I was so close to choosing an ASUS mobo, but man am I glad I didn't. This board is the ideal mid-to-low range board for the enthusiasts, and includes some things you don't see until you get to the $200 level. Two m.2 slots. SLI capable. Looks good without too much flash, which is totally within my style. Installation and instructions were very helpful and had no issues. Bios is easily navigable and makes all your adjustments easy.

First it was going to be Asus then it was going to be MSI. After sorting thru the reviews and features I ended up on this one. At the time I choose this board the reviews were pretty good and it had the features I was looking for which included two M.2 slots. Video ports for HDMI, DVI and display port. Not too much red and was a bit cheaper than the gaming focused boards. At first I thought I had a bad unit because 4 of the 8 SATA3 ports were not working. Then I realized I put the M.2 PCIe drive in the wrong slot. There are only like 20 PCIe lanes available on Z170 chipset after the CPU gets done with what it needs... so those 20 lanes need to be divided up somehow. The M.2 slot next to the CPU shares its four lanes with four of the SATA ports. The other M.2 slot shares its four lanes with the third PCIe slot, the x4 slot. So if you are using a M.2 PCIe drive you have to decide if you are giving up 4 SATA3 ports or the one PCIe x4 slot. If the M.2 drive is a SATA drive then the compromises are different. Audio on this board sounded good to me and a big improvement over my old systems audio. The only problem I have now with this mobo is the relatively long boot time, see the Samsung 950 below for more on that.

I bumped it around into the case a bit and it still worked fine. It has glowing yellow LEDs on one side that can be turned off or on or beat or pulse. It has a actual power button and a POST code display next to power button. The display looks like the number reader at the deli line, it will display 2 numbers or letters letting you know what going on with the mother board. The post codes are in the manual so you know what each one means. It has a PS/2 connection which is cool if you have old model m keyboards still.

It has some nice software aswell from gigabyte, my favorite is the OSD which will display FPS and such other information if you choose as a overlay to what ever your doing.

Great board for overclocking that also looks good in a black almost charcoal with gold highlights.

Slot options are nice, you can run crossfire I know. I also have a wifi card in. Sound is nice, not sure if i need a sound card upgrade considering I have very basic speakers anyway.

Has all the right features for me. The two m.2 slots were nice. Weird placement of a few fan headers though.

Amazing looking mid range motherboard (it was 180-190 $) has good features and OCs well. + Uefi Bios are easy to navigate. I could have gone with the gameing 7 (it was the same price) but I thought this looked nicer, and the gameing 7 had basically the same features. I wish there had been an ultra durable 7 for z170, LIKE EVERY OTHER RELEASE!!!! Also the audio is very good.

Great mobo, easy BIOS. Color scheme inspired my black/gold build idea. Love it.