MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC mITX Motherboard Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC mITX Motherboard Review - The Z170I GAMING PRO AC motherboard is poised to be a tiny powerhouse for SFF builds or for those of you looking to focus on "less is more." If you are looking to make the jump to an Small Form Factor build, or you want to update an existing build you won’t want to miss this feature rich Mini-ITX motherboard.
 
I'm running this board with a 6700K in a Cooler Master Elite 130 case. My problem is finding a heat sink that fits and keeps the CPU cool. Haven't had any other problems. I'm switching to a Corsair H80i GT hoping that will solve my issues.
 
Time2Kill said:
I'm running this board with a 6700K in a Cooler Master Elite 130 case. My problem is finding a heat sink that fits and keeps the CPU cool. Haven't had any other problems. I'm switching to a Corsair H80i GT hoping that will solve my issues.
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The H80 should definitely solve your problem.
 
Thank you for an excellent article. I have a Coolermaster 110 in need of a motherboard upgrade, and this article just put the MSI board on the shortlist - I won't be overclocking.

Can I just pick up on one error: on page 4 you write

NOTE: For all Subsystem Testing, an Intel Core i7 6700K (4.0GHz / 4.2GHz Turbo) and 4x 4GB Corsair Dominator Platinum (3600MHz DDR4 [email protected]) memory modules running at DDR4 2133MHz speeds (stock testing, up to 3600MHz overclocked) were used.
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As the board only has two slots for RAM, you can't have used 4x 4 GB DIMMs.
 
Quartz-1 said:
Thank you for an excellent article. I have a Coolermaster 110 in need of a motherboard upgrade, and this article just put the MSI board on the shortlist - I won't be overclocking.

Can I just pick up on one error: on page 4 you write



As the board only has two slots for RAM, you can't have used 4x 4 GB DIMMs.
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Cut and paste error on my part.
 
Voxata said:
Great article! Though, I find z170 itx underwhelming.
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Well, mITX is a niche product. You have to make sacrifices to go with something like that. If you need a fairly straight forward and simple configuration though, it's a great option that allows you to potentially use less power and get some space savings. The last two or three builds I've done for my girlfriend's machine have all been SFF and mini-ITX based. Where she chose to setup her machine doesn't have a massive amount of room so it works well for her.
 
Dan_D said:
Not officially. You might be able to have one hang over, but that could just as easily cause some issues depending on the drive.
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What about the possibility of using some kind of riser card or M.2 extension to move the drive to a more appropriate mounting location ?
I'm having the same problem right now .... I've heard some people have used an insulating electrical tape to lower the chance of issues and managed to fit the card ... The problem is the 950 Pro ( which would be my choice for an OS drive ) also uses thermal throttling when it gets too hot and I'm sure taping the thing up wouldn't help much with heat lol
 
Dan_D said:
Well, mITX is a niche product. You have to make sacrifices to go with something like that. If you need a fairly straight forward and simple configuration though, it's a great option that allows you to potentially use less power and get some space savings. The last two or three builds I've done for my girlfriend's machine have all been SFF and mini-ITX based. Where she chose to setup her machine doesn't have a massive amount of room so it works well for her.
Click to expand...

ITX is niche?! I thought ATX format is dying and ITX is becoming mainstream. I have to admit that mini ITX boxes are hard to build & maintain due to cramped space. Plugging-in fans or sata devices is nearly impossible in some cases.
 
reb00tin said:
ITX is niche?! I thought ATX format is dying and ITX is becoming mainstream. I have to admit that mini ITX boxes are hard to build & maintain due to cramped space. Plugging-in fans or sata devices is nearly impossible in some cases.
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I'm not sure where you got that impression. The motherboard manufacturers tell me they sell far more ATX and mATX motherboards than they do miniITX models. MiniITX is getting more popular, but that doesn't mean it's close to supplanting the ATX form factor. Enthusiast motherboards are generally going to be in the larger formats because they offer more chassis and component flexibility than a mITX build ever could. Many people including myself might add mITX machines to their stable as secondary systems, but I can't see them taking over given their inability to handle multiGPU configurations, larger amounts of memory and being restricted to chassis that don't offer sufficient storage capacity.
 
I have a 950 Pro NVMe in this board and it works fine by the way.
 
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I am not allowed to post a link yet, so could you please search for the review of the MSI Z170I Pro on hw-journal, and say what you think about the benchmark results, notably Cinebench where the mainboard gets the top spot. Is this consistent with your results, how can you explain this? Is it maybe due to the selected competition, have you only have picked top of the line? Compared to their selection it might be, but what do you say?
 
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Seriously, this review is a bit of a horror show, why not try a little comparison? Seems like the normal thing to do. Or are all reviews here this way?

Since I can post links now, here is what I mean:
Test: MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC - Hardware-Journal - Results from #6

Here is another review where the board is really,good in Cinebench (and not last):
MSI Z170I Pro Gaming AC Motherboard Review - Page 6 of 14 - Play3r.net

Finally, the "special sauce" that Asus is supposed to possess I cannot find anywhere else on the internet. It seems to me that Asrock and Gigabyte tend to offer more reliable performance, at least if it's not a budget option completely without heatsinks and less than 6 power phases. However power phases and heatsinks are almost no indcator for Asus at all. All of their boards seem to be all over the place, except maybe the Impact (seems to be top most of the time).
 
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