides 3D designs so you can print custom parts with your 3D printer and lets you mount the 3D-printed part to where an M.2 drive would go. Additionally, it comes built with RGB LEDs that illuminate the insides of the computer with various color-changing effects.
The Z170 Pro Gaming/Aura motherboard is outfitted with four DDR4 DIMM slots that can hold up to 64GB of memory modules. For optical and storage drives, six SATA ports are on board. In addition, the motherboard is equipped with an M.2 socket 3 slot for your PCIe- or SATA-based SSD.
This motherboard provides native 4K support with an integrated Intel GPU via the DVI, VGA, DisplayPort, and HDMI ports. To render detailed 3D visuals, you may install dedicated graphics cards to the three PCIe 3.0 x16 slots and link them with AMD CrossFireX or NVIDIA SLI technology. There are also three PCIe 3.0/2.0 x1 slots to grant your system with extra capabilities. Moreover, you can listen to music or movies with 8-channel surround sound once you connect speakers to the motherboard's six audio jacks.
Other ports offered are four USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports as well as a single PS/2 port. Aside from these ports, the motherboard has two USB 3.1 ports that transfer data at 10 Gb/s speeds, and one of these ports sports a USB Type-C interface. Furthermore, networking is handled by the Gigabit Ethernet port.
- LANGuard: Provides electrostatically-guarded and surge-protected components (ESD Guards) for 1.9X-greater tolerance to static electricity and 2.5X-greater protection (up to 15KV) against surges
- GameFirst IV: Optimizes network traffic for faster, lag-free online gaming
- Stainless Steel Back I/O - last three times longer than typical panels
- Second-generation ASUS T-Topology - enables DDR4 memory overclocking to reach 3466 MHz bandwidths with all memory slots populated
- GPU Boost - accelerates the integrated GPU for improved graphics performance safely and easily via a user-friendly interface
- ESD Guards - provide two times greater electrostatic protection for extended component lifespan
- CPU Installation Tool - protection from socket-pin damage
- Q-Shield - protects your hands from nicks and cuts
- Q-Slot - the PCI slots feature large-winged clips so you can easily remove your PCI express cards
- Q-DIMM - one-sided clips can be pushed down for easily removing RAM modules
- Q-LED - four LEDs indicate problems with the CPU, memory, graphics card or boot device
- DRAM Over-current Protection - an additional resettable fuse protects the connection ports and DRAM against overcurrent and short-circuit damage
- FAN Xpert3 - offers five 4/3 pin (PWM/DC) combo fan connectors and five onboard thermal sensors to help ensure the best balance of cooling performance and low noise
- AI Suite 3 - one-stop control panel that lets you fine-tune almost every aspect of the motherboard
- USB 3.1 Boost - a utility that automatically accelerates USB 3.1 for sequential read/write speeds of up to 854.6/863.9 MB/s
- CrashFree BIOS 3 - lets you restore a PC to working order - even when it won't boot
- EZ Flash 3 - Update the latest BIOS via the internet from within the BIOS
- RAMCache - intelligently caches the critical files on a particular storage drive so your favorite games and apps launch at quicker speeds
- Sonic Radar II - a stealthy overlay that maps battlefield sounds so you can locate opponents and teammates at a glance