Thunderbolt 3 on the way to desktops with the Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 TH motherboard

By Dave LeClair September 9, 2015

thunderbolt 3 coming to desktops with the gigabyte z170x ud5 th motherboard z170xthunderboltmobo — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Back in June, Intel announced Thunderbolt 3, and now desktop users are going to get to enjoy the technology with the introduction of the Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 TH motherboard. This is the first desktop motherboard with announced support for Thunderbolt 3 over USB Type-C, though we expect to see more announced over the coming weeks and months.

What makes Thunderbolt 3 a worthwhile piece of technology is support for dual 4K displays running at 60 frames per second, or a single 5K display, and Power Delivery 2.0 for up to 36W. There are two USB Type-C ports installed on this particular motherboard. These ports are capable of achieving data speeds of up to 40 gbps, which is twice as fast as Thunderbolt 2. Compare that to USB 3.0, which is impressively fast in its own right at 5 gbps, and there’s a massive difference.

Aside from the two Thunderbolt 3 over USB Type-C ports, this motherboard also features HDMI 2.0 output for onboard graphics, four fast PCIe 3.0 ports for installing GPUs and other devices, and support for 2-Way SLI or 3-Way CrossFire. For storage, there’s 3 SATA Express connectors that promise data transfer speeds of up to 16gbps.

Users will also find 115dB SNR HD audio, LED path lighting along the board for a little extra visual style, high quality metal-plated sockets and ports, and pretty much all of the standard features we’ve come to expect from a high-end motherboard.

As one would expect, this new motherboard supports 6th-generation Intel Core processors, which is the way most new boards are going, with Intel moving new computers towards its latest chipset. Along with this, the latest DDR4 RAM with 4 DIMMs is on the Z170X-UD5 TH.

As of this writing, Gigabyte didn’t announce pricing or release information for the Z170X-UD5 TH board, though based on specs, it’s clearly going to sit on the high end of the spectrum.

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Dave LeClair has been writing about tech and gaming since 2007. He's covered events, hosted podcasts, created videos, and…

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