The MSI 970 Gaming

Let's start at the left side where we stumble into a bunch of SATA connectors and zoom in a little. The motherboard features six right-angle SATA 6G ports which are supplied by the chipset and they support AHCI and RAID 0/1/5/10. Nice to see is that MSI opted for black colored SATA headers, that is good looking. To the far top left we spot a USB 3.0 connector block, handy for internal wiring to say front-panel USB 3.0 connectors.

To the right side of the motherboard we stumble into additional connectors and a couple of buttons. Here of course there's room for extra USB connectors and audio headers.

Audio is handled by Realtek's 1150 codec allowing 8 channels of audio, pretty much the standard these days on motherboards. The audio circuitry is isolated on the PCB, it acts like a dedicated sound card by physically isolating the audio circuitry which is separated by a red LED path. Less interference gives you a more clear audio signal. The ALC1150 is being paired with a Creative Sound Blaster Cinema 2 software suite. 

Slot connectivity wise you'll spot two PCI Express x16 slots, two PCI Express x1 slots and two legacy PCI slots. 
 

So yeah, the board has many features and hosts other unusual features; it has five fan headers. Lacking stuff on this motherboard are power / reset buttons, OC switches and a diagnostic POST LED. Also there is no M.2. PCIe SATA port and also noticeable is the lack of PCE Express Gen 3.0.

At the backside of the PCB red LEDs have been embedded bringing a nice halo emanating from the motherboard once powered up.