Question 1

Does the board come with wifi? If not, how do we get wifi?

Accepted Answer

No, most motherboards don't come with built-in wifi. You would need to get a wifi adapter under the Networking > Wireless Networking > Wireless Adapters section of this site. You can either get an internal card you mount to the motherboard or a USB one.

Question 2

Would this be a good board for a home server build with up to 6 SATA HDD's? It will run 24/7, but I also want it to be beefy to run whatever I want on it, such as encoding and online backups. Probably no RAID - keeping it simple. Just wondering if there's a useful feature I'm missing out on that may be on another Z170 board.

Accepted Answer

I believe this board would do the trick. I always trust Asus boards for all of my builds because of their top quality and performance. You can't go wrong with this one because it is a Z170 and it's for a decent price. It will definitely be more than capable of handling a home server and encode.

Question 3

Would this be compatible with the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 970, the Intel Core i7-4790K, and the CORSAIR RM1000i 1000W? I'm building my first computer and have no idea what i'm doing so any help is appreciated.

Accepted Answer

The Video card and PSU would work. BUT the I7-4790K is NOT compatible (It is a 4TH Generation)  CPU and is a Socket 1150.

The New Z170 Board requires a 6th I7-6xxx series.  (A 6th Generation) CPU and is Socket 1151.

So in essence the board will NOT work unless you buy a brand new 6th Gen Processor.

Question 4

What is the HDMI version on this board?

Accepted Answer

The specs on the ASUS site don't specify, but it does say:  
Integrated Graphics Processor- Intel® HD Graphics support 
Multi-VGA output support : HDMI/DVI/DVI-D/RGB ports 
- Supports HDMI with max. resolution 4096 x 2160 @ 24 Hz / 2560 x 1600 @ 60 Hz
- Supports DVI-D with max. resolution 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz
- Supports RGB with max. resolution 1920 x 1200 @ 60 Hz
Maximum shared memory of 1024 MB
Supports Intel® InTru™ 3D, Quick Sync Video, Clear Video HD Technology, Insider™
Supports up to 3 displays simultaneously

Question 5

Anyone using this board with the new Samsung 950 Pro m.2 SSD, or the Samsung SM951?  Wanting to utilize the PCIe function of the m.2, not m.2 SATA.

Accepted Answer

By the parts list specs its AHCI only versions of that drive.  MZVPV is nvme and MHVPV is the version that will work. Second digit is H on the AHCI model.. Realistically you wont know the difference in normal everyday use unless your encoding 100GB CAD or ADOBE files. The pcie lanes are locked into that port so no worries on that, that also why there is NO SLI. That stupid M.2 slot is stealing the pcie lanes.

Question 6

Does this motherboard have a USB 3.0 30 pin connector? If my case has USB 3.0 does it have a place to plug in?

Accepted Answer

Yes, it does include USB 3.0 30 pin connector. It is located near the RAM slots.

Question 7

Does this board support booting from an m.2 NVMe drive like a Samsung 950 Pro?

Accepted Answer

yep, it sure does

Question 8

Is this mother board Overclocking with 6700k? How can I make it work ?Thanks

Accepted Answer

I overclocked my 6600k so I don't see why not.  It also has a removable cmos chip in case of a power outage while doing a flash. Didn't know that till I already bought it so nice touch.

Question 9

Anybody know if you can pack two dual-width PCIE graphics cards (Like the EVGA GTX 780)?  Obviously will need appropriate power supply with 2 8-pin and 2 6-pin PCIE plus the 8-pin CPU connector.  Not sure they exist either.

Accepted Answer

It says it supports crossfire but says nothing of sli.

Regardless,  a dial slot gpu in the bottom slot at the very least would cover the bottom mb connections. If you're looking to sli I'd probably go with a different board.

Question 10

I'm interested in purchasing this board (ASUS Z170M-PLUS) IF it will actually support 64GB of RAM.  I was able to find the QVL on Asus' site to check if they have qualified any kits.  They list 3 kits that support 64GB and two kits that support 128GB.  However...the 64GB kits use eight (8) DIMMs and the 128GB kits use sixteen (16) DIMMs.  Since there are only four (4) DIMM sockets on the board, I called ASUS Tech Support and asked them what's up.  They said that the QVL tells you that if you bought any of these kits you could use all the memory...four (4) DIMMs at a time.  Hm...and I always though the QVL was to tell you what they actually tested all at once.  Is that understanding wrong?

BTW, the QVL does NOT list any kits using 16GB modules.

Accepted Answer

I am using only 8GB DIMMs, so can't confirm from experience, but all of the documentation that came with the board indicates that it supports 64GB simultaneously. The user guide explicitly says that each memory slot supports an unbuffered DIMM of up to 16GB. My best, educated guess is that you could stuff 64GB onto this board.

Questions & Answers