MSI has added one more motherboard to their AMD Ryzen line-up, this time based on the flagship X370 chipset and under their Gaming Pro Carbon line. MSI currently offers the MSI X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium, X370 Krait Gaming and X370 SLI Plus, but the addition of the X370 Gaming Pro Carbon is going to provide an RGB LED laden alternative that has lighting on the chipset heatsink, audio separation area, IO cover, and right side edge. The X370 Gaming Pro Carbon comes in a regular version and another version called the X370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC will come bundled with a PCIe x1 add-on card equipped with an Intel dual-band Wireless-AC 8265 controller (supports Dual Band 2×2 802.11ac and MU-MIMO Rx, and a maximum bandwidth of 867 Mbps).
The MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon is not short on features as well, having an upgraded Realtek ALC1220-based Audio Boost 4 with Nahimic 2 audio solution and Nippon Chemicon audio capacitors. For wired network connectivity, it uses an Intel i211AT Gigabit LAN controller with an MSI Gaming LAN Manager application that can automatically optimize bandwidth for gaming, streaming or other activities. It comes with two M.2 slots, one of which supports up to 22110 form factors and comes with an MSI M.2 shield.
Both the PCIe x16 slots and DDR4 DIMM slots on the MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon have soldered-through shielding that prevent damage due to the unlikely even of too much pressure. Plus, it looks much cooler than just the bare slots, even if it is going to be mostly covered with a video card anyway. Since the AMD X370 chipset supports SLI multi-GPU setups, the Gaming Pro Carbon also has a healthy two PCIe slot gap between the two PCIe x16 slots so that each video card gets enough airflow.
In terms of storage, there are six SATA 6G ports in total, four of which are angled right beside the also angled 19-pin USB 3.0 onboard header, while the two other SATA ports are upright at the very bottom right corner. Additional USB slots are available in the rear IO including a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C and Type-A port. There is also an HDMI and a DVI-D port in the rear for on-board graphics display compatibility when an AMD AM4 APU is installed. These APUs are not available yet, but the MSI Gaming Pro Carbon is prepared for it.
For more information, visit: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/X370-GAMING-PRO-CARBON.html
