Why I need an upgrade

First I want to thank ASRock for this opportunity 

I would choose the ASRock H170 Performance/Hyper.

I will get in to my reasons once I have shared my current system and it's specs.

I have been traveling a lot for the last few years and when this started I decided to retire my Desktop in favor of a more portable solution. I went and picked myself up a solid, lightweight business class laptop. I chose to go with the following:

Dell Latitude E4310

CPU: Core i5 560M

RAM: 2gb DDR3 1066 (now 4gb DDR3 1600 @1066)

HDD: 320gb Seagate 7200rpm  (now 128gb Sandisk SSD)

At the time it was a decent performer with at least some room to upgrade. Sadly my issues began from day 1. 

Coming from a desktop I was instantly dissapointed with the limited connectivity on the system. With just 2 USB ports and a shared Mic/Headphone Jack I found myself often needing to connect a USB hub so I could use all my peripherals which meant more bulk in my laptop bag to lug around with me.

The display, keyboard and tracking system are all fantastic however. I specifically purchased a model with a joystick style tracker for ease of use on airplanes, the track pad requires you to angle your arm awkwardly to use in such a cramped space so the more central joystick is by far more comfortable.

Over the years I have upgraded everything I can on this system, coming from a Desktop PC background I am used to being able to swap out components and upgrade where needed. A laptop proved a challenge in that regard. In the end all I was really able to do was upgrade the RAM to 4gb and install an SSD to improve responsiveness when opening apps. I looked into replacing the CPU with a more powerful one but quickly discovered that it would be a lot of effort for very little reward and increased thermals.

Now that I have settled down again I am very eager to build myself a new desktop. My laptop has served me well for quite a few years now but it is well past time I built a proper PC. Whenever I build a new system I always sit down and work out exactly what I am going to be using it for and what components will best suit that application. In this case I want something that has some decent CPU grunt, supports a decent amount of RAM and is as future-proof as possible. I would also like to be able to tweak the system's performance as much as possible.

I chose the H170 Performance/hyper because: 

1. I would not be spending a lot of money on a K class CPU so the Z170 option would be a waste. The H170 Performance/Hyper supports BCLK overclocking so I can tweak whatever CPU I go with to get a little more performance out of it. Awesome to see that back after being pretty much a non entity since Sandybridge.

2. It has more connectivity than other non-Z chipset boards which is something I will certainly take advantage of.

3. The board looks fantastic (to me) and will allow me to build something in a windowed case that I can have sitting on top of my desk for friends and family to see rather than hide under the desk.

4. I am a sucker for tuning my systems, I can't help but try and push every last bit of performance out of them, especially when you are not supposed to be able to.  The Hyper series allow exactly that so I can't wait to try one out and see just how much extra performance value I can squeeze out of my new system.

Thanks again for this opportunity and I hope my thread was not too tiresome to read  

Good luck to everyone!

DarkHorse

The first thing I have to say is this board looks fantastic in person, photographs simply do not do it justice!

Lets start with the packaging.

As you can see from the images I posted above the box itself is quite striking with a very obvious gaming motif featuring a rather slick looking black and white (or black and red as it is) image of the man himself Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel. A bit of research reveals that ASRock worked with Johnathan to create it's gaming "Fatal1ty" line, including every feature possible to make the products appealing to gamers. So for anyone wondering what the Fatal1ty name came from there you have it.

The back of the box contains details about the board, it's specifications and features.

The most notable feature here is the Hyper BCLK Engine which allows for overclocking, even on non-Z chipsets and non-K CPUs. What I like about this feature is that it isn't something new, nothing super fancy or costly. All it is is a PLL chip, much like the ones used prior to Sandybridge to control base clock regulation. PLL or Phase Locked Loop chips are used in numerous capacities from broadcasting equipment to PCs so it is not some fancy custom chip that adds huge cost to the product which is a win for us  

The Hyper BCLK engine isn't the only notable feature however. Looking over the specs at the back of the package we see a very comprehensive list of features for a board of this class. Many of these features belong more on a high end product. The difference in specifications between this board and many Z170 boards is very small which is fantastic at this price point. I will break down the features more a little later.

The included accessories are fairly comprehensive:

We have a software setup guide and separate user manual, driver CD (not that I ever use this), a screw for the M.2 slot, IO back plate, 2 SATA cables, Xsplit subscription code, case badge and a leaflet about ASRock's pretty awesome G10 Gaming router.

Moving on to the board itself:

The camera on my tablet really does not do this thing justice. It is very striking in appearance but not over done. Obviously aesthetics are subjective but I find the accents and details to be very visually pleasing, especially for a windowed case setup. In gold I have highlighted the numerous fan headers (6 in total), all of which are 4 pin connectors. If the fan control in the UEFI is as good as it looks in the user manual then I have to say, this board really does offer great value. All too often I have found myself having to use splitters or molex connected fans in my systems because there simply are never enough headers on the board. The H170 Performance/Hyper will not have this problem. 

Highlighted in green toward the top left of the image are the "Nichicon Fine Gold Series Audio Caps" which offer outstanding noise filtering and audio fidelity. I have seen this on other ASRock boards and can vouch for the quality here. The Audio components are additionally isolated from the rest of the motherboard to further cut down on interference and signal noise. In essence, the audio solution on this board is top notch, even better than many discrete audio solutions. 

The Heatsinks are over-sized for improved cooling and cover both the chipset and the 10 phase power solution used on the board. The writing on the chipset heatsink is chrome and quite striking. It is worth noting that many boards do not even bother with VRM cooling. With the large heatsinks on this board the power delivery system should stay nice and cool and allow for some solid overclocking.

The back of the board is very clean. The support plate for the CPU socket latch mechanism is solid and firmly attached. The areas I highlighted in green are the PCIe x16 slots, as you can see the second slot is only connected as x4 but this is still enough to allow AMD Crossfire support. I honestly could not believe a board in this price bracket would support multi GPU configs, even if it does not support SLI. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that even ASRock's H110 boards support it too  I know this isn't specific to ASRock but it is none the less impressive to see multiple GPUs supported on even the most budget friendly M/ATX boards. I really wish I could afford a pair of AMD's new RX 480s to test with this thing (OK fine so I want the FPS in my games too ).

A bit of a closeup for the next bit. Here I have highlighted the dual BIOS in red. Are you kidding me? Dual BIOS on an H class chipset board? This seriously blew my mind. I would honestly not expect to see this on anything short of ASRock's Extreme lineup so to see it on an H series board is just amazing! 

As if that were not enough, highlighted in blue we have an M.2 slot supporting up to 32gb/s! At first I was like "well that's neat but I won't be able to afford a drive for it" but when I actually looked around a bit I realized that M.2 drives are actually very competitively priced  A cheap SATA M.2 drive won't set you back much more (if any) than a regular SATA SSD so this being included on the board is a huge plus for me.

Lastly, highlighted in green we have the PLL chip that powers ASRock's Hyper BCLK Engine which is provided by IDT. Interestingly, if you compare the H170 Performance/Hyper and the regular H170 Performance the only difference visually between the 2 boards is the absence of the circuitry in the green box on the non Hyper board. I can't wait to try out the overclocking on this board. I think I will end up going with an i3 6100 so I can go a little bigger on the GPU. 

Lastly we have the IO panel. Starting from the top left:

The Fatal1ty mouse port that allows variable polling rates and a load of other neat gaming centric features

USB 2.0 port

Combo PS2 mouse/keyboard port (omg I can use my trusty old logitec K100 keyboard again!)

DVI, HDMI

USB 3.0 type A and 3.0 type C

Gigabit LAN port

4 USB 3.0 type A

Optical out

7.1 audio jacks

Honestly the more I look at this board and it's features the more I feel like I have an enthusiast grade part in my hands. I know it isn't but I really wouldn't be dissapointed if I were to buy an enthusiast board with these features. This board is nothing short of outstanding when it comes to features and aesthetics (imo). I can't wait to get my system together and try everything out.

Thank you again ASRock for this amazing board!

Good luck to all the other contestants