Question 1

Hi, is this motherboard compatible with sata HDD?
Because I see in google that it has only sata express port

Accepted Answer

Yes this board supports SATA hard drives.  If you look at the specifications tab on newegg's website, you will see the number of regular SATA ports.  I believe that the SATA express connections share bandwidth on the regular SATA ports so you'd lose some SATA connections if you were to hook up SATA express drives.

Question 2

Does this board support a full size graphics card such as a GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 980 4GB WINDFORCE 3X OC EDITION?

Accepted Answer

I'm pretty sure the board can support the full size card, although it may cover up one or two of the PCI slots. I think the real question would be does the case fit the card. You should be able to put this motherboard in a larger case that will support the full size card.

Question 3

Can I use a Samsung 960 EVO as a boot drive on this motherboard?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but I will warn you that the M.2 slot is very close to the cpu on this board. In order to use it for something longer than a wireless card (as in the case of the 960 EVO) you will need to either choose your CPU cooler carefully or get a PCIe extension cable and then find some other way to secure the M.2 card into the motherboard. If you have a liquid cooler like the corsair hydro you should be fine, but I have a Cooler Master Hyper 212 and an M.2 SSD will not fit into the slot at the same time as it is installed.

Question 4

Will this board take a M.2 PCI drive, or is it only SATA 3?

Accepted Answer

Okay, so I have had an ongoing conversation with Gigabyte about this...

It really looks like the UEFI doesn't report this correctly.  The only configuration options are SATA or NVME.  My Samsung drive (SM951) is AHCI so it only shows as SATA.  But!  Crystal Disk Mark shows it performing exactly as specs would indicate (~2250 MB/s) which is well outside the range of SATA.  So apparently the board/UEFI is still so new that it doesn't register my drive correctly (Gigabyte's nearly verbatim answer).  Since performance appears to be as it should, I am going to leave it alone.  My recommendation (and what I wish I had done) is to get an NVME drive.  From the options in UEFI I am thinking it will register just fine and show up as expected (plus it is faster).  I don't think Newegg sells the Samsung SM951 NVME, though...

Question 5

What is the wattage requirement of power supply for this board?

Accepted Answer

i am un able to find a listing for its tdp to be honest however it depends on your final build if your running more than one pcie card or other peripherals. honestly due to the power consumed by my i5 6600k id say run a minimum power supply of 430-500w and go up at least 100 watts per card u install i know it is a large margin but its healthier for the psu and the components

Question 6

Does this motherboard support a configuration with 1 or 3 sticks of ram?

Accepted Answer

I would imagine it should handle 1 or 3 sticks of memory.  You'll lose the functionality of dual channel if you run just one.  And you'll only have it on two modules if you use 3.  This should be pretty standard for boards that have 4 dimm slots.

Question 7

whats the max amount of ram?

Accepted Answer

I believe the max ram is 64gb.

Question 8

are there no digital audio ports for this board?  even my older cheaper boards had a plug-in extra with optical and coaxial digital inputs.

Accepted Answer

think about it this way the sound card onboard is actually the CPU as well so if you get an expansion card thats more power you get to the cpu and your games or whatever youll be doing and no spdif isnt a common standard

Question 9

Is the m.2 socket for a B or M key?

Accepted Answer

I believe it is an M-key.

Question 10

This board is only recognizing my Samsung SM951 AHCI as SATA3 and not PCIe. Any help on correcting that?

Accepted Answer

Update bios

Brand	GIGABYTE
Model	GA-Z170M-D3H (rev. 1.0)

CPU Socket Type	LGA 1151
CPU Type	Celeron / Core i3 / Core i5 / Core i7 / Intel Core 6th Gen (LGA 1151) / Pentium

Number of Memory Slots	4x288pin (DDR4)
Memory Standard	DDR4 3466(O.C.)/ 3400/ 3333/ 3300/ 3200/ 3000/ 2800/ 2666/ 2400/ 2133

PCI Express 3.0 x16	1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16) * For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4) (All of the PCI Express slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)
PCI Slots	2 x PCI Slots

Serial ATA (SATA)	6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
SATA Express	3 x SATA Express connectors
M.2	1 x M.2 Socket 3 connector

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GIGABYTE GA-Z170M-D3H (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

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Learn more about the GIGABYTE GA-Z170M-D3H (rev. 1.0)

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Audio Chipset	Realtek ALC892
Audio Channels	2/4/5.1/7.1-channel

LAN Chipset	Intel GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Max LAN Speed	1Gbps

Back I/O Ports	1 x HDMI / 1 x PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse Combo / 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 / 4 x USB 3.0
PS/2	1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
Video Ports	1 x DVI-D 1 x D-Sub
HDMI	1 x HDMI
RJ45	1 x RJ45
USB 3.0	4 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
USB 1.1/2.0	2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
Audio Ports	6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Side Speaker Out, Line In, Line Out, Mic In)

Onboard USB	2 x USB 3.0/2.0 headers 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
Other Connectors	1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector 1 x CPU fan header 3 x system fan headers 1 x front panel header 1 x front panel audio header 1 x S/PDIF Out header 1 x Trusted Platform Module (TPM) header 1 x Thunderbolt add-in card connector 1 x serial port header 1 x parallel port header 1 x Clear CMOS jumper

Form Factor	Micro ATX
Dimensions (W x L)	9.61" x 8.86"
Power Pin	24 Pin

Item#: 9SIA4REKC96034