MSI Z170A XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM (LGA 1151) Review

Software Overview

The best app that MSI offer is Command Center. It is an extremely simple application to use and works very well.

ECO Center is one of the less desirable apps, especially on a high-end motherboard like this. However, used right it can be very useful by cutting the power to selected devices to save energy. This can be handy if your system is in another room or hard to access, or you’re just lazy.

Fast Boot is useful to speed up the booting process by altering certain clocks speeds in the BIOS to provide extra performance to the storage drives. The Go2BIOS button can be extremely handy if your keyboard doesn’t get recognised until your operating system has been loaded.

Gaming LAN Manager is MSI’s alternative to Killer Networking App because Intel doesn’t offer a utility similar. Throughout the pages, you can prioritize which programs have access to the internet at any one time. This is ideal if you require constant bandwidth to a certain application like a game.

This page gives you an overview of the LAN options available on the motherboard itself and other key information.

This page is for the more advanced user. It allows you to control the amount of information coming to your computer and also block off certain IP addresses.

A pretty self-explanatory page, this allows you to enter in your internet speed information to better prioritize your connections.

This page lets you review your connection to see how fast they have been and how much of your connection they have required.

Apart from Command Center, Live Update 6 is likely one of the best apps MSI offer. This allows you to download every missing driver, BIOS and utilities. You can choose what you download and install so you can avoid programs such as Google Toolbar and Norton Security if you have your own options.

MSI offer M-Cloud to users who require more storage outside of their computers but don’t want to buy additional storage devices.

RAMDISK is something special. It allows you to take a portion of your RAM and dedicate it as a cache for your storage devices. Something we know about Dram is that it is extremely fast compared to NAND and can help greatly increase the performance if you have enough to spare.

Super Charging applications are pretty common these days, but one some motherboards you don’t have the option turn it on or off meaning you could fry an unsuspecting USB device.

The MSI Gaming App is essentially an extremely stripped down version of the command center. It allows you to adjust the onboard LED’s, quickly choose between 3 clock speed profiles and all of the usual array of features that the gaming app has given in the past.

With all of the Gaming range of motherboards, MSI includes as standard the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility. You can download this additionally via the Intel website, but MSI have included this specifically on the driver downloads.

Another added feature is the Nahimic settings. The Nahimic audio software boosts the audio performance by supplying a high-definition sound technology  which leads to clearer audio performance whether that be during music, video or gaming.