MSI Z370I Gaming Pro Carbon Mini-ITX Motherboard Review

A Closer Look

It may be a small motherboard, but MSI has packed it full of cool hardware. The main star of the show is, of course, the revised 8th Gen socket. This new socket allows support for the new 6-core Intel CPUs, and as you can see, it packs some chunky VRM cooling and power delivery hardware for reliable overclocking capabilities too.

There’s a single PCIe slot, which comes with an armoured design that obviously looks great, but also helps provide strength to support bulkier graphics cards with ease.

The DDR4 DIMM slots are armoured too, which again looks cool, but will help reduce unwanted flexing in the motherboard. There are four SATA ports, as well as a USB 3.0 header for peripheral connections.

The CPU takes its power from a single 8-pin header, giving us plenty of headroom for overclocking, even on the new CPUs.

Audio fans rejoice, with the inclusion of powerful AMP/DAC and dedicated capacitors, as well as AUDIO BOOST 4 with Nahimic 2+ support for improved processing.

My favourite aspect, however, is this comprehensive rear I/O. Here you’ll find two display outputs; HDMI and DP. There are five USB ports, plus a single Type-C, PS2, Gbe LAN, Intel WiFI, as well as analogue and digital audio outputs.

Overall, the MSI Gaming Pro Carbon AC has all the right hardware, now let’s find out how it performs!