Just installed this board yesterday in my new MSI MAG Bunker case. 🙂 Hoped for a little more RGB, but it's only on their high end boards wich i don't need.

Finally, after 2 months of waiting, I'm getting mine tomorrow (MSI MPG Gaming Pro Carbon AC + 9900K) 😀 Thanks for the review! 😉

Thank you for the review guys , i've been thinking about a CPU an M/B upgrade lately as GPU upgrade isn't going to happen anytime soon. 🙂

What's with this trend of not adding any SATA ports beyond what the main chipset supports even on high end boards? The fact that I needed 8 SATA ports literally limited my options to 1 choice under $400.

Singleton99:

Thank you for the review guys , i've been thinking about a CPU an M/B upgrade lately as GPU upgrade isn't going to happen anytime soon. 🙂

With a 6700K at 4.7GHz there's no point in an upgrade for gaming. None at all. You won't get a performance increase. In your case I'd wait to see what Zen 2/Ryzen 3 ends up being like. I upgraded to a Ryzen 2700 because my 4770K would be hotter than the sun if I pushed it beyond 4.2GHz, and because I planned on doing some encoding/similar work. Otherwise I would have choked on that 4770K for at least another year. It was actually bottle-necking me in some games like Nier and FF15 in some areas.

Neo Cyrus:

What's with this trend of not adding any SATA ports beyond what the main chipset supports even on high end boards? The fact that I needed 8 SATA ports literally limited my options to 1 choice under $400. With a 6700K at 4.7GHz there's no point in an upgrade for gaming. None at all. You won't get a performance increase. In your case I'd wait to see what Zen 2/Ryzen 3 ends up being like. I upgraded to a Ryzen 2700 because my 4770K would be hotter than the sun if I pushed it beyond 4.2GHz, and because I planned on doing some encoding/similar work. Otherwise I would have choked on that 4770K for at least another year. It was actually bottle-necking me in some games like Nier and FF15 in some areas.

I used a Bottleneck calculator (https://thebottlenecker.com/calculator ) and with my CPU @ 4.7 it says that im getting a 8.9% bottleneck from the CPU, however it does not ask what resolution your running , i don't know how accurate this calculator is or if it's just a gimmick . The main reason for me maybe upgrading is more cpu cores like the 8700k and i haven't spent anything on my PC for sometime now , this is the longest i've ever gone without having some sort of upgrade and i won't pay the price for the new gen Nvidia cards.

Singleton99:

I used a Bottleneck calculator (https://thebottlenecker.com/calculator ) and with my CPU @ 4.7 it says that im getting a 8.9% bottleneck from the CPU, however it does not ask what resolution your running , i don't know how accurate this calculator is or if it's just a gimmick . The main reason for me maybe upgrading is more cpu cores like the 8700k and i haven't spent anything on my PC for sometime now , this is the longest i've ever gone without having some sort of upgrade and i won't pay the price for the new gen Nvidia cards.

That calculator seems like nonsense. At 4.7GHz on a 6700K I doubt there's many games that it'll bottleneck you in at 1440p, I can't think of one which would. If anything stops you from reaching 144 fps it's more than likely going to be the 1080 Ti. I forgot to mention a big reason of why I went with an R7 2700; with a BIOS update I'll be able to upgrade to Zen 2/Ryzen 3/whatever. Intel has held a monopoly on the gaming market for so long that a lot have forgotten that upgrading without having to re-buy everything is a thing.

with molded bios, you can use intel 8th gen or 9th gen on Z170 boards just fine. Being lazy and complaining about "savings when not going intel" is just...also lazy. PS. Maybe invest in NAS or something similar that is meant to case 5+ drives. Maybe just get bigger drives and replace 2 of existing ones for one larger? Whatever, it's all up to you, but the problems you have - you created them yourself.

i really like this board (but not the socket lol). clean, versatile and just waiting for an I-7/5 (9 is a tot ripoff). and as long as you have the rgb headers you can add the xmas tree lights if you choose or not.

gx-x:

with molded bios, you can use intel 8th gen or 9th gen on Z170 boards just fine. Being lazy and complaining about "savings when not going intel" is just...also lazy. PS. Maybe invest in NAS or something similar that is meant to case 5+ drives. Maybe just get bigger drives and replace 2 of existing ones for one larger? Whatever, it's all up to you, but the problems you have - you created them yourself.

I didn't know there were readily available modded BIOSes. Hardly a guarantee but that's an option I guess. Considering those chips are all practically the same architecture with minor differences, the point still stands that Intel try to prevent just upgrading the CPU. And there's no major issues with using one of these modded BIOSes? Replacing my drives with high enough storage ones to make sense would cost too much. And a NAS setup costs a left nut, takes more space, is more effort, etc, than just paying more for a board with more ports. Oh how ignorant of me not predicting that companies would save $2 by cutting out ports on high end boards when they retail for $240-$350 dollars. I sure create a lot of problems for myself. Come on dude, get real.