Test Results
We will start with PCMark 08 Professional and results are good for the EVGA Z170 Stinger beating the MSI Z97I Gaming AC fair and square. We are seeing a lot of the newer specifications at work here, DDR4 and DMI3.0 to name a couple.
Roughly the same again for the 3DMark Professional with the Stinger pulling ahead just. Out and out graphics performance seems to have stayed the same under synthetic test situations.
Next on to some storage benchmarking with CrystalDiskMark64. The MSI Z97I Gaming AC is beaten firmly into second place with the Crucial BX100 500Gb SSD loving the newer chipset Stinger motherboard. The gains are significant enough to make a difference when using real world applications such as Photoshop and gaming.
We are seeing the knock on effect of the upgraded DMI link and we are interested in how this will perform under RAID conditions.
We are writing an article on this and should publish soon, but the Z170 chipset seems to have cured some longstanding Intel bandwidth issues when dealing with SSD storage, a welcome step forward. This is also reflected in a welcome 10% increase in the write performance, you will feel this when using the system, as long as you have components that can use it, you will notice a generation jump, or at least that’s how it feels.
EVGA Z170 Stinger Motherboard Review
Package - 9.5
Performance - 9.7
Price - 8.5
Consumer Experience - 9
9.2
The EVGA Z170 Stinger is a little on the expensive side, which is reflected in our overall score, but the rest is heaven. If you have never bought an EVGA product, you should. If you are looking for the finest Wi-Fi less mITX motherboard money can buy, you've found it.
