BIOSTAR RACING Z270GT4 LGA1151 Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

All prices are correct as of 01/09/2017

The BIOSTAR Z270GT4 Racing motherboard is available from many major retailers for around £105 on average. We found it at eBuyer for just £102.99. For a mATX motherboard that packs in some RGB lighting, overclocking features, and good performance, we think that’s pretty decent. Motherboards of this class can be anywhere from £70 to £200, so it’s certainly one of the more reasonably priced solutions.

Overview

This motherboard is pretty rock solid in terms of features and performance. However, it’s not perfect and I wouldn’t have expected it to be sitting in the mid range price bracket for its respective generation. I’m not too fond of the design for starters. Sure, that’s a very subjective aspect and one I’m not going to mark the board down for. However, the racing flag decal just doesn’t work for me, and it appeals to a bit of a niche when it didn’t need to.

The BIOS on this motherboard is pretty ugly too. Of course, everything is there, but some of the descriptions and the tab layout make it needlessly unfriendly for beginners. MSI, ASUS, Gigabyte, etc, are leagues ahead in this regard. That’s not a big enough reason to not buy the motherboard, but we’ve said this about previous BIOSTAR motherboards, and it’s still something they need to improve on in today’s market.

Gaming Performance

This is a gaming motherboard, it’s marketed as such, and it comes with features to support that. When we put it up against some of the best motherboards in the world, all of which offered up different chipsets and CPUs, the BIOSTAR Z270 motherboard still held its own very well. When it comes to driving our GTX 1080 Ti from Nvidia, there were no problems to be found. Of course, your mileage will vary dependant on your CPU, but with the i7-7700K, this board ran much better than we expected.

Bonus Features

Getting more value for your money is always a good thing as a consumer. This motherboard comes equipped with value adding features such as robust overclocking support, HiFi audio for great sound quality from your headset or speakers, USB Type-C connectivity, Optane, M.2, and U.2 support. Overall, there’s not much missing given the smaller motherboard size. If you want to build a robust gaming system with lots of fast storage and a pair of high-end graphics cards, it’s got everything you need.

Pros

• Fasntastic gaming performance
• Robust connectivity for mATX motherboard
• Optane Ready
• Good amount of overclocking options
• Reasonably priced
• RGB LED lighting

Cons

• BIOS design could be greatly improved and simplified

Neutral

• The unique design is interesting, but “RACING” may not be to many peoples tastes

“If you’re looking to build an mATX gaming system around the Z270 chipset, the BIOSTAR Z270GT4+ has a lot to offer in terms of features and performance. It’s going to appeal to gamers who want great performance for a reasonable price.”