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MSI Z170A TOMAHAWK Review. Let’s explore a freshly launched Z170 board from MSI, the model we’re focusing on is the GAMING PRO CARBON. If you’re interested in exploring, we’ve already had quite a few MSI Skylake boards in. Here in the UK, the product should be hitting the market for under £119. Much like the KRAIT and Tomahawk we saw recently, visuals have not been sacrificed, the opposite, in fact, With a sleek overall look and with RBG thrown into the mix too.

In terms of features, yes some of the more exotic Z170 feature set, has been trimmed back. For example, no dual LAN or mass amount of USB 3.1 Gen2 ports, but the Gaming PRO Carbon does have everything that most consumers wants, especially gamers… which we’ll cover.

With all these new boards available, choice is better than ever but to ensure clarity, MSI has separated their Z170A line-up into three main category’s, The Gaming M5 we reviewed a few months back was from the top tiered “Enthusiast Gaming”, The MSI Z170A Krait GAMING from the “Performance Gaming “and The TOMAHAWK from the lowest tier “Arsenal Gaming”

This product is from The Enthusiast Gaming Family, Which currently consists of (region dependent)

H110M GAMING

B150I GAMING PRO AC

B150M NIGHT ELF

B150A GAMING PRO

H170A GAMING PRO

Z170A KRAIT GAMING

Z170A GAMING PRO

The eagle eyed may have noticed, some striking resemblances between the Z170A GAMING PRO and this “Carbon” version, MSI have done more than touch up the visuals, however, and it is our understanding that the GAMING PRO, will now be discontinued in favor of the Carbon only edition.

MSI removed the frankly useless PCI slot from the original, which yes is nice for legacy purposes but come on it’s 2016, we don’t want them anymore right? Instead we have 4 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots, rather than 3. Increased USB ports, and even thrown in a Type C connector, to future proof it.

Key differences exist between the ranges and the CARBON, sits in the middle. If you want more you’ll need to look higher up the range

[MSI Z170A GAMING PRO CARBON – Main Features]

Supports 6th Gen Intel® Core™ / Pentium® / Celeron® processors for LGA 1151 socket

Supports DDR4-3600+(OC) Memory

DDR4 Boost: Give your DDR4 memory a performance boost

USB 3.1 Gen2 2X FASTER: USB 3.1 Gen2 offers performance twice as fast as a regular USB 3.0 connection

Turbo M.2 32Gb/s + Turbo U.2 ready + USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C + Type-A combo + SATA Express 10 Gb/s

Mystic Light: Customize and set up your own color scheme with GAMING APP to make your PC look & feel brand new!

GAMING LAN with LAN Protect, powered by Intel® : The best online gaming experience with lowest latency

Audio Boost 3: Reward your ears with studio grade sound quality

Nahimic Audio Enhancer: Immersive sound quality that pushes the limits of reality

Military Class 5: The latest evolution in high quality components featuring the brand new Titanium Chokes

Guard-Pro: Improved Protection and Power Efficiency

MULTI-GPU with Steel Armor: Steel Armor PCI-E slots. Supports NVIDIA SLI™ & AMD Crossfire™

OBS Streaming software: Share your gaming achievements with the world!

Game Boost: Generate more FPS in games with 1 push of a button

EZ Debug LED: Easiest way to troubleshoot

Overvoltage Protection:Prevent Unforeseen Damage

GAMING Hotkey: Launch your favorite games with a single button

Click BIOS 5: Award-winning brand new Click BIOS 5 with high resolution scalable font

SteelSeries Certified: Optimized for SteelSeries gaming gear

GAMING CERTIFIED: 24-hour on- and offline game testing by eSports players for the best gaming experience

Courtesy of MSI, see FULL specifications here

[Packaging & Accessories]

Most of the MSI products I’ve worked with since Z77 have all been gaming based, with the dragon and circuit board designs. On the M5 we found MSI had moved away and toned it down, in favor of a cleaner look. On Krait, the transition over from Z97 had been tweaked again. This product has a futuristic car, which to me spells out speed, style and of course…lighting!

MSI have done a great job on the rear side, outlining the features and specifications. Despite the amount of information, it doesn’t feel overwhelming.

Inside the box, you will find

User’s manual

Quick Install Guide

2 x SATA 6Gb/s cable(s)

1 SATA Label Sticker Kit

Driver/Software Disc

I/O Shield & Thank You Note

[The Board]

We will start our main tour with a look at the new board in its entirety, As I referenced earlier, it does take its DNA from the GAMING PRO ( soon to be discontinued) MSI has applied some magic here and changed the direction entirely. The name actually means something here, because yes… you guess it…MSI has added some cool carbon effects to the two main heatsinks. Carbon has been common choice, with custom system builders and modders for years. It’s simplicity adds some eye candy to any build. Rejoice users that don’t want RED! Yes red is a nice colour, and yes theirs are lots of complimenting components but seriously we don’t all like red…

What’s interesting about the lower heatsinks is the size, it’s somewhat overkill but I like that. Other brands tend to use discrete and smaller ones, this one has some edge and presence about it. Due to the logical and neat layout it does not impact anything either. Theirs ample room between it and the PCI-e release clips. Which can on some boards, prove a nightmare….

This design, eliminates the one key issue I raised with another RGB enabled motherboard, that I reviewed recently. See, I struggled to understand the logic in offering the consumer RGB, but forcing them to have clashing blue, reds and such on DIMM slots, PCI-E and heatsinks. Theirs is a small hiccup here too though…

Take the following image for example, from the MSI website. You may assume that both the red sections are RGB-enabled, sadly they are not.. Only the section down the right side can have its colored changed.

For clarity sake, both areas do have lighting ( see above), both of which offers effects such as flash, breathing but only the right side is customizable. If you choose something other than red on the right edge, you might as well disable the audio lane LED section. My only issue with the actual lighting, is the brightness, I feel its just too low.

The 4 DDR banks will take up to 64Gb and can run at DDR4 3600+ in OC mode. The white circuit board design around them, works with the overall design.

A total of 3 PCI-E slots, the first being X 16, the second X 8. Which grants Crossfire & SLI Support, rarely found at this price!

Other Expansion Slots

4 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots

Two of the three slots here do also have MSI Armor. Which is said to be 35% stronger, than a traditional slot.

MSI® VGA ARMOR

With the increased size and weight of modern high end graphics cards, traditional PCI Express slots often show signs of bending or even breaking. Meet VGA Armor, strengthened PCI Express slots using more solder points to make sure you never have to worry about breaking off any of the slots.

Audio is handled by the • Realtek® ALC1150 Codec,which grants you – 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio – Supports S/PDIF output

[Storage Options]

[SATA]

Msi has taken this opportunity to fix a niggle on the original GAMING pro, SATA Placement, and orientation. We now have Right angled ports on the motherboard edge, and they’ve even added and extra USB 3.1 header too. It’s a Good move from MSI but I have to wonder why they left two vertical ports?

[M.2]

MSI has included 1 x M.2 with M Key design, type 2242/2260/2280/ storage device support

(Supports both SATA & PCI-E SSD)

[Fan Locations]

A total of 5 headers for CPU/ System fans are neatly placed on the PRO Gaming CARBON

1X (CPU 4 -pin) Near CPU Socket

2x (4 -pin) Top right corner

1x (4 -pin) Above the first PCIe slot

1x (4 -pin) Bottom Left

[Other ports/ Features]

Nothing significant is found on the motherboard base. On the more expensive models, we tend to see thunderbolt headers, onboard buttons and such.

Focusing on the motherboard edge, we have dual USB 3.1 headers, and EZ DEBUG LED

MSI EZ Debug LED is an easy troubleshooting tool using 3 LEDs to indicate CPU / Memory / VGA operation every time you boot up your system. Run into trouble? Use the LEDs to easily identify the source of your problem and get back into operation quickly.

Finishing up our tour of the board, looking at the I/O which consists of:

-1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse port

– 4 x USB 2.0 ports

– 1 x DVI-D port

– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 ports

– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 port

– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port

– 1 x HDMI™ port

– 1 x LAN (RJ45) port

– 1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT connector

– 5 x OFC audio jacks

Worth noting that the Audio Jacks are gold plated now too.

[BIOS & Software Overview]

Click Bios 5

Click Bios has been updated to version 5 on Z170, and as you’d expect it is better than ever. From Z87 to Z97 the difference was small but welcome. Here on Z170 without taking a massive change in direction, which may confuse existing Z87/97 users, MSI has tweaked and refined it once more with fantastic results. Above all it’s clearer than ever.

Rather than defaulting to the more familiar view, we are used to seeing. The Bios now has a splash screen (EZ Mode) with handy shortcuts to enable/change the most common BIOS settings. CPU and DDR4 speed are much more visible than they used to be, as well as more core detail.

The old layout is still hiding underneath here, with a mouse click or press of F7 on your keyboard. We find the more common layout, with access to all the features and settings, which is neatly split across 6 tabs

[Settings]

General setting and boot options

[OC]

Carrying over from Z97, by default the view is “Normal” and will only display the basic settings, the “Advanced” ones can be unlocked of course.

M-Flash now loads up as a separate application. As the name implies, it’s for updating or saving the current BIOS. Two returning segments of Click Bios are “Hardware Monitor” and “Board Explorer”

We now find two shortcuts at the top left. The first is now called “Game Boost”, previous users may have expected OC Genie. The second for setting RAM“XMP” profiles, notice the 1 & 2, for either (RAM Dependent)

Pressing Game Boost, shows what the board will apply depending on your CPU, down the line if more K series surface, naturally MSI will update their BIOS with presets for them too. Finally, MSI implemented some neat additions such as favorites and custom profiles. Most helpful of all, is a BIOS Log that shows everything you’ve changed, great for tweaking and testing!

[Software]

MSI provide an absolute plethora of software and each brings something unique to the table! So many to list, so please do visit HERE to read about them all. Below is just a snippet of what to expect

MSI GAMING LAN MANAGER

Automatically prioritizes games above other applications

Allows you to change applications’ traffic priority

Allows you to customize you to customize bandwidth for each application

GAMING HOTKEY

Gaming Hotkey enables more functionality using your own keyboard. Simply assign functions or macros to any key and launch your favorite games, load overclocking profiles or do real-time overclocking with the push of a single button. The possibilities are endless!

Customize any key on your keyboard

Up to 8 steps macro programming

User friendly, easy to use application

1 key load up of your favorite game

1 key overclocking

OVERCLOCKINGMADE EASY

Outperform your competition with the MSI® GAMING APP which allows simultaneous control of both your Motherboard and Graphics Card’s overclocking.

Simply select your preferred mode with the click of a button:

/ Silent / Gaming / OC /

Lighting control

As mentioned earlier, the controlled from inside the MSI app, this is a smart move to bundle multiple functions into one single application. Usage is easy enough.

Test Setup and Overclocking

Proudly Powered by our Dimastech Mini V1.0 Test Bench

[TECHICIZE TEST SYSTEM]

Processor:

Intel® i5 6600K (SKYLAKE) Memory: 16GB Kingston Kingston Predator 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C15 3000MHz Quad Channel Kit Motherboard: Video Card: Intel iGPU/ XFX 390X PSU: Bitfenix Fury 750G Hard Drives: SSD – Kingston HyperX 3k240GB

M.2 -Kingston M.2

OS: Windows 8.1

We would like to thank or sponsors for their support with our test system, Kingston,Dismatech,Cooler Master,Noctua and MSI

[Foreword]

Overclocking is CPU dependant and this is often dubbed as the silicone lottery. This means you should keep in mind, each user experience will differ. What we present is the best we achieved with our setup. We only provide 100% stable and real results, we may mention potential overclocks, but only include data from stable runs. A system must be pass extreme torture testing from Gaming, Benchmarks and stress tools to be deemed stable. The same CPU is used in all reviews.

We have reviewed a few Z170 products now, so straight into overclocking today.

We used the 6600K, In a nutshell we have 4 physical cores, DDR4 and DDR3L support, a new IGPU in the form of Intel® HD Graphics 530, the 14nm architecture, and a base clock of 3.5 GHz, which can boost to 3.9 GHz

[New Approach To Overclocking Skylake]

For the last few years we have approached Intel CPU overclocking in two different ways. The more favorable is manually via the BIOS. Essentially it was a case of adjusting the multiplier, upping the vcore and sometimes adding a touch more to the ring voltage.

Or with a software approach, using bundled (windows) applications. The latter being the least desirable in our opinion. Overclocking had become almost too easy, and really anyone that had the adequate hardware and cooling solution was able to do it. Nothing has changed in terms of what CPU’s do what here with Skylake, the “K” series still indicates the unlocked models. With Z97 and prior gens we had the option to clock with BCLK but were limited to preconfigured straps, honestly very few even bothered, as the yields were dismal…that’s no longer the case on Z170 because we now have full access to BCLK, in 1 MHz increments for overclocking.

What does that mean? Well …There is no longer a negative link between PEG/DMI when adjusting the BCLK, so when you do increase it, PCIe and such are auto-locked to 100 MHz, and not clocked up alongside BCLK. If this is all a little much to take in, but remember the good old days of say 775 overclocking (or earlier like me!), that’s basically that’s where we at with Z170 and Skylake, with a few tweaks.

The other difference is now based around “Ring” or “CPU Cache” A interface connecting to each circuit inside the CPU. Increasing the Ring Ratio for a higher Ring frequency, brings better performance. Alongside this is a change, in how ring voltage is delivered, The Ring is fed from CPU Core Voltage. If you want to increase voltage to the Ring, you must increase the actual Core Voltage on Z170.

[Max OC]

Unlike the Tomahawk, which fell short of our CPUs max, the Carbon hit the CPU limit and held stable at 4800 Mhz

[Test Setup & Method]

Our test method uses a large variety of software to determine the results and overall product award. For your viewing, these are broken down into the following categories

General System

CPU & Memory

Gaming

Storage & USB

Networking

Software Used

3DMark

AIDA64

AS SSD

Cinebench R15

CrystalDiskMark

CPU-Z

GPU-Z

HW-Monitor

Passmark Performance Test 8.0

PCMark 8

Super PI

WinRAR

Gimp

Others…

[General System]

We start with a broader view of general system performance and then break it down, as we delve deeper with sub testing, where we can examine key areas..

-[PC Mark 8]

PCMark 8 from Futuremark. PCMark 8 is designed to test the performance of all types of PC, from tablets to desktops. With five separate benchmark tests plus battery life testing, PCMark 8 helps you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance. It’s the complete PC benchmark for home and business.

With PCMark 8, we’re also able to gauge an all-around score. This test is heavily affected by all internal components rather than focusing on just one.

The results from PCMark 8 place the GAMING PRO CARBON around the middle, which is right for the price point.

[CPU & Memory]

-[Performance Test 8]

Passmark PerformanceTest is an award-winning PC hardware benchmark utility that allows everybody to quickly assess the performance of their computer and compare it to a number of standard ‘baseline’ computer systems. Find out if your PC is performing at its best, compare the performance of your machine to similar machines and make objective independent measurements on which to base your purchasing decision.

That’s what you should expect going forward, the board performs as you expect. Hovering around the middle or so….

Some MSI boards had issues with XMP ( my review samples), I had to manually set the timings and speeds, (later addressed in BIOS updates). The GAMING PRO CARBON does not suffer from any such problem, and enabling XMP worked first time.

[Gaming]

[Integrated]

We will look at the new Intel 530 IGPU 3D Mark performance first before running actual games with our dedicated test GPU.

Though we have not reviewed it, and can’t show it in the comparison, the major breakthrough in iGPU performance lies with Broadwell, the Intel 530 here on Skylake, does not share the same strengths as its 5th gen equivalent.

A major or minor factor, depending on the application/game is the memory speeds associated with the IGPU, for reference sake I’ve shown the difference on Haswell with DDR3 @ 1600 MHz & 2400 MHz.

Likewise on Skylake @ 2400Mhz and 3000Mhz. Cloudgate shows promise in terms of performance gains, but does not scale and improve as much as DDR3 did. I will refer you to this site (Intel) with a list of games that can be played.

Be realistic about what resolution and what settings need to be amended, and some gaming is doable.

[-Discrete GPU/ AMD 390x]

We decided given the amount of information to process already, to avoid this risk of this becoming too cluttered , so cut back on the gaming tests today. Instead focusing on a small selection

Given that every test uses the same hardware config, you wouldn’t expect much difference between them all. The Carbon sits neatly around the KRAIT , which is exactly where it should.

[Storage & USB]

SATA III 6GBps, as I’ve said in the past has been pushed as far as it can go, we don’t expect to see anything major between one motherboard and the next.

[SATA]

We use an SSD with a theatrical limit of 550/500

We’ve seen some small score variation with Z170 lately, Write results tend to be consistent, but some boards produce lower read speeds.

[M.2]

The Predator from Kingston, has a theoretical peak of 1400/1000 (Read/Write)

Unlike the mishap we saw on the TOMAHAWK, the Gaming PRO Carbon leaps way ahead in both M.2 tests

Not so much of an issue with READ speed, almost neck and neck on all boards. The weakest area being the 512K on the TOMAHAWK..

[USB 3.0]

We don’t have any USB 3.1 (Gen2 ) devices at the time of testing, so will be focusing on 3.0 only. Be sure to understand the actual difference between USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 1 & Gen 2. As it’s something that not all brands have explained clearly…

To measure speeds we use AS-SSD, with an SSD inside a USB 3.0 Caddy from Startech

The Kingston SSD has a theoretical limit of 499MB/s Write, when hooked up internally to a SATA 6GB/s port. Overheads and such we expect some degradation when used over USB 3.0

Pretty much what you would expect, like SATA, the controller are the same most of the time, so performance varies very little.

[Network Performance]

Using the in built network test for Performance test 8. The method is to install the software on two machines, that are on the same network. One acts as a client and the other as a server, a designated amount of data is sent across and then the min, avg, and max transfer speeds are outputted.

No killer network solution, like what you tend to see on the more expensive MSI boards, though the Intel controller performed very well.

[Conclusion]

Time to wrap and deliver a verdict on the MSI Z170A GAMING PRO Carbon. It’s an interesting product and for some the appeal is obvious, others might have missed the point. That’s fine, it just means it will appeal to wider audience I suppose. I applaud MSI’s approach to take and existing product and essentially fix the small but key things that were wrong with it. The current Z170 range they have is vast, and still growing it would seem. RGB is growing in popularity all the time, the consumers wants customization. You have it here and on other competing products too, so why bother with this one?

The simple fact is, this product is neutral and that is its real strength. Offering a monochrome style product, is a very smart move. It eliminates the one issue I have with a competing product. See I just couldn’t understand the point in offering RGB, to say a consumer that want yellow lights, but is forced to illuminate a board with red accents…kinda defeats the point right?

On the performance front, it performed almost like every other MSI product we’ve tested so far..very well. Overclocking was great too, and as stable as the more premium products. I was pleased to see MSI has addressed the M.2 performance here, bumping it up significantly!

Pros

RGB Lighting control – offers something unique

Aggressively priced

No PCI slots!

USB Type C

Polished and easy to use UEFI

Great overclocking ability

Cons

RGB lighting is dim/dull…

The two Vertical SATA ports may be off-putting.

Dual USB 3.1 headers are interesting but not practical for most cases… More ports on the rear would have made more sense right?

[taq_review]

We would like to thank MSI for providing the sample, and eagerly await more from them soon!

MSI Z170A GAMING PRO Carbon Motherboard Review MSI Z170A TOMAHAWK Review. Let's explore a freshly launched Z170 board from MSI, the model we're focusing on is the…

#CARBON #GAMING PRO #Motherboard #msi #Review #Z170A

This product is from The Enthusiast Gaming Family, Which currently consists of (region dependent)

H110M GAMING

B150I GAMING PRO AC

B150M NIGHT ELF

B150A GAMING PRO

H170A GAMING PRO

Z170A KRAIT GAMING

Z170A GAMING PRO

Key differences exist between the ranges and the CARBON, sits in the middle. If you want more you’ll need to look higher up the range

[MSI Z170A GAMING PRO CARBON – Main Features]

Supports 6th Gen Intel® Core™ / Pentium® / Celeron® processors for LGA 1151 socket

Supports DDR4-3600+(OC) Memory

DDR4 Boost: Give your DDR4 memory a performance boost

USB 3.1 Gen2 2X FASTER: USB 3.1 Gen2 offers performance twice as fast as a regular USB 3.0 connection

Turbo M.2 32Gb/s + Turbo U.2 ready + USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C + Type-A combo + SATA Express 10 Gb/s

Mystic Light: Customize and set up your own color scheme with GAMING APP to make your PC look & feel brand new!

GAMING LAN with LAN Protect, powered by Intel® : The best online gaming experience with lowest latency

Audio Boost 3: Reward your ears with studio grade sound quality

Nahimic Audio Enhancer: Immersive sound quality that pushes the limits of reality

Military Class 5: The latest evolution in high quality components featuring the brand new Titanium Chokes

Guard-Pro: Improved Protection and Power Efficiency

MULTI-GPU with Steel Armor: Steel Armor PCI-E slots. Supports NVIDIA SLI™ & AMD Crossfire™

OBS Streaming software: Share your gaming achievements with the world!

Game Boost: Generate more FPS in games with 1 push of a button

EZ Debug LED: Easiest way to troubleshoot

Overvoltage Protection:Prevent Unforeseen Damage

GAMING Hotkey: Launch your favorite games with a single button

Click BIOS 5: Award-winning brand new Click BIOS 5 with high resolution scalable font

SteelSeries Certified: Optimized for SteelSeries gaming gear

GAMING CERTIFIED: 24-hour on- and offline game testing by eSports players for the best gaming experience

Courtesy of MSI, see FULL specifications here

[Packaging & Accessories]

MSI have done a great job on the rear side, outlining the features and specifications. Despite the amount of information, it doesn’t feel overwhelming.

Inside the box, you will find

User’s manual

Quick Install Guide

2 x SATA 6Gb/s cable(s)

1 SATA Label Sticker Kit

Driver/Software Disc

I/O Shield & Thank You Note

[The Board]

The 4 DDR banks will take up to 64Gb and can run at DDR4 3600+ in OC mode. The white circuit board design around them, works with the overall design.

A total of 3 PCI-E slots, the first being X 16, the second X 8. Which grants Crossfire & SLI Support, rarely found at this price!

Other Expansion Slots

4 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots

Two of the three slots here do also have MSI Armor. Which is said to be 35% stronger, than a traditional slot.

MSI® VGA ARMOR

Audio is handled by the • Realtek® ALC1150 Codec,which grants you – 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio – Supports S/PDIF output

[Storage Options]

[SATA]

[M.2]

MSI has included 1 x M.2 with M Key design, type 2242/2260/2280/ storage device support

(Supports both SATA & PCI-E SSD)

[Fan Locations]

A total of 5 headers for CPU/ System fans are neatly placed on the PRO Gaming CARBON

1X (CPU 4 -pin) Near CPU Socket

2x (4 -pin) Top right corner

1x (4 -pin) Above the first PCIe slot

1x (4 -pin) Bottom Left

[Other ports/ Features]

Nothing significant is found on the motherboard base. On the more expensive models, we tend to see thunderbolt headers, onboard buttons and such.

Focusing on the motherboard edge, we have dual USB 3.1 headers, and EZ DEBUG LED

Finishing up our tour of the board, looking at the I/O which consists of:

-1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse port

– 4 x USB 2.0 ports

– 1 x DVI-D port

– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 ports

– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 port

– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port

– 1 x HDMI™ port

– 1 x LAN (RJ45) port

– 1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT connector

– 5 x OFC audio jacks

Worth noting that the Audio Jacks are gold plated now too.

[BIOS & Software Overview]

Click Bios 5

[Settings]

General setting and boot options

[OC]

Carrying over from Z97, by default the view is “Normal” and will only display the basic settings, the “Advanced” ones can be unlocked of course.

[Software]

MSI provide an absolute plethora of software and each brings something unique to the table! So many to list, so please do visit HERE to read about them all. Below is just a snippet of what to expect

MSI GAMING LAN MANAGER

Automatically prioritizes games above other applications

Allows you to change applications’ traffic priority

Allows you to customize you to customize bandwidth for each application

GAMING HOTKEY

Customize any key on your keyboard

Up to 8 steps macro programming

User friendly, easy to use application

1 key load up of your favorite game

1 key overclocking

OVERCLOCKINGMADE EASY

Outperform your competition with the MSI® GAMING APP which allows simultaneous control of both your Motherboard and Graphics Card’s overclocking.

Simply select your preferred mode with the click of a button:

/ Silent / Gaming / OC /

Lighting control

As mentioned earlier, the controlled from inside the MSI app, this is a smart move to bundle multiple functions into one single application. Usage is easy enough.

Test Setup and Overclocking

Proudly Powered by our Dimastech Mini V1.0 Test Bench

[TECHICIZE TEST SYSTEM]

Processor:

M.2 -Kingston M.2

OS: Windows 8.1

We would like to thank or sponsors for their support with our test system, Kingston,Dismatech,Cooler Master,Noctua and MSI

[Foreword]

We have reviewed a few Z170 products now, so straight into overclocking today.

[New Approach To Overclocking Skylake]

[Max OC]

Unlike the Tomahawk, which fell short of our CPUs max, the Carbon hit the CPU limit and held stable at 4800 Mhz

[Test Setup & Method]

Our test method uses a large variety of software to determine the results and overall product award. For your viewing, these are broken down into the following categories

General System

CPU & Memory

Gaming

Storage & USB

Networking

Software Used

3DMark

AIDA64

AS SSD

Cinebench R15

CrystalDiskMark

CPU-Z

GPU-Z

HW-Monitor

Passmark Performance Test 8.0

PCMark 8

Super PI

WinRAR

Gimp

Others…

[General System]

We start with a broader view of general system performance and then break it down, as we delve deeper with sub testing, where we can examine key areas..

-[PC Mark 8]

With PCMark 8, we’re also able to gauge an all-around score. This test is heavily affected by all internal components rather than focusing on just one.

The results from PCMark 8 place the GAMING PRO CARBON around the middle, which is right for the price point.

[CPU & Memory]

-[Performance Test 8]

That’s what you should expect going forward, the board performs as you expect. Hovering around the middle or so….

[Gaming]

[Integrated]

We will look at the new Intel 530 IGPU 3D Mark performance first before running actual games with our dedicated test GPU.

A major or minor factor, depending on the application/game is the memory speeds associated with the IGPU, for reference sake I’ve shown the difference on Haswell with DDR3 @ 1600 MHz & 2400 MHz.

Be realistic about what resolution and what settings need to be amended, and some gaming is doable.

[-Discrete GPU/ AMD 390x]

We decided given the amount of information to process already, to avoid this risk of this becoming too cluttered , so cut back on the gaming tests today. Instead focusing on a small selection

Given that every test uses the same hardware config, you wouldn’t expect much difference between them all. The Carbon sits neatly around the KRAIT , which is exactly where it should.

[Storage & USB]

SATA III 6GBps, as I’ve said in the past has been pushed as far as it can go, we don’t expect to see anything major between one motherboard and the next.

[SATA]

We use an SSD with a theatrical limit of 550/500

We’ve seen some small score variation with Z170 lately, Write results tend to be consistent, but some boards produce lower read speeds.

[M.2]

The Predator from Kingston, has a theoretical peak of 1400/1000 (Read/Write)

Unlike the mishap we saw on the TOMAHAWK, the Gaming PRO Carbon leaps way ahead in both M.2 tests

Not so much of an issue with READ speed, almost neck and neck on all boards. The weakest area being the 512K on the TOMAHAWK..

[USB 3.0]

To measure speeds we use AS-SSD, with an SSD inside a USB 3.0 Caddy from Startech

The Kingston SSD has a theoretical limit of 499MB/s Write, when hooked up internally to a SATA 6GB/s port. Overheads and such we expect some degradation when used over USB 3.0

Pretty much what you would expect, like SATA, the controller are the same most of the time, so performance varies very little.

[Network Performance]

No killer network solution, like what you tend to see on the more expensive MSI boards, though the Intel controller performed very well.

[Conclusion]

Pros

RGB Lighting control – offers something unique

Aggressively priced

No PCI slots!

USB Type C

Polished and easy to use UEFI

Great overclocking ability

Cons

RGB lighting is dim/dull…

The two Vertical SATA ports may be off-putting.

Dual USB 3.1 headers are interesting but not practical for most cases… More ports on the rear would have made more sense right?

[taq_review]

We would like to thank MSI for providing the sample, and eagerly await more from them soon!

MSI Z170A GAMING PRO Carbon Motherboard Review MSI Z170A TOMAHAWK Review. Let's explore a freshly launched Z170 board from MSI, the model we're focusing on is the…

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