ASUS Z170-PREMIUM: I am more suitable for playing games than ROG

The winter sale on Steam has just ended recently, and popular games have been greatly reduced in price. People just can't stop buying them. In order to have a better gaming experience, even if I have a tight wallet, I have to upgrade my PC configuration. Fortunately, ASUS has sent the latest PREMIUM series motherboard Z170-PREMIUM. As the top product of ASUS's Z170 series, the expected price is more than 3,000. For such a "magic weapon" that I can't afford normally, I must play with it well.

In terms of design, the Z170-PREMIUM is very similar to the previous ASUS flagship motherboard Z170-DELUXE. The white color scheme of the Z170-PREMIUM is very pleasing. The white heat sink armor on the motherboard looks very textured.

On this motherboard, we can see USB 3.1 Type-C and Thunderbolt 3. The motherboard I/O also includes USB 3.1 Type-A, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, HDMI, DisplayPort, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Intel I219V and I211-AT network, and the audio chip is a Realtek ALC1150. Similarly, in addition to the basic SATA 6.0Gbps, this Z170-PREMIUM can also see M.2, U.2 and SATA Express slots. In a nutshell: full, ASUS seems to have installed all the black technologies that can be used on this black and white board.

Z170-PREMUIM is equipped with many accessories and is very playable.

From a gaming perspective, players always focus on more intuitive hardware performance parameters such as CPU frequency, memory capacity, and graphics card performance, but often ignore the importance of a good motherboard. Even the best sports car cannot reach the highest speed on a country road. If the graphics card is compared to a sports car, then the motherboard is the road that carries the performance beast. As the most powerful motherboard in the Z170 series, what kind of surprises will the Z170-PREMIUM with many black technologies bring us?

Hyper Kit

Hyper Kit is an M.2 to U.2 adapter that allows gamers to take full advantage of the U.2 interface and freely modify the new generation of 2.5-inch NVM Express SSD. This technology uses the 32Gbit/s bandwidth of PCI Express 3.0 x4 to make SSD transfer speeds 3.5 times faster than traditional SSDs! And this technology supports any M.2 interface SSD between 30mm and full length 110mm. Excellent compatibility makes upgrades infinitely possible.

I remember that the motivation for buying my first SSD was for a game called FM (Football Manager). Different from traditional games with high requirements for graphics cards, the FM series is a game that sells a large database covering all major leagues in the world. The detailed database is used as a reference for recruitment data by many European clubs. Such a game that requires frequent reading and writing of the database has great requirements for the hard disk read and write speed and the CPU computing power. However, with the technical support of the Hyper Kit of Z170-PREMIUM, FM2015 running on the M.2 solid state drive is very smooth, and the gaming experience is much better. For example, the time required for computing simulation has been shortened from several minutes to less than 30 seconds, which is a significant improvement.

Turbo LAN

What online gamers hate most is the fluctuation of network delay. For example, in League of Legends, when a team battle is about to break out, the delay suddenly increases by thousands of seconds. I believe every player has experienced this more or less. Restarting, shutting down processes, and using accelerators cannot effectively reduce the delay.

Z170-PREMIUM has been specially optimized for Wi-Fi networks. First of all, it adopts a 3T3R dual-band 2.4/5GHz antenna design, supports 802.11ac, and Wi-Fi transmission speeds up to 1300Mb/s. In addition, the included software Turbo LAN can be used to make specific optimizations for special games, increase network transmission priority, and optimize the gaming experience. Turbo LAN uses cFosSpeed ​​traffic control technology, starting from packet priority, through an intuitive user interface, you can reduce latency without professional knowledge. If you are a fine-tuning expert, Turbo LAN also provides detailed settings to control the details, so as to enjoy an excellent gaming experience.

Vocal Master

As the saying goes, keep your eyes open and your ears alert. In recent years, not only have traditional gaming peripherals such as mouse, keyboard and controller developed rapidly, but major manufacturers have also launched a number of professional e-sports headsets. As an important part of the gaming experience, high-quality sound can help players make the best judgment on the details of every plant and tree in the game. For example, in the FPS masterpiece "Call of Duty 12: Black Ops 3", environmental noise reduction is very useful for listening to footsteps. The first-time judgment determines who shoots first. The powerful sound judgment advantage will continue to help you accumulate advantages and win.

The sound details of Z170-PREMIUM can be said to be perfect. The professional pre-rectification chip that reduces the background noise, the audio dividing line that ensures accurate simulation and greatly reduces multilateral interference, and the noise suppression circuit that reduces the startup noise of all audio outputs create a shocking sound effect that will make people completely immersed in the game world. In addition, Z170-PREMIUM also has its own audio amplifier to restore the most perfect sound for output devices such as headphones and speakers.

AI Suite

Are you fascinated by the desolate wasteland world and the sense of hitting the flesh in "Mad Max"? However, when the special effects are fully turned on, the noise and temperature generated by the full-speed operation of the components in the chassis can also be very annoying. When I played "Mad Max" for the first time, I wore headphones almost the entire time. While enjoying the high-definition image quality brought by excellent performance, I also have to endure the noise, high power consumption and other troubles that come with it.

ASUS AI Suite3 is a software that is used with ASUS motherboards and has very powerful whole-machine monitoring and control functions. This technology will dynamically optimize important aspects of the system according to real-time usage, thereby achieving excellent CPU performance, saving more electricity expenses, more stable digital power supply control, and a cool and quiet whole-machine environment. Now it can also tailor network and audio settings for various apps and usage environments. Like Turbo LAN, if you are a high-end player, you can also enhance various hardware through the intuitive fine-tuning panel; CPU overclocking, fan fine-tuning, network data priority setting, and optimized audio settings, etc., to make the game run smoother and the game sound more vivid.

Summarize

The last PREMIUM dates back to 2012. After many years, ASUS restarted PREMIUM and as soon as it was launched on the market, it surpassed DELUXE and became the current flagship of the Z170 series. It makes people sigh that ASUS motherboards have no highest, only higher!

In general, Z170-PREMIUM has good overclocking ability and a high-tech appearance. The white heat sink armor and black board are very domineering. There are many interfaces, even players who like to set up Raid or multiple graphics cards can use them all. There are also many black technologies added, such as wireless charging, Thunderbolt interface, NFC, 4K@60hz output, which is very playable.

Although it has not been officially launched yet, compared with the configuration of Beyond Deluxe, I believe the price will not be lower than 3000. However, this price is not too expensive for the CPU price of the new platform and the price of high-end graphics cards. Of course, faith is priceless!

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.