MSI Z170A GAMING M7 (LGA 1151) Motherboard Review

A Closer Look & Layout Analysis

This is a great looking motherboard, with a strong vibrant red contrasting against the black PCB and components. The heatsinks are striking and substantial around the CPU socket and the I/O cover is a great addition. If you remember back to our X99A GODLIKE review, I said about how the metal was a great addition, but it was slightly loose around the I/O ports; well they’ve fixed that by screwing it directly through the motherboard this time.

The capacitors are placed fairly close to the CPU socket, so it does look quite cluttered. The Chokes are a brand new Titanium design which provides excellent longevity, overclocking and efficiency. To the right of the socket, you can see the artwork for DDR4 Boost, the highlighted red lines dictate that the memory channels have an ultra-fast direct link to the CPU socket.

The 1151 socket in all its glory, thanks to the backwards compatibility, other 115x based coolers will fit onto this motherboard.

The chipset heatsink features the MSI gaming dragon and continues on with the red and black colour scheme.

Unique to the MSI range is the new gaming boost dial. It takes the place of the OC Genie button with a more refined twisting mechanism. The red button on top dictates whether it is enabled through the hardware (switch) or software (BIOS); and yes, it goes all the way up to eleven.

Looking at the I/O options, we have 1x PS/2 port, 2x USB 2.0 ports, 1x Clear CMOS button, 1x USB 2.0 (verticle), 1x DisplayPort, 1x HDMI ports, 1x Gigabit LAN port, 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 3.1 (1x Type A, 1x Type C), 1x S/PDIF out and 5x HD audio jacks.

MSI Gaming motherboards feature Audio Boost technology, the latest iteration is the Audio Boost 3.

Along with this, you can see the Gaming LAN cover.

Moving to the bottom of the board, there are the usual headers such as a fan header, HD audio and USB 2.0. Along with this is a debug LED for instant hardware troubleshooting.

Moving over, there is another USB 2.0 header, slow boot switch, flash BIOS button, Power and Reset buttons and Game Boost dial.

Taking a look at the SATA options, there are 2x SATA express ports and 6x SATA 6Gb/s ports.

To the top of the board and we have 2x USB 3.0 front panel headers, the 24-pin power connector and hotkey switch. Next to this are the four DDR4 slots.

With the Z170 platform comes an absolutely huge array of PCIe lane options. This board has 3x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, 4x PCIe x1 slots and 2x Turbo M.2 ports. The two main PCIe x16 slots have the same metal protection that the GODLIKE motherboard has. These metal covers not only look great, but they add strength and provide electronic protection from surrounding components.