BIOSTAR Z270GTN mITX Motherboard Review

By David Ramsey

Manufacturer: BIOSTAR Microtech International Corp.
Product Name: Z270GTN Racing
UPC: 802700507236
Price As Tested: $165 (eBay)

Full Disclosure: BIOSTAR Microtech International Corp. supplied the product sample used in this article.

Mini-ITX (mITX) motherboards, once niche products for HTPCs and the like, are becoming mainstream as the need for multiple PCI-E slots wanes. Today Benchmark Reviews has BIOSTAR’s new Z270GTN Racing mITX motherboard, and it’s aimed squarely at the enthusiast and gamer market with features like solid state capacitors, onboard RGB LED lighting and control, and m.2 and u.2 storage connectors.

I’ll check this board out wi

• Intel Z270 chipset supports Intel Celeron, Pentium, and Core i3/i5/i7 LGA1151 CPUs
• Dual-channel DDR4 memory, up to DDR4-3400 and 32GB
• m.2 slot for optional WiFi card
• m.2 PCI-E/mSATA slot for storage
• 4 SATA3 and 1 u.2 connector
• Intel Gigabit networking with Super LAN surge protection
• Realtek ALC892 8-Channel Blu-ray Audio

Intel Z270, huh? Let’s look at that.

The BIOSTAR Z270GTN Racing’s BIOS interface is divided into three sections: the left shows CPU and DRAM speeds, along with fan speed and CPU temperature; the right section is a help and reference section, and the middle section shows the specific area of the BIOS you’re working with. This is conceptually similar to MSI’s BIOS arrangement, and I rather like it.

The Advanced section of the BIOS gives users control over the things enthusiasts are interested in…

…but overclockers will want to head to the O.N.E. section, where the overclocking settings are. BIOSTAR uses colored backgrounds to denote status: blue background for selected items; tan backgrounds for items you can’t select or change, and black backgrounds for items you can select and change. Some colors will change as you select other items: for example, the “Ring Max OC Ration” will switch to black once you select a “CPU Ratio Mode” other than “Auto”. The list of clocks and power settings that you can change seem pretty complete, although there’s no auto-overclocking function and some of the function names are non-obvious. For example, what’s “Package C-State Demotion”? I dunno, but I can turn it on and off.

You can of course also set the operation of the integrated RGB LEDs in the BIOS.

BIOSTAR also provides a Windows application called Racing GT. It’s mainly a system information/monitoring application.

You can tweak audio, LED, and fan settings from within Racing GT, but that’s about it– you can’t adjust clocks and voltages. And in some sections the nomenclature in the application doesn’t match the nomenclature in the BIOS. For example, the BIOS doesn’t mention “Eco” or “Breathe” modes for the LEDs.

I’ll try overclocking this board in the next section.

The BIOSTAR Z270GTN doesn’t come with any auto-overclocking utilities, which is a little disappointing since as companies like ASUS and MSI have demonstrated, these auto-overclockers have gotten good enough to extract most of the performance that the installed processor and cooling system can handle, which is a real win for those daunted by the prospect of manual overclocking.

Still, the O.N.E. section of the Z270GTN BIOS will let you tweak clocks and voltages as you please, so let’s do it old-school. Using the same Sky Lake Core i7-6700K processor and Thermalright SIlver Arrow air cooler we used in our review of the MSI Z170 Gaming 7 motherboard, I initially tried an all-cores multiplier of 46 at the same 1.32V VCORE I used with the MSI motherboard. That crashed in the AIDA64 stress test almost instantly.

After some more tweaking I settled on a voltage of 1.38V:

…which gave me the same stable results at 4.6gHz on all cores:

(For some reason, CPU-Z is not showing the correct core voltage for this motherboard, although AIDA64 did…)

Even going to 1.4V was not enough to eke any more (reliable) speed out of this CPU, so I think 4.6gHz is this processor’s maximum. At an ambient temperature of 19 degrees Celsius, the CPU temperature after 10 minutes of AIDA64 stress testing was only 64 degrees.

In the next section I’ll present my final thoughts and conclusion.

mITX motherboards started as niche products for HTPCs and the like but have been becoming more popular for building compact gaming systems. ASUS is probably the biggest player in this space but other vendors have been joining the market, and I fully expect it to become even more popular as more people figure out that you don’t need the space and expense of a full-ATX motherboard any more.

That said, you do give up a few things: mITX motherboards have only two DIMM slots rather than four or eight; and the small size of the boards mean that you’ll generally have to do without features like POST code readouts, onboard power and reset switches, and the like. And obviously you shouldn’t expect to run more than one GPU!

The hardware isn’t as elaborate as some of the other gaming-oriented boards, but on the other hand with an MSRP of $134.00, this board is significantly less expensive and will provide pretty much the same level of performance. I do wish, though, that BIOSTAR would include a more robust Windows-level utility program that would enable overclocking from within Windows.

BIOSTAR’s Z270GTN Racing mITX motherboard is a solid product that that concentrates on functionality and bang for the buck as opposed to high end features (although the onboard RGB LEDs and integrated controllers for external LEDs are nice). I was able to overclock my Core i7-6700K CPU to the same level of performance as on a much more expensive ATX motherboard, so you’re giving up little if anything in the performance area.

The performance of the board was excellent, with overclocking results equal to more expensive boards.

Integrated RGB LEDs enhance the appearance of the motherboard and will show well in a windowed case.

The Z270GTN’s construction quality was excellent, with only the confusing use of 5K-rated capacitors rather than the 10K caps promised on the product’s web page as a minus.

Functionality is the one weak point of this package, with limited Windows utility support and some confusing terms in the BIOS.

While some enthusiast boards compete on extra features and accessories, the BIOSTAR Z270GTN competes on value. And at an MSRP of $134.00, this board is an outstanding value for anyone interested in building an mITX gaming system. However, Z270GTN isn’t for sale anywhere in the US, yet. We found it sold for $165 on eBay.

BIOSTAR’s Racing product line might not have the street cred of ASUS’ Republic of Gamers or MSI’s Carbon/Titanium series, but with solid performance at a great price, they’re certainly worth your consideration.

+ Excellent performance at a great price

+ Onboard RGB LEDs and 5050 LED ports

+ Optional WiFi module

+ Well-designed BIOS interface

– Weak utility software

– No DisplayPort video out

– 5K caps rather than the 10K promised on web site

– No USB-C/3.1

• Performance: 9.75
• Appearance: 9.50
• Construction: 9.00
• Functionality: 8.50
• Value: 8.75

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.