Product Showcase

Product Showcase

The MSI Z170A Gaming M7 follows a standard form factor (30.5x24.4cm). The motherboard is located in the Gaming range and is a high-end product within this new Skylake desktop processor range. 

Included with the motherboard are the regulars including; manuals, driver CDs, SATA cables and a rear IO plate. It also has a couple of new features which we'll talk about in-depth in this review.

• CPU support: Skylake-S class Intel Core processors
• Chipset: Intel Z170 Chipset
• 1x Gigabit Ethernet (Intel)
• Storage: 
  • 6x SATA 6Gb/s Intel
  • 2x M.2, PCIe 32 Gb/s and shared SATA Express ports x2
  • 1x Sata Express also called SATAe
• Connectivity: 
  • 3x PCI-E 3.0 x16  (single at x16 / dual at x8 / tripple at x8 - x8 - x4)
  • 4x PCI-E 3.0 x1
• USB 3.0 / 3.1 
• 8-channel Audio ALC1150 Realtek

Included in the bundle is one mighty fine motherboard and gear like SATA cables, SLI connectors and so on. You will also receive a U.2. converter for the 0.000000001% end-users that will need it. U.2. is the SFF-8639 connector now called U.2 (pronoucned as 'U dot 2'), just one device on the globe has this connector the Intel Series 750 SSD making it completely irrelevant.
 

The I/O back panel reveals 3.1/3.0/2.0 ports including a Type-C, type connector. A Realtek ALC1150 high definition audio codec is the main source for audio. The audio unit has special noise reducing capacitors and EMI shielding. You will spot one 10/100/1000  Gigabit Ethernet jack (Killer E2400). Included is a PS/2 combo port for either a keyboard or a mouse, optical SPDIF out port and six audio jacks. If you plan to use the integrated IGP of the processor, you can make use of a DP or one of two HDMI connectors. The button to the left is a clearCMOS button. This motherboard unfortunately does not come with a WIFI solution.

The board has 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots which can be arranged in these slot configurations with graphics cards:

• 1-way mode - x16 / x0 / x0 
• 2-way mode - x8 / x8 / x0
• 3-way mode - x8 / x8 / x4

As you can see these are PCI Express Gen 3.0 configurations, that's plenty for regular graphics card setups up-to 2-way SLI/Crossfire. 

The motherboard comes with an 8-pin power connectos. You'll get four DIMM slots that can be used for up-to 64GB of dual-channel memory. We received the new 3200 MHz Vengeance kit from Corsair which we'll feature in detail in this review.