GIGABYTE's Z170X SOC Force unveiled, features a slick design, and more

The release of Intel's new processors along with the Z170X chipset is right around the corner, and now we're getting to see what GIGABYTE is preparing for us in the form of the Z170X SOC Force.

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GIGABYTE will have a slew of new boards arriving with the Z170X chipset, including: Z170X Gaming G1, Z170X Gaming 7, Z170X Gaming 5, Z170X Gaming 3, Z170X-UD7-TH, Z170X-UD5-TH, Z170X-UD3 and a Mini-ITX Z170X. The GIGABYTE Z170X SOC Force is going to be the flagship motherboard from the company, with an e-ATX design, and the usual orange and black color scheme with silver accents across the board.

GIGABYTE will be providing a 20 Digital Phase Power design with a Gen.4 IR Digital Controller and Gen.3 PoweIRstage ICs. Not only that, but GIGABYTE has provided high-end black capacitors, a Turbo B-Clock chip that provides the ability to push the BCLK frequency between 90-200MHz (instead of 100, 125 and 167MHz). The GIGABYTE Z170X SOC Force features four DDR4 DIMM slots supporting up to 64GB with speeds of up to 3400MHz.

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Expansion slot wise, we have four PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (x16/x8/x16/x8), three PCIe 3.0 x1 slots, and three M.2 slots. The three M.2 slots are an interesting take, as it shows that M.2 is truly the future thanks to its radically increased bandwidth. 8 x SATA III 6Gbps ports, three SATA Express ports, and plenty of USB ports, GbE, 7.1-channel audio, and a USB Type-C port.