MSI GODLIKE Gaming Z370 Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

OK, this is the hold on to your wallet and try not to drown moment, as the MSI Godlike Gaming Z370 motherboard is a credit card killing, wallet crushing, explain to your SO where all the money has gone, monster. It’ll set you back around £500! That’s easily as expensive as Z370 can possibly get. A standard consumer board, you’ll expect change from £200, but this is not a standard consumer board.

Overview

As you’ve seen from our benchmarks today, the MSI Godlike Gaming is no slouch when it comes to performance. It can easily keep pace with anything the competition has, and even beat a few of them in various benchmarks. So why is this one so expensive? Simple, it has more features than any day-to-day consumer will likely ever need. If that wasn’t enough, it has even more features still that a lot of extreme and enthusiast users would use, but the fact is, it has them, and they don’t come free.

Price vs The Rest of the Build

Let’s look at that motherboard design just one more time. Just let it soak in what you’re looking at here. Room for four stick of RAM, room for five M.2 drives if you use the PCIe expansion card too. Then you’ve got a set of four armoured PCIe slots, that’s room for three or four GPUs dependant on your configuration. There’s extensive networking and WiFi connection options for class-leading connectivity. We’re just getting warmed up here, as there’s onboard controls, advanced RGB LED lighting, an extensive amount of armour, and huge heat sinks. Audiophiles rejoice at the flagship DAC and Nahimic 2 audio hardware, and the list keeps going. Try adding up how much it would take financially to max out what this motherboard can handle. The Godlike isn’t mucking about, this is not a motherboard for systems that cost £1000-2000, it’s capable of systems that are getting up into the five digit price ranges and beyond.

More Extreme than Extreme?

This motherboard is rocking the best of the best right out of the box. However, there’s plenty of overclockers out there that think they can do better. I know there’s more to this motherboard than we tested, and if you’re ready to get out your extreme PSU, and your LN2 pots, and everything else, it’ll likely be the motherboard of choice for setting the next wave of world record benchmarks.

Connectivity Like No Other

Three LAN ports on the back of this motherboard are insane. Most people don’t know what they can do with two, let alone three. For the enthusiast networkers out there, it’s a great feature to have. Of course, you can also bridge in the blazing fast Wifi too, for improved speed and better traffic management.

Gaming

Setting some of our highest ever scores in all of our gaming benchmarks, the Godlike Gaming certainly lives up to its name. However, if you spend the time to finetune the overclocking features of this motherboard, the sky is the limit. With the right binned CPU, the amount of custom loop cooling, and diving into overclocking your GPU and memory, etc, it could easily be the only motherboard for those who seek the highest frame rates available today.

Pros

• High-end performance
• Easy to overclock
• Suitable for extreme and LN2 overclocking
• Incredible networking options
• Class-leading audio hardware and connectivity
• Support up to 5 x M.2 drives (with PCIe card)
• Fully customisable RGB lighting
• Large heat sinks
• Armoured hardware
• Class-leading build-quality
• Exceptional design and aesthetics
• On board controls
• High-quality braided cables included
• Customisable rear I/O cover
• RGB LED strip included in the box

Cons

• Memory performance could be better, but a few BIOS updates should tighten that up

Neutral

• The price isn’t for the faint of heart