We just had the Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 flagship board on our test bench and the Gigabyte GA-Z170-Gaming 7 definitely shows it's relationship with the Flagship Board. From a first glance it looks like the Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 didn't get a PLX chip so graphics are going to be limited to a single cards at 16x, two cards will run at 8x 8x and you get 12 Digital power Phases on the CPU, one heatpipe on the heat sinks and no option to water cool the CPU area like the G! Flagship board.

Being a member of the G1 Gaming family the Gaming 7 still got a lot of enthusiast based hardware and the features on this board rival most boards unless you find one with the Rare PLX chip. The Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 was put forth as a more affordable offering of the G1 family but more affordable doesn't mean GIGABYTE skimped on the extras or quality, they just had to step down a bit from the Monster Flagship we reviewed earlier in the month.