Connectors and I/O

In total, MSI equipped the Z370 Gaming M5 motherboard with six SATA 6Gbps connectors, which have all been natively wired to the PCH. Above the first PCIe x16 slot there is the first M.2 slot and on top of the third full size PCIe slot, there is the second M.2 x4 Gen 3 slot. With this motherboard you get three full-sized PCIe Gen 3.0 and three PCIe x1 Gen 3.0 slots and all of them have been painted black. The first two full-sized PCIe x16 slots received metal reinforcement. From top to bottom for the full-sized PCIe slots have been wired using 16 lanes, 8 lanes and 8 lanes. This means you can do 16x/8x SLI/CrossFire and 8x/8x/4x CrossFireX (3-way). Basically these are the standard options you get with any Intel's Z370 based motherboard, that does not feature a PLX chip. The placement of the PCIe slots has been well thought. Unfortunately there are no practical onboard power- and reset-buttons but at least there is a debug LED.



There is a total of six fan headers on the Z370 Gaming M5 which is enough, to provide a well equipped ATX system with fresh air. The headers have been located close to the CPU as well as spread over the board. Other than that it's a good thing that all of them feature four pins, which allows for rpm regulation in BIOS as well as under Windows. Furthermore there is a plethora of additional headers you find listed below:

Fan headers

• 1 x CPU Fan connector(s)
• 4 x Chassis Fan connector(s)

Watercooling connectors

• 1 x W_PUMP+ connector

 

Connectors

• 1 x PS/2 GAMING Device Port
• 1 x USB 2.0 Port
• 1 x DisplayPort
• 1 x LIGHTNING USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A
• 1 x Killer E2500 Gigabit LAN
• 5 x HD Audio Connectors
• 2 x USB 2.0 Port
• 1 x Clear CMOS Button
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x LIGHTNING USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C
• 2 x VR Ready USB 3.1 Gen1 Ports
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF-Out

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 11 - SiSoft Sandra 1
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery	Page 12 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 3 - Features	Page 13 - UC Bench
Page 4 - Layout	Page 14 - Super Pi 1M
Page 5 - Connectors and I/O	Page 15 - Right Mark Audio Analyzer
Page 6 - BIOS	Page 16 - Crystal Disk Mark 5
Page 7 - Test setup	Page 17 - Power Consumption
Page 8 - Preview / Gallery	Page 18 - Performance Rating
Page 9 - 3D Mark	Page 19 - Price Comparison
Page 10 - Cinebench R15	Page 20 - Conclusion