MSI Z170A Gaming M7 Preview

Published by Marc Büchel on 07.08.15
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Features

Military Class 5 Components

Since years MSI has been using digital power designs. On this board we find the latest implementation of their Military Class Components, which is meanwhile in its fifth generation. This board comes equiped with Hi-c Caps, Titanium Chokes and Dark CAPs for high stability, durability and efficiency.
 

MSI Steel Armor

There are two PCIe x16 slots on this particular board, which have been equipped with a steel frame. If you place a large and heavy gaming graphics card, while the board is mounted in a case, you will notice, that over time the slots starts to bend by a little bit. Furthermore, when transporting a system it can happen, that the PCIe slot break by the sheer force, when somebody is not dealing carefully with an assembled system. In both cases the steel armor should help increasing protection of the PCIe slots.
 

DDR4 Boost + XMP LED

MSI equipped this board with fully isolated traces from the CPU to the DDR4 memory. This should help increasing stability and it should also be possible to reach higher maximum DDR4 clock speeds.
XMP LED shows when you're using an optimal XMP profile.
 

Audio Boost 3

MSI equips its latest and greatest motherboard with an improved audio solution which includes the Realtek ALC1150 chip, Dual headphone amplifier. At the I/O shield we find golden audio jacks which is to improve the audio signals as well as high quality capacitors from nichicon and the PCB separation, as well as USB audio power to enhance USB audio quality and stable 5V power and better signal transmission over USB.
   

Killer Ethernet

It is rather obvious that MSI is not only optimizing this board for overclocking but also for gaming as well. Next to the beefed up audio solution there is the Killer Ethernet chip, which gives gamers additional control over a variety of network settings, which in the end can help reduce latency.
     

M.2 Support

The Z170A Gaming M7 motherboard from MSI features two M.2 slots which are placed between the PCIe slots. This motherboard can be equipped with SSDs in M.2 format. Both slots are connected via four PCIe x4 lanes, offering up to 32 Gbps bandwidth. These slots can also be equipped with NVMe adapters, which are optionally available.


Page 1 - Introduction Page 4 - Layout
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery Page 5 - Connectors and I/O
Page 3 - Features Page 6 - Conclusion




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MSI Z170A Gaming M7 Preview - Motherboards > Intel > Z170 - Reviews - ocaholic