MSI's upcoming Z170A XPower Gaming motherboard if fully loaded with future-proof ports

8:26:00 AM dickwyn 0 Comments

While Intel hasn't explicitly confirmed when Skylake processors will be arriving to that market, that doesn't stop manufacturers from making motherboards. This particular on is from MSI and it looks like a pretty baller looking one. MSI calls is the Z170A XPower Gaming Titanium Edition (quite a mouthful).

But what's interesting about this motherboard is that TechpowerUp says that MSI is planning to merge both their Overclocking and Gaming series of motherboards and this is one of the first one to do it. Besides the pretty striking color scheme, MSI has loaded quite a lot of impressive components onto this motherboard. There is of course the LGA 1151 CPU socket and also the pair of DDR4 slots but MSI has also slipped in two SATA express ports, USB 3.1 ports. USB Type-C ports and also a M.2 slot.

That's not all, MSI is also pushing their new Military Class V standard with the Z170 XPower Gaming and that includes the new 16 phase VRM solution which is powered by Tantalum capacitors. The motherboard is powered through the usual 24 pin ATX power, 8 pin EPS power, a 4 pin ATX power and an extra 6 pin power for the PCI-E slots.

This is a high end Z170 motherboard and it is geared up for 3-way SLI/Crossfire with three PCI-E slots wired for x8-x4-x4. And to round things up, there's also a Killer NIC included  as well as an Audio Boost 3 module built in.

Finally, MSI is also introducing something called the OC Dashboard with this motherboard and basically what this breakout board does is that you can change overclock settings on the fly. No word on availability but it will be MSI's first wave of Z170 based motherboards.

ORIGINAL SOURCE: TECHPOWERUP

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