Intel 100 series motherboard review: a new round of arms race?

The new Skylake platform was officially launched on August 5, with the first release of Core i7-6700K, Core i5-6600K and the matching chipset Z170. The chipset of Intel motherboards was upgraded again, and then the members of the chipset were further expanded. H110, H170, and B150 were launched one after another, completely replacing the previous generation of products from entry-level to high-end in the consumer market. Faced with the ineffective upgrades in the past few times, will this upgrade of the 100 series motherboards bring about a qualitative change?

Compared with the previous generation 100 series motherboard, the functions and specifications have changed. From the parameters, it can be seen that Z170 has completely surpassed its predecessor Z97. The CPU has been upgraded, the interface has been changed from the original LGA1150 to LGA1151, the memory has been upgraded from DDR3 to DDR4, the Z170 chipset supports up to 20 PCI-E 3.0 buses, the DMI bus has been upgraded from the original DMI 2.0 to DMI 3.0, the rapid storage technology RST has been upgraded, and the native SATA Express interface is supported.

CPU upgrade
Compared with the 4th generation Core, the 6th generation Core has a 15% performance improvement at the same frequency. The interface has been changed from the original LGA1150 to LGA1151, supporting both DDR4 and DDR3L (low voltage), saving 60% energy compared to existing products, and is no longer compatible with the 4th/5th generation Core. If you change to a new CPU, you must replace the motherboard, which is consistent with Intel's usual practice.

Memory upgrade: DDR4
DDR4 is fully popularized and compatible with DDR3L. The voltage of DDR3L is 1.35V. There are three biggest differences between DDR4 and DDR3: 16-bit prefetch mechanism (DDR3 is 8-bit), the theoretical speed is twice that of DDR3 at the same core frequency; more reliable transmission specifications, data reliability is further improved; the operating voltage is reduced to 1.2V, which is more energy-efficient.

Z170 chipset supports up to 20 PCI-E 3.0 buses
Z97 has only 8 PCI-E 2.0 lanes, which can be split into x16, x8/x8 or x8/x4/x4, and continues to support SLI and CrossFire.

Native SATA-Express interface
The Z170 chipset provides up to 3 native SATA-Express interfaces, each with a speed of PCI-E 3.0x2, or 16Gb/s, which is also sufficient preparation for breaking through the bottleneck of SSDs in the future.

Limited performance improvement, high price
The performance of the 100 series platform is only about 10% higher than the previous 8/9 series. The new CPU and DDR4 memory are its biggest highlights. The Gen3x4 standard M.2 interface, the new USB 3.1 interface host controller, and the SATA Express interface are all prepared for the future. However, these are not of much use for the time being. The storage devices have not yet reached the standards, and the 10% performance improvement is not significant.

Such a platform is not cheap. The price of DDR4 memory remains high, and the PCI-E 3.0x4 M.2 solid-state drive has not yet been launched on a large scale. When it is launched on the market, the price will be more than 1,000 yuan. For the time being, the 100 series configuration platform only has these high-end products. You might as well wait until the subsequent i3 and new Pentium are launched before making purchase plans.

A new round of arms race and the birth of a new platform, Z97 and the 4th generation Core will be replaced, and the subsequent H170, B150, and H110 chipset motherboards will also be launched with i3 and new Pentium. At that time, the related 8 and 9 series motherboard products will also be discontinued one after another. M.2 solid-state drives and USB3.1 devices will become popular, and the demand for DDR4 will increase. Major manufacturers will definitely compete for the market, and price cuts and promotions are only a matter of time. The new "armaments" will be closer and closer to us.

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.