The tight confines and limited airflow of a small form factor rig often make for a hotter environment than systems in a mid- or full-sized tower. Supermicro’s C7H170-M is a microATX motherboard that’s built with stability and reliability in mind, while still providing support for Intel’s Skylake processors, M.2 storage, and a few expansion card slots. As you might guess by the title, the C7H170-M runs Intel’s H170 chipset, which is quite comparable with Intel’s Z170 chipset. Typically, the H variant of Intel’s chipsets don’t support overclocking, but Supermicro uses a special hardware design and BIOS that lets you adjust the base clock on your Skylake processor. Read on for a deeper look at Supermicro’s C7H170-M.
As part of Supermicro’s new SuperO lineup, Supermicro adds its “server DNA” into the C7H170-M’s PCB, capacitors, sockets, and ports. The PCB, for instance, features extra layers of material, which helps to ensure signal integrity. The material in these extra layers is qualified for Supermicro’s server standards and is ideal for providing stability while overclocking. The C7H170-M can also deliver low capacity variance, thanks to X5R and X7R ceramic chip capacitors throughout the motherboard.
For best connectivity, Supermicro uses 15-micron-thick gold plating on the PCIe sockets, connectors, and CPU socket. Besides helping to create a perfect connection with your hardware, the gold plating also helps ports to resist corrosion over time. You also can be assured that the C7H170-M is ready-to-go when you receive it, because Supermicro tests the mainboard under its full-load server testing at 100% load for at least 150 hours.
As with most H170 chipset motherboards, which are generally more budget-friendly, you won’t find a boatload of extras on the C7H170-M. There’s support for Intel’s 6th Generation processors, DDR4 memory at 2133MHz, and a single PCIe x16 slot. The latter isn’t really much of a limitation on a microATX motherboard, as there’s usually only room for one dual-slot GPU anyway. The C7H170-M also provides a PCIe x4 slot and PCIe x1 slot, should you need to install an add-on card, though the PCIe x4 slot would be blocked by a dual-slot GPU. You can install up to 64GB of memory into the board’s four DDR4 DIMM slots.
For storage, there are six 6Gbps SATA ports and an M.2 slot. The six 6Gbps SATA ports support RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 configurations. The M.2 slot can utilize four PCIe 3.0 lanes to expose the maximum potential bandwidth to M.2 SSDs. Supermicro also maximizes M.2 compatibility by including screw holes for 2260, 2280, and 22110 form factors.
As small form factor rigs are more likely to use on-processor graphics than a full-sized system, the onboard video outputs on a microATX are extremely important. Supermicro provides you with one HDMI 1.4, one DisplayPort 1.2, and one DVI-D output. Both the HDMI and DisplayPort outputs can handle up to 4K resolutions. There’s also an S/PDIF audio output, which is helpful if you plan on connecting your SFF rig to an A/V receiver. A Realtek ALC1150 high-definition audio codec is onboard to provide up to 7.1-channel surround sound. Analog audio ports, of course, are also on the rear panel.
For external I/O connectivity, the C7H170-M offers four USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and a PS/2 port on the rear panel. Wired network connectivity is handled by Intel’s i219-V. Internally, there are two USB 3.0 headers and a USB 2.0 header. Supermicro also includes a few onboard conveniences that will help you to quickly recovery from system problems. Near the DIMM slots, you’ll find a Clear CMOS button, a Power button, and a BIOS Restore button. The latter will look for BIOS (must name file SUPER.ROM) from any of the USB ports, and it will automatically update the BIOS, which is extremely helpful to overcome a corrupted BIOS.
On the whole, the C7H170-M benchmark results were on par with the Z170 chipset motherboards we’ve tested. For example, a score of 6653 of 3DMark’s Fire Strike Extreme graphics test is right up there with the top Z170 options. The C7H170-M also did well in the processor-intensive Cinbench 15 (871 points) and POV-Ray 3.7 (1894.16 pixels per second) benchmarks. Storage speed in CrystalDiskMark 5.0.2 was strong as well, with Sequential Read Q32T1 speeds of 557.3MBps and Sequential Write Q32T1 of 294.9MBps.
The H170 chipset is a solid core for small form factor rigs, and Supermicro does much to enhance reliability on the C7H170-M. Supermicro also offers a microATX Z170 variant, the C7Z170-M, if you want a little more overclocking options, such as CPU multipliers and system memory, in your small form factor build. Otherwise, the C7Z170-M offers a similar set of features to the C7H170-M. The two microATX options also show that Supermicro is growing their consumer motherboard lineups to fit specific needs.
Specs
Max memory: 64GB DDR4 (DDR4-2133)
Slots: 1 PCIe x16, 1 PCIe x4, 1 PCIe x1
Storage: 6 6Gbps SATA, 1 M.2 (type 2260/2280/22110)
Rear I/O: 1 HDMI, 1 DisplayPort, 1 DVI-D, 4 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0, 1 PS/2, 1 optical S/PDIF out, audio I/O, 1 Ethernet
Form factor: microATX
Warranty: 3 years