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PAUL R.

PAUL R.

Joined on 09/15/04

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 2
Most Favorable Review

Great board with very tight DIMM slots

ASRock Z390 PHANTOM GAMING-ITX/AC LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel Z390 HDMI USB 3.1 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard
ASRock Z390 PHANTOM GAMING-ITX/AC LGA 1151 (300 Series) Intel Z390 HDMI USB 3.1 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Has all the features most people need, fast, easy, reliable. See other reviews for all the good points.

Cons: The reason I am writing this review is to point out a small problem to potential purchasers. Be mindful of the RAM you choose, specifically how thick the heat spreaders are on your memory sticks. The 2 x DDR4 DIMM Slots are extremely close together, and my purchased G.Skill's Trident Z memory was just too tight. I did manage to jam them in, and PC recognized them, but I would not recommend this method. The sticks pushed off each other like a "V", and they were putting real strain on the dimm slots, and it took an uncomfortable amount of force. To fix this, I opted to purchase G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series to replace the crazy thick Trident Z sticks, and while these are also thick, it was just enough difference to fit in these ram slots in the appropriate manner. Choosing ram without head spreaders, or removing the spreaders, or choosing a brand with really thin spreaders would also work. Having only build about 50 pc using ATX motherboards, it never even occurred to me that the spacing on ram slots could ever be a problem, so I wanted to point it out to help the next person. I am only deducting 1 egg for this.

Overall Review: I would definitely recommend this board for your intel ITX needs.

10/26/2018

Nice CPU

Intel Core i7 6th Gen - Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I76700K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530
Intel Core i7 6th Gen - Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80662I76700K Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 530

Pros: Replacing my oldest home PC with this gorgeous i7, and I couldn't be happier with this CPU and z170. Coming from a 7+year old Intel Core2 Duo E8500, pretty much anything would impress me. But this i7 runs fairly cool, is super fast, and has alot of room for growth if and when I decide to play around with OC. Honestly, I don't think too many people have needs to push this beyond its stock speeds. This thing is fast! It's current combo price of $350 is very fair. I ran it 24 hours without a GPU installed, and for everyday use, the integrated graphics (HD Graphics 530) work fine. Unless you're a gamer, Many people could skip the video card entirely!

Cons: Now that it's readily available, I cant think of any cons!

Overall Review: With z170 and this i7-6700K, you can build an amazing gaming PC today for < $1200 If you take a few components from your Old machines, like graphics card & mechanical 3.5 drives. No need to spend $3000 at a boutique PC builder, unless you've got money just laying around.