Upgrading my rig, need advice on the Motherboard

Methodically

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Hey guys,

So the time has come to upgrade my rig. Mostly because my 24 pin atx cable and motherboard slot have been fried.....So time to upgrade yay!

I'm still in the process of researching the current tech but so far I will be upgrading my CPU, Motherboard and GPU.

The CPU will be the I7-6700K and i'm looking a getting a GTX 1070. Everything will be watercooled on a custom loop. The issue I am having is the motherboard. When i last built my rig 3-4 MB's stood out and it was fairly easy to pick them apart. I went with a asus P8Z68 deluxe. Now the choices are completely overwhelming. In terms of my needs, its simple. Something that can be easily overclocked. I dont OC manually so I would be using software or BIOS features. Good sound is also important. I dont care for wifi cards, double NIC's or USB 3.1 That M-2 Feature might be useful down the road but its not a necessity.

I'm looking at a Z170 chipset just because its higher end and I dont mind shelling out the cash. Are there any fan favorite boards that stand out?
 
I did a skylake build for my youngest daughter that seems to work well using the asus h170 pro gaming mobo, and it was pretty cheap too.

I stay away from watercooling these days, I used to think it was neat to use, but the cons outweighed the pros too much to be worth the trouble anymore.
 
From what i've been reading only the z170 chipset offers full overclocking which is a must. I'm trying to read up on the asus boards but man there are so many. Its a little ridiculous. Why are there so many?
 
The boards have different features normally:

- Different manufacturers
----- Different manufacturer chipset/interface
- Different number of RAM slots
- Different form factor (board size)
- USB differences
----- Number of ports on the motherboard
----- Number of header ports for USB ports
----- USB 2 or 3
- HDD connection differences
----- SATA
--------- SATA I/II/III
--------- Number of ports
----- IDE (now legacy)
--------- Versions
--------- May or may not be on the board
- Different expansion slots
----- PCIe
--------- x1, x4, x8, x16 etc
--------- Crossfire/Multi-GPU support
----- PCI
----- AGP (legacy)
- Number of CPUs
- Server/Personal
----- Error Checking Memory Slots for Servers

There's be various other differences as well such as heat dissipation designs etc. Often the differences are subtle but they're trying to account for every possible market!
 
I bumped up the cpu and gpu clocks on her system using the graphic bios settings. It's been stable since day 1.
While it's true the z set allows unlocking the multiplier for oc thw h set allows setting the cycle speed and using the turbo mode on k chips. If you are not using a k chip you need a z set to oc, if you are using a k chip, like I did, you can use the h set or the z set.
The z 170 pro gaming is about the same thing but let's you oc non k chips as well. Not needing that feature by using a k chip makes that a moot point.
 
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