Pros: Supports dual monitor with onboard video

dual usb 3 and usb 2 headers

great uefi bios

Cons: only 2 usb 2 headers i could use more minor draw back

Pros: Somewhat faster than my ASUS Maximus VI i7-4770 with 16gb DRAM

Cons: Realtek audio failed after a couple of weeks. Will not post with Corsair 2660 DRAM 2x8gb (QVL) in A2 and B2 slots goes in continuous posting loop.

Other Thoughts: Used ASUS for many builds without any issues. Guess this one is a lemon. Will look for a better MB in a couple of months.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for taking the time to share your review. Sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience in regards to your memory. Which BIOS version are you currently operating on? What is the part number to the DIMM kits you are using? Are you using 1 or 2 pairs of DIMM kits? Try testing your motherboard with 1 RAM installed and insure stability and testing for potential defective RAM. Increase System Agent and I/O Voltage. Do it gradually 1.30V is max for both rails. For improved system stability please update you UEFI to verison 2101 located on our Online ASUS Help Desk: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH-Z170-S/HelpDesk_Download/. Download the BIOS and extract the file to a fat formatted usb stick. Then navigate in bios to the tools menu and use the EZflash utility to do the flash. Let your system update the firmware as needed. Do not power down even if your system sits with a blank screen for 10 minutes or so. If you have any further questions feel free to contact me at cl-nestor@asus.com using N160417558 as reference to this case.

Thank you for choosing ASUS!

Best Regards,
-Nestor
ASUS Customer Loyalty – US Support

Pros: White PCB
Fast
Easy setup EUFI/BIOS

Cons: Chipset fan not included
Status LEDs blocked by PCIe cards

Other Thoughts: Wanted to do a all white build and was the only board I could find that fit, luckily it was an Asus. Works great and allows my 6700k to run at 4.6 Ghz @ 1.325 volts and my memory to run at 2800 Mhz.

Pros: -Versatile Board with 1151 socket
-ASUS Easy to set up and tweak BIOS.
-M2 Slot

Cons: -M2 Slot is great unless you want to run RAID. M2 slot will run RAID with the Hyper Kit only. To get the controller to see the Samsung 950 Pro I installed the controller has to be in AHCI mode. No more RAID functionality with the onboard card.
-My board did not come with a speaker module. Not sure if that was an oversight when packing mine or not. Again that is petty and may not be the way it is supposed to be.

Other Thoughts: They do sell a Hyper Kit that will use that M2 slot to connect SSD Drives that will allow the onboard RAID Controller to work and get you that data redundancy I was looking for. But you cannot use a M2 Drive like the Samsung 950 in that scenario. I did not see that in any of the documentation prior to purchase. This configuration sacenario seemed to stump support at first. They were however diligent and did get me the answer to how to set this up, albeit not the configuration I was looking for. Rather than return the 950 and swap out for a SATA interface SSD and a Hyper Kit, I put a RAID Card in to take care of that requirement and kept the 950 Pro. Redundancy for data was more important than the throughput to access it. Speed from the 950 and safety in RAID. This delayed me getting to enjoy the build by a couple of days, but was not a deal breaker. Support was able to get me the answer without taking 4 hours. I had confidence in the person I was speaking to. That is always a plus. That outweighed the fact that I could not find this information prior to buying the hardware due to scant documentation. The fact that support did not find it easily either made me feel that at least it wasn't me. Been stable system with the configuration I ended up with. Hoping to enjoy for years to come. This is the first ASUS System Board that I have used for personal builds. Will not be my last.

Pros: • Certainly looks TUF

Cons: • Is it actually TUF?

Other Thoughts: This board fit my needs for price and features. Inadvertently created a black, white, and hint of brown build that looks quite stunning with the hood off.

If your OCD can't handle that they made a few headers brown, throw a Noctua CPU cooler on there and it will bring the whole thing together like it was meant to be.

Pros: Matches my X9 core snow. Got ram off QVL and it booted right up after i hit the mem ok button. No issues or problems so far

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Got this to go with my X9 snow. doing a custom water build called snow white

Pros: Looks great, nice price point, many features. Supposedly "military grade" components, 5 year warranties.

Cons: Lack of thermal armor, board felt flimsy and cheaply constructed. I ordered this along with an i5 6600K and Corsair Dominator Platinum memory that was from the QVL list for this board. System would start up then shut off repeatedly, no warning LED's or beep codes, wouldn't even bring up the BIOS page. I worked on some possible solutions myself for a couple of hours then I gave in and called ASUS customer support. After spending over an hour with ASUS customer support diagnosing and trying several different things to find the problem and a solution, the rep decided it was a bad board and I would need to send it in to be fixed. He also told me that the factory where they do the repairs to the boards was undergoing maintenance so it would be an additional 5 days plus however long it took to arrive, processed, diagnosed and fixed before they would send it back or replace it.

I need a computer now, not in 2-3 weeks. Returning this piece of junk for a full refund and I'm done with ASUS motherboards. Going back to EVGA or trying an MSI motherboard. I wanted to stick with the Sabertooth series because my Z77 Sabertooth has been an outstanding motherboard and these series of boards are TUF series meaning 5 year warranties and military grade components. Clearly ASUS has been cutting corners with the recent series of Sabertooths because I have seen a lot of negative reviews regarding the newer Sabertooth boards.

Other Thoughts: 5 eggs to Newegg's rep Melissa and her supervisor for giving me a satisfactory resolution to my problem and giving me the customer service I really appreciated after being so frustrated and disappointed in ASUS and this board. I will continue to shop here at Newegg for these reasons but my days dealing with ASUS are numbered. I've built a lot of computers in my time and 90% of the time I've used ASUS motherboards and it seems the ones I have bought (typically higher grade gaming boards) seem to always have some sort of problem with them, mostly with the board itself and not the software. ASUS has to be cutting corners or has a lack of quality control with their motherboards anymore it seems, at least in my personal experience.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for sharing your ASUS experience. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this issue has caused. If you’re having issues getting your system to POST to BIOS, double check each cable on the motherboard including your 24pin/8pin power plug connectors. Clear CMOS. Use one memory module only. Remove GPU and other devices from board. Just leave the CPU and plug you monitor into the motherboard directly to check for POST. Once the system POSTs, proceed with a firmware update for the latest microcode for your CPU. For more information for the UEFI version you need for your CPU please visit our ASUS Online Help Desk: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH-Z170-S/HelpDesk_Download/. If you need information on any technical related questions, feel free to contact me @cl-nestor@asus.com using N160386032 as reference to your case.

Thank you for choosing ASUS!

Best Regards,
-Nestor
ASUS Customer Loyalty – US Support

Pros: This board is very ez to understand, it has a nice bio setting for noob
It has 14 fan pin slots not sure way anyone need more then 8

Cons: the 1st board i got had 3 bad dimm sent it back to newegg

Other Thoughts: My spec.
I7 6700
RipJaw V 2400
MSI 980 gtx x2
Asus water cooling 105
M.2 samsung 950 pro -still wait on it to come in, for now 512 OCZ ssd
case stryker white from coolmaster

Pros: - BIOS is very straight forward and GUI based. EZ mode to get things done quick, Advanced mode for fine tuning
- Q Fan control works with both 4 pin (PWM), and 3 pin fans.
- Audio sounds great
- Gorgeous design

Cons: - None so far!! *knocks on wood*

Other Thoughts: Picked this up for $189 so definitely cannot complain about price vs features. The CPU installer and front panel connector tools are great additions that really make the build easier by cutting out the tedium. Documentation is well put together so that if you do get jammed or confused about something, you can easily find your answer. Paired this with a Core i5-6600K and it automatically enabled Turbo mode. There's enough tools in there to fine tune if you're planning on going the OC'ing route (I'm not, at least not yet). And man, it looks even better in person.

Pros: - Has all the features I wanted except wifi.
- Good price point. I paid $210.
- Since I'm not a gamer nor need high-speed graphics, I could use the CPU's built in graphics and save the cost of graphics adaptor. Running two 1920 x 1200 Dell displays with no problem.
- Nice looking. The white board is pretty unusual but looks nice.
- Good tech support. I was concerned about getting an ASUS MB because of reports of bad support. But I had a problem with the computer not starting after a large number of Windows updates. I used email support and got a prompt answer which handled the problem.
- Lots of facilities for OCing including a simple point and click feature on the BIOS setup for mild OCing. You just select Performance mode. It OC'ed 7% in my case. However, it later reported the OCing didn't work. For now I don't plan on OCing because the machine is fast enough.

Cons: - Lack of documentation. This MB has a lot of functionality, but it's not completely documented. This is my 3rd build and I have never used on board graphics before. I could have used a little help! I wanted to configure two displays. The manual does say there is a BIOS setting for multiple displays, but it stops there. I had to figure out the rest.
- Initial Windows install was a pain. The MB manual explains several ways to do the install. I ended up using a modified version of what was in the manual but it took over an hour of trial and error.
-
Example, I tried to connect two displays but it would only recognize them a duplicates, that is with each display showing the same content. While one could argue that I should have known to install the Intex driver which controls settings for the displays, I didn't and the MB docuone of them. Through trial and error I found that I had change a BIOS setting to multiple displays. Nothing about

Other Thoughts: - I would recommend this motherboard to others. For its price it's outstanding.
- My configuration:
- ASUS Sabertooth Z170 S MB
- Windows 7 Professional
- Intel i7-6700K CPU
- Samsung 850 Pro 256 GB SSD (boot drive)
- SanDisk Extreme Pro 2.5" 480GB SATA 6.0Gb/s SSD (data drive)
- Fractal Design Define R5 Black Window ATX Midtower Silent PC Computer Case
- EVGA 850 GQ PSU
- G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000) Intel X99 Platform Extreme Performance Memory Model F4-3000C15D-16GRK
- Noctua NH-U12S 120x120x25 ( NF-F12 PWM) SSO2-Bearing ( Self-stabilising oil-presure bearing ) CPU Cooler