ASUS Sabertooth Sabranco Z170 S Preview RushKit

ASUS SABERTOOTH Z170 S RushKit

 

A lot of us has been waiting for ASUS’ White Knight to show up, to save us from this tide of standard Black and Red Z170 motherboards and provide us with something that is almost unique, yes there are other white boards out there, but not many of them are even close to looking this good.

What is strange about this Sabranco motherboard is that unlike previous generations it is not a simple carbon copy of the ASUS Z170 Sabertooth with a bit of white paint, this is an entirely different motherboard design from ASUS, designed to give us everything that Intel’s Z170 platform can offer, but it is expected to come at a more reasonable price than previous Sabranco style motherboards.  

  

    

 

What we have here is something that is distinctly Sabranco, which while it is not a Sabranco by name it has the standard Sabranco white and grey Camouflage colour scheme and more than enough features to even keep the high end enthusiasts happy. 

While this motherboard seems to lack the RGB LEDS that many motherboards come with these days the ASUS Sabetooth Z170-S replaces that with a colour scheme and a aesthetic which most users will simply not want to change. If you want a white Z170 motherboard for a arctic themed PC or whatever white theme you desire this is it!  

 

    

 

The Sabertooth line has always been about military grade components and a military aesthetic, with the Sabertooth Z170-S having an Digital Arctic Camo design. 

The Sabertooth line has a strong overclocking pedigree, with this motherboard sporting a dedicated base clock generator which allows overclockers to push the base clock of your Skylake CPU to 400MHz, though your specific CPU may not be able to get that high and remain stable. This combined with ASUS’ strong BIOS and board design means that we should give us great overclocking performance.   

 

 

 

The ASUS Sabertooth Z170-S has all the features that a normal user would need, with an M.2 slot for Ultra Fast NVMe storage, several PCIe lanes for your GPU requirements, USB 3.1 ports, USB Type-C and plenty of SATA connections for your storage needs.   

The only thing that I could say is missing from this motherboard is a U.2 port, though considering that that is a feature that is only present on >£200 motherboards at present we can understand why it is not on this more affordable motherboard. 

 

       

 

With ASUS’ TUF Detective 2 companion app you can use your mobile phone to monitor key parameters and diagnose errors with your PC, which can be very helpful while overclocking. 

You can also use this app to download and update your board to the latest BIOS, which is a very useful feature. 

  

 

Conclusion

What ASUS offers here with the Sabertooth Z170-S motherboard is something that is a very different than the norm, offering not just a new aesthetic but also a selection of great features that are unique to the TUF series of motherboards. 

While Red and black motherboard continue to be overwhelmingly popular it is great to see something that looks very different and does not compromise on feature set or pricing. The ASUS Sabranco Z170-S gives us everything that you would expect from a modern Z170 motherboards, offering M.2 and USB 3.1. 

ASUS’ white Sabranco motherboards have always been something that has been close to our hearts, having always providied us with great performance and an aesthetic that is pretty hard to beat. We will be giving this motherboard the full review treatment, so please come back to see the performance of this motherboard within the next few weeks. If you cant wait however OCUK have it up for pre-order at £169.99 (thats cheaper than Scan)

You can enjoy the discussion on ASUS’ Sabertooth Z170-S motherboard on the OC3D Forums.