MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon Motherboard Review

Rating: 8.5.

MSI's Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon is the company's take on a mid-range motherboard with features that will appeal to gamers. Noteworthy inclusions are a comprehensive set of RGB LEDs spread across the board, a design which caters for dual-GPU gamers, and the company's smart M.2 Shield cooling plate.

You can read our Kaby Lake Core i5-7600K and Core i7-7700K review HERE.

Styling is, in a sense, played safe by MSI. And that's a good thing. The board's largely black and silver aesthetic leans on a comprehensive set of individually controllable RGB LED lighting zones to give an explosion of colour built to a user's preference. Additional appearance boosts come in the form of Steel Armor PCIe and DDR4 slots, both of which also serve a rigidity-enhancing function.

The Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon's feature list should tick the box for most gaming enthusiasts. There's support for 2-card SLI and 3-card CrossFire, dual M.2 PCIe NVMe or SATA SSDs, and 10Gbps USB 3.1 Gen 2 is present in both Type-A and Type-C form. MSI has an additional trick which is the board's ability to RAID together a trio of PCIe storage devices (two through M.2 and one through the PCIe slot, for example) in order to enhance transfer rates. That's without stealing CPU-fed PCIe lanes from the GPUs.

A Realtek ALC1220-based audio system, Intel NIC, and plenty of fan headers are further parts of the package. Retailing for around £167.99, the MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon has it sights firmly set on mid-range gamers who want added flare from their feature-filled motherboard.

Features:

• Supports DDR4-3866+(OC) Memory
• DDR4 Boost with Steel Armor: Give your DDR4 memory a performance boost
• VR Ready and VR Boost: Best virtual reality game experience without latency, reduces motion sickness
• Mystic Light and Mystic Light Sync: 16.8 milliom colors /17 effects controlled in one click with GAMING APP or mobile devices.
• Lightning Fast Game experience: Twin Turbo M.2, Steel Armor, M.2 Shield. Intel Optane Memory Ready, Lightning USB 3.1 Gen2
• Audio Boost 4 with Nahimic 2: Reward your ears with studio grade sound quality for the most immersive gaming experience
• GAMING LAN with LAN Protect, powered by Intel® : The best online gaming experience with lowest latency and bandwidth management
• Military Class 5, Guard-Pro: Latest evolution in high quality components for best protection and efficiency
• MULTI-GPU: With Steel Armor PCI-E slots. Supports NVIDIA SLI™ & AMD Crossfire™
• In-Game Weapons: Game Boost, GAMING Hotkey, X-Boost, Xsplit Gamecaster
• EZ Debug LED: Easiest way to troubleshoot
• Click BIOS 5: Award-winning BIOS with high resolution scalable font, favorites and search function

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