Z170 board with lots of USB ports?

[althaz]

So I've been trying to find a good Z170 board, but I'm struggling to find one with a decent amount of USB ports for some reason. Hopefully somebody more up-to-date that I am can help me?

What I'm after:
- A good Z170 motherboard
- Reliable
- 8+ USB ports (at least 2 need to be 3.1 full speed and at least 3 others need to be 3.0 speed - but ideally ALL would be 3.1 full speed or at least a mix of 3.0 and 3.1)
- 2+ extra USB 3.0 ports via a header
- ATX or smaller form factor (will put it in a Silverstone Fortress 02 case)
- 1+ M.2 slot for a PCIe x4 SSD
- Good sound
- Ideally, a short POST-time (happy to disable things to acheive this, usually Intel or Asus Deluxe boards seem to be the fastest in this regard, though both are very slow without tweaking settings)

So far the best I've seen is the Asus Z170 Deluxe, but that's still quite anemic - it has less slots than my current PC has occupied slots and I always want to have one (minimum) spare (currently using 7).

In theory, I couldn't care less about SLI...but DX12 makes me hesitant to buy a motherboard that doesn't give me the option to chuck in a second GPU later, so my ideal mobo would have SLI (but if something existed without it and was the only option, I would buy it).

Also, does anybody know why so few motherboards have a reasonable amount of ports? IMO there's no reason there should exist ATX mobos with <10 USB ports.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

The Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD5 TH has all you ask for. 2x 10Gbit USB3 (with an Intel controller no less), 8x 5Gbit USB3 and 5x USB2 + 3x from an onboard hub. An M.2 slot and ALC1150 audio are also provided.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5479#sp

 

[Puffnstuff]

Depending on how much you want to spend you could also consider the Asus Maximus VIII line.
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-Republic-of-Gamers-Products/

 

[althaz]

The Asus ROG boards seem to top out at 7 ports (as of this moment I'm using 8)?

The Gigabyte board might be acceptable. 4 USB 3 ports + 2 USB C 3.1 ports + 4 USB 3 ports. It's still not ideal, but is certainly acceptable (though I'll be dropping down in speed for some things, current mobo has 12 USB 3 ports). Thanks .

 

[VirtualLarry]

Is there a reason a desktop USB hub wouldn't help?

 

[EXCellR8]

^was gonna suggest that... but are there usb 3.1 hubs yet? I'm not up to date on the latest desktop gizmos

Actually a little disappointed with my Z170's lack of USB ports... seems like MSI didn't care for excessive I/O ports

 

[althaz]

A USB hub is incredibly messy?

My keyboard and monitors all have hubs built in, Those and the USB ports on the front/top of my case are enough easily accessible ones, I need out-of-the-way ones to plug my monitors, controllers, guitar, etc into.

I mean, I guess I could spend more money on a USB hub that could be mounted under my desk or something, but that's a pretty shit solution. I'd have thought it'd be easy to find a good motherboard with plenty of USB ports - USB controllers can't have gotten that much more expensive since I bought my current mobo .

 

[EXCellR8]

I'd rather use a hub than have 10 usb cables attached directly to my computer. get some 3m tape and stick it somewhere convenient where the cables don't show running all over the place

That or just get any motherboard and buy an internal PCIe USB controller and add a few ports to the back...

 

[lukart]

Z170 Extreme 7+

3 SATA Express, 10 SATA3, 3 Ultra M.2 (PCIe Gen3 x4 & SATA3)
4 USB 3.1 (2 Type-C & 2 Type-A), 8 USB 3.0 (4 Front, 4 Rear)

 

[nerp]

I have a nice powered USB hub that is very well made, has individual on/off switches for each port and is tucked away on my desk behind a storage cubby thing. I don't see it and all my peripherals are plugged into it. I use one port on the PC.

 

[Thinker_145]

Hmm why do you want so many USB ports out of the box? You can always buy expansion slots for the front panel and the back panel connecting via the internal headers. Any half decent Z170 board has a lot of total native USB ports.

My mobo has 5 USB ports at the back and I am currently using a total of 7 native ports. I still have a further 6 native ports available from the internal headers.

In total my mobo has 1 USB-C, 2 USB 3.1, 4 USB 3.0 and 6 USB 2.0. You probably want a board with more 3.0. I believe going for all 3.1 would become unnecessarily expensive. Look at ASUS Z170 Pro Gaming it should really give what you are looking for if you can give up the 3.1 requirement.

Sent from my HTC One M9