MSI Z370 SLI Plus Motherboard Review

A Closer Look

My first impression of this motherboard is that it does look a little bit spartan, as the motherboard doesn’t have a lot of hardware on the PCB. However, in a good way, it does maintain a clean and low profile that should integrate into your build with ease. The black PCB, combined with some grey highlights on the hardware makes it reasonably stealthy concerning design, and it’s not going to steal the thunder from any other equipment you have installed in your system, such as your graphics cards, CPU cooler, etc.

The most stand out feature on this motherboard is up in the top left corner, where you’ll find a shroud that merges with the VRM heatsink. The heatsinks are of a good size with a larger one on the left and a slightly smaller one at the top, both helping keep the motherboards power delivery hardware cool.

Power Delivery

The motherboard utilizes an 11-phase power design, as well as MSI Military Class 5 and Gold Pro hardware, promising reliable performance, protection, and efficiency.

There are 4 DDR4 DIMM slots on the motherboard, that are fairly standard in terms of design.

Connectivity

Storage options are reasonably decent too, with 6 SATA 6 Gbps ports further down the edge of the motherboard, as well as USB 3.0. Unfortunately, no USB 3.1 front panel connector, but that’s hardly a deal breaker.

Along the bottom row of the motherboard, you find all the usual headers for USB 2.0, front panel controls, audio jacks, and some more fan connectors. This isn’t a crazy enthusiast motherboard, so unfortunately, there are no onboard controls of power reset or BIOS reset.

Armour

The armored PCIe slots look fantastic, this durable design will help ensure that the motherboard can sustain the weight of high-end graphics cards, which as many of you will know are often quite large and incredibly heavy. One thing that I do find confusing, is that while this is an SLI motherboard it does support three AMD cards in Crossfire, so why not armor all three full-size PCI slots?

The rear of the motherboard isn’t too complicated, with a reasonable amount of USB 2.0, USB 3.0 ports as well as a USB 3.1 Type-C connector. There are two display connectors with a single DVI, as well as a single HDMI 2.0. The HD audio jacks are pretty straightforward, with some gold plated connectors, as well as a Toslink optical connector.