Skip to content
Main Navigation Puget Systems Logo
  • Solutions
    • Content Creation
      • Photo Editing
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe Lightroom Classic
        • Adobe Photoshop
        • Stable Diffusion
      • Video Editing & Motion Graphics
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Adobe After Effects
        • Adobe Premiere Pro
        • DaVinci Resolve
        • Foundry Nuke
      • 3D Design & Animation
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk 3ds Max
        • Autodesk Maya
        • Blender
        • Cinema 4D
        • Houdini
        • ZBrush
      • Real-Time Engines
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Game Development
        • Unity
        • Unreal Engine
        • Virtual Production
      • Rendering
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Keyshot
        • OctaneRender
        • Redshift
        • V-Ray
      • Digital Audio
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Ableton Live
        • FL Studio
        • Pro Tools
    • Engineering
      • Architecture & CAD
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Autodesk AutoCAD
        • Autodesk Inventor
        • Autodesk Revit
        • SOLIDWORKS
      • Visualization
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • Enscape
        • Lumion
        • Twinmotion
      • Photogrammetry & GIS
        • Recommended Systems For:
        • ArcGIS Pro
        • Agisoft Metashape
        • Pix4D
        • RealityCapture
    • AI & HPC
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Data Science
      • Generative AI
      • Large Language Models
      • Machine Learning / AI Dev
      • Scientific Computing
    • More
      • Recommended Systems For:
      • Compact Size
      • Live Streaming
      • NVIDIA RTX Studio
      • Quiet Operation
      • Virtual Reality
    • Business & Enterprise
      We can empower your company
    • Government & Education
      Services tailored for your organization
  • Products
    • Puget Mobile
      Powerful laptop workstations
      • Puget Mobile 16″
    • Puget Workstations
      High-performance desktop PCs
      • AMD Ryzen
        • Ryzen 9000:
        • Small Form Factor
        • Mini Tower
        • Mid Tower
        • Full Tower
      • AMD Threadripper
        • Threadripper 7000:
        • Mid Tower
        • Full Tower
        • Threadripper PRO 7000WX:
        • Full Tower
      • AMD EPYC
        • EPYC 9004/9005:
        • Full Tower
      • Intel Core Ultra
        • Core Ultra Series 2:
        • Small Form Factor
        • Mini Tower
        • Mid Tower
        • Full Tower
      • Intel Xeon
        • Xeon W-2500:
        • Mid Tower
        • Xeon W-3500:
        • Full Tower
    • Custom Computers
    • Puget Rackstations
      Workstations in rackmount chassis
      • AMD Rackstations
        • Ryzen 9000:
        • R132-4U
        • R550-6U 5-Node
        • Threadripper 7000:
        • T121-4U
        • T120-5U
        • Threadripper PRO 7000WX:
        • T141-4U
        • T140-5U (Dual 5090s)
        • EPYC 9004:
        • E140-4U (Quad 4090s)
      • Intel Rackstations
        • Core Ultra Series 2:
        • C132-4U
        • Xeon W-3500:
        • X131-4U
        • X141-5U
    • Custom Rackmount Workstations
    • Puget Servers
      Enterprise-class rackmount servers
      • Rackmount Servers
        • AMD EPYC:
        • E200-1U
        • E120-2U
        • E140-2U
        • E280-4U
        • E281-4U
        • Intel Xeon:
        • X200-1U
        • X240-2U
    • Comino Grando GPU Servers
    • Custom Servers
    • Puget Storage
      Solutions from desktop to datacenter
      • Network-Attached Storage
        • Synology NAS Units:
        • 4-bay DiskStation
        • 8-bay DiskStation
        • 12-bay DiskStation
        • 4-bay RackStation
        • 12-bay FlashStation
      • Software-Defined Storage
        • Datacenter Storage:
        • 12-Bay 2U
        • 24-Bay 2U
        • 36-Bay 4U
    • Recommended Third Party Peripherals
      Curated list of accessories for your workstation
    • Puget Gear
      Quality apparel with Puget Systems branding
  • Publications
    • Articles
    • Blog Posts
    • Case Studies
    • HPC Blog
    • Podcasts
    • Press
    • PugetBench
  • Support
    • Contact Support
    • Support Articles
    • Warranty Details
    • Onsite Services
    • Unboxing
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Our Customers
    • Enterprise
    • Gov & Edu
    • Press Kit
    • Testimonials
    • Careers
  • Talk to an Expert
  • My Account
  1. Home
  2. /
  3. Hardware Articles
  4. /
  5. Z170 vs Z97: What is the Difference?

Z170 vs Z97: What is the Difference?

Posted on August 5, 2015 by Matt Bach
Always look at the date when you read an article. Some of the content in this article is most likely out of date, as it was written on August 5, 2015. For newer information, see our more recent articles.

Introduction

Looking for information on the Skylake-S chipsets? View our Z170, H170, H110, B170, Q150, Q170 – What is the Difference? article!

The new Skylake-S CPUs use a new microarchitecture which means that the socket on the CPU and motherboard are physically different from the previous generation. To accomodate this change, Intel has also launched the Z170 chipset to go along with the new CPUs. In addition to the change in socket, there have also been a number of other improvements to both the CPU and Z170 chipset including DDR4 support, a faster connection between the chipset and the CPU (via DMI 3.0), and more PCI-E lanes through the chipset

Unlike previous launches where Intel released a number of new chipsets and CPUs at the same time, for Skylake-S only the top chipset and unlocked (K-series) CPUs will be available at first. There is expected to be a range of Skylake-S CPUs and at least two lower-end chipsets available at some point, but Intel has not yet announced an official launch date for those products.

If you are interested in the performance of Skylake-S, we suggest viewing our Haswell vs. Skylake-S: i7 4790K vs i7 6700K article.

Chipset Specification Comparison

   Z97 Z170
Processor Support Haswell/Broadwell (LGA 1150) Skylake-S (LGA 1151)
Graphics Support 1×16 or 2×8 or 1×8+2×4 1×16 or 2×8 or 1×8+2×4
DRAM Support DDR3 DDR3/DDR4
Mem/DIMMs Per Channel 2/2 2/2
DMI Version 2.0 3.0
Intel RST12 Yes Yes
Intel Smart Response Technology Yes Yes
Small Business Advantage No No
USB Total (USB 3.0) 14(6) 14(10)
Total SATA 6Gb/s 6 6
Additional PCI-E lanes 8x PCI-E 2.0 20x PCI-E 3.0
Independent Display Support 3 3
CPU Overclocking Yes Yes
Max PCIe Storage (x4 M.2 or x2 SATA Express) 1 (x2 M.2) PCI-E 2.0 3 PCI-E 3.0

*In addition to the 16 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the CPU

From an official chipset perspective, there are a number of very important differences between the Z97 and Z170 chipsets. The first and most important change is the move to the new socket 1151 in order to support the Skylake-S CPUs. This change in socket means that you cannot use a Skylake-S CPU in a Z97 board or a Haswell/Broadwell CPU in a Z170 board. Luckily, however, the heatsink mounting is still identical so any heatsink that worked on socket 1150 (or socket 1155/1156 for that matter) will still work on socket 1151.

Along with the change in socket is the addition of DDR4 memory support. DDR4 is still a bit more expensive than DDR3, but it is faster, allows for twice the density, and uses less power than DDR3. Z170 will continue to only allow four physical sticks of RAM to be used (in dual channel mode) but with the density of DDR4 you should be able to use up to 64GB of RAM with Z170 versus only 32GB with Z97. 16GB sticks are not available today (except in Reg. ECC which is not supported by this platform) but we expect them to be available by the end of 2015.

In addition to the RAM update, the connectivity between the CPU and chipset has been upgraded to DMI 3.0. By using DMI 3.0, the chipset is now able to support 20 PCI-E 3.0 lanes versus the 8 PCI-E 2.0 lanes that is possible on the Z97 chipset. Most of these lanes will likely go towards features like USB 3.1, onboard WiFi, or Thunderbolt – but this increase in PCI-E lanes technically means a motherboard manufacturer could put up to three x4 M.2 PCI-E 3.0 ports on a Z170 motherboard. M.2 may not be incredibly popular in desktops today, but with faster and faster storage being developed (like the recent breakthrough in memory chips by Intel and Micron) we expect M.2 to increase in popularity over the next few years.

Both chipsets support CPU overclocking and while there has not been an increase in the total number of native USB ports, ten of the fourteen USB ports on Z170 are now USB 3.0 ports (unfortunately, USB 3.1 is still too new to be a native part of the chipset). As far as their additional feature sets, both Z97 and Z170 support Rapid Storage Technology and Smart Response Technology (otherwise known as SSD Caching), but do not support Small Business Advantage.

Conclusion

Overall, there have been a number of very significant changes in the Z170 chipset. Not only does it support the new Skylake-S CPUs but it also adds DDR4 support, more USB 3.0 ports, and more PCI-E lanes on the chipset. The addition of DDR4 and more PCI-E lanes especially are great improvements that really increase the capabilities of the Z170 chipset. Add in the significant performance increases we saw with the Skylake-S CPUs and we see very little reason to use the Z97 chipset over the Z170 chipset unless you want to use a previous gen CPU. Even if you want to save some money and use DDR3 memory, Skylake-S technically still support DDR3 so you may be able to find a Z170 motherboards that use DDR3 instead of DDR4.

Perhaps the biggest problem with Skylake-S right now is that you are very limited in terms of choices. Only two CPUs are available at launch (the i5 6600K and the i7 6700K) alongside the Z170 chipset. We expect more CPUs and chipsets to be released relatively soon, but if you want to low to mid-range system you will simply have to wait for the rest of the product line to become available.

Tags: Haswell, Skylake-S, Z170, Z97

Who is Puget Systems?

Puget Systems builds custom workstations, servers and storage solutions tailored for your work.

We provide:

Extensive performance testing
making you more productive and giving better value for your money

Reliable computers
with fewer crashes means more time working & less time waiting

Support that understands
your complex workflows and can get you back up & running ASAP

A proven track record
as shown by our case studies and customer testimonials

Get Started

Browse Systems

Puget Systems Mobile Laptop Workstation Icon

Mobile

Puget Systems Tower Workstation Icon

Workstations

Puget Systems Rackmount Workstation Icon

Rackstations

Puget Systems Rackmount Server Icon

Servers

Puget Systems Rackmount Storage Icon

Storage

Latest Articles

  • Unreal Fest 2025: Highlights from Orlando
  • NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Content Creation Review
  • Puget Mobile 16″ Laptop (2025) Product Showcase
  • Why PugetBench for Premiere Pro is Dropping HEVC Encoding Tests
  • NVIDIA Blackwell GPU GenAI Software Support
View All

Post navigation

 Understanding the WD RainbowHaswell vs. Skylake-S: i7 4790K vs i7 6700K 
Puget Systems Logo
Build Your Own PC Site Map FAQ
facebook instagram linkedin rss twitter youtube

Optimized Solutions

  • Adobe Premiere
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Solidworks
  • Autodesk AutoCAD
  • Machine Learning

Workstations

  • Content Creation
  • Engineering
  • Scientific PCs
  • More

Support

  • Online Guides
  • Request Support
  • Remote Help

Publications

  • All News
  • Puget Blog
  • HPC Blog
  • Hardware Articles
  • Case Studies

Policies

  • Warranty & Return
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  • Delivery Times
  • Accessibility

About Us

  • Testimonials
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter

© Copyright 2025 - Puget Systems, All Rights Reserved.