Z170 Micro-ATX board

[obidamnkenobi]

Any recommendations for a cheap and reliable micro-ATX Z170 board for light use?

I'd like to OC an i5-6600K some, but don't plan on doing anything extreme. Light gaming, so no SLI. I'm a bit obsessed with making this PC quite, but it looks like the PWM fan features are pretty similar on all the boards I've looked at. Does it just come down to port preferences etc?

So far it's between:
ASRock Z170M Pro4S - $90
ASRock Z170M Extreme4 - $125 (been on sale for $100)
ASUS Z170M-PLUS - $125

comparison

Is the Pro4S good enough and the others overkill? (Mainly just missing type-C port from what I can see). Are any likely to be more reliable? All seem to have their fair share of DOA/fail reviews.. Anything else I should look at?
thanks

 

[UsandThem]

Between those choices, I would go with the Asrock z170m Extreme4.

It has the best onboard sound of all three boards, higher-end capacitors, and is pretty loaded as far as connections go for mATX. It claims it is more focused for overclocking, but that could just be their marketing. You can read some reviews and see if it holds true or not. It does look like a very nice board spec/build wise.

The Pro4s is really targeted for those on a tight budget. It's kinda a no-frills board. But if it has all the features you want, there is nothing wrong with it.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

Between those choices, I would go with the Asrock z170m Extreme4.

It has the best onboard sound of all three boards, higher-end capacitors, and is pretty loaded as far as connections go for mATX. It claims it is more focused for overclocking, but that could just be their marketing. You can read some reviews and see if it holds true or not. It does look like a very nice board spec/build wise.

The Pro4s is really targeted for those on a tight budget. It's kinda a no-frills board. But if it has all the features you want, there is nothing wrong with it.

Thanks. That's the way I was leaning, especially if I can find it on sale. Not nearly as many options in the micro-atx market so these really seem like the best (for my needs). Even finding reviews is difficult.

Better onboard sound is a good point too. Because of static I had to buy a dedicated sound card in my current PC, it would be nice I could ditch that and free up space.

 

[lukart]

Between those choices, I would go with the Asrock z170m Extreme4.

It has the best onboard sound of all three boards, higher-end capacitors, and is pretty loaded as far as connections go for mATX. It claims it is more focused for overclocking, but that could just be their marketing. You can read some reviews and see if it holds true or not. It does look like a very nice board spec/build wise.

The Pro4s is really targeted for those on a tight budget. It's kinda a no-frills board. But if it has all the features you want, there is nothing wrong with it.

Same, the Z170M Extreme4 is really good board, had a build made with one and it's very complete board.
I'm guessing they focus on promoting Overclock, since they got known from extremely good overclocking boards, very stable and reliable under heavy overclock. But then again if they are build to overclock will most likely be a bit more reliable than the average.

 

[agfkfhahddhdn]

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[xLegenday]

I have the Pro4S. No idea what kind of features the Extreme4 might have that this doesn't, but it's been totally fine for my overclocking purposes. The only caveat was that the BIOS had basically useless vcore settings out of the box, but that's been fixed with the latest update.

Usually the extreme series they have loads of ports and more connectivity compared to other of their series I believe.

 

[vailr]

I'd recommend choosing a board that includes the Realtek ALC1150 audio.
The 2 least expensive mATX Z170 boards (on Newegg) which include that feature:
ASRock Z170M Extreme4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157675
GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1N83UT3534

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Another vote for either of the ASRock boards.

 

[agfkfhahddhdn]

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[F1N3ST]

Hate to possibly hijack the thread but I have the same question, but I'm trying to overclock my non-k i5 6500...