A stealthy, all-black Intel Z170 motherboard with Carbon styling and packed with great features including RGB lighting.
Product on Review: Z170A GAMING PRO Carbon
Manufacturer & Sponsor: MSI
Street Price: £127 GBP / $170 USD
In recent years MSI have dedicated time and resources into their GAMING line, which encompasses a wide range of PC components designed and optimised specifically for avid gamers. GAMING components complement each other aesthetically and feature-wise, and are often built to the same high-quality and performance requirements; a system decked out in MSI GAMING hardware will be easy on the eye and offer killer frame-rates. Today we turn to MSI’s Intel 10 series GAMING PRO for some Carbon treatment.
The Z170A GAMING PRO Carbon adopts a super-sleek all-black livery with strong emphasis on styling. Throughout this motherboard there is a strong feature-set including an assortment of MSI’s customary tools – with the addition of RGB LED lighting to add some pizazz to your config.
MSI on their Z170A GAMING PRO Carbon
Carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer is used extensively the world of car racing, where each second counts. Besides its strength and futuristic look, carbon-fiber is also very light for ultimate performance to pursue track records. MSI GAMING motherboards are dedicated to ultimate performance and the best gaming experience. The CARBON motherboards black scheme combines flashiness with sophistication that is sure to make your pc stand out in looks and performance.
Technical Specifications
Below are the technical specifications concerning the Z170A GAMING PRO Carbon, taken directly from the MSI website:
CPU
• Supports 6th Gen Intel® Core™ i3/i5/i7 processors, and Intel® Pentium® and Celeron® processors for Socket LGA1151
Chipset
• Intel® Z170 Chipset
Main Memory
• 4 x DDR4 memory slots, support up to 64GB
– Supports DDR4 3600(OC)/ 3200(OC)/ 3000(OC)/ 2800(OC)/ 2600(OC)/ 2400/ 2133 MHz*
• Dual channel memory architecture
• Supports ECC, un-buffered memory
– ECC UDIMM memory (non-ECC mode)
• Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
* Please refer to Compatibility reports for more information of compatible memory.
Slots
• 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (support x16/x0/x4 or x8/x8/x4 modes)
• 4 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots
Onboard Graphics
• 1 x HDMI™ port, support a maximum resolution of 4096×2160@24Hz, 2560×1600@60Hz
• 1 x DVI-D port, support a maximum resolution of 1920×1200@60Hz
Multi-GPU
• Supports 3-Way AMD® CrossFire™ Technology
• Supports 2-Way NVIDIA® SLI™ Technology
Storage
• Intel® Z170 Chipset
• 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports* (2 ports reserved for SATA Express port)
• 1 x M.2 slot*
– Supports PCIe 3.0 x 4 and SATA 6Gb/s standards,4.2cm/ 6cm/ 8cm length M.2 SSD cards
– Supports PCIe 3.0 x 4 NVMe Mini-SAS SSD with Turbo U.2 Host Card**
• 1 x SATAe port (PCIe 3.0 x2)
• Supports Intel® Smart Response Technology for Intel Core™ processors
RAID
• Intel® Z170 Chipset
– Supports RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 5 and RAID 10 for SATA storage devices
USB
• ASMedia® ASM1142 Chipset
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen2 (SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps) ports on the back panel
• Intel® Z170 Chipset
– 6 x USB 3.1 Gen1 (SuperSpeed USB) ports (2 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB 3.1 Gen1 connectors)
– 8 x USB 2.0 (High-speed USB) ports (4 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB 2.0 connectors)
Audio
• Realtek® ALC1150 Codec
– 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio
– Supports S/PDIF output
LAN
• 1 x Intel® I219-V Gigabit LAN controller
Internal I/O Connectors
– 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
– 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
– 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (2 ports reserved for SATA Express port)
– 1 x SATAe connector
– 2 x USB 2.0 connectors (supports additional 4 USB 2.0 ports)
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 connectors (supports additional 4 USB 3.1 Gen1 ports)
– 2 x 4-pin CPU fan connectors
– 3 x 4-pin system fan connectors
– 1 x Front panel audio connector
– 2 x Front panel connectors
– 1 x TPM module connector
– 1 x Chassis Intrusion connector
– 1 x Clear CMOS jumper
– 1 x TBT connector
Back Panel I/O Ports
– 1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse port
– 4 x USB 2.0 ports
– 1 x DVI-D port
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 ports
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 port
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port
– 1 x HDMI™ port
– 1 x LAN (RJ45) port
– 1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT connector
– 5 x OFC audio jacks
BIOS
• 1 x 128 Mb flash
• UEFI AMI BIOS
• ACPI 5.0, PnP 1.0a, SM BIOS 2.8
• Multi-language
Dimension
• 12 in. x 9.6 in. (30.5 cm x 24.4 cm)
• ATX Form Factor
• Supports 6th Gen Intel® Core™ i3/i5/i7 processors, and Intel® Pentium® and Celeron® processors for Socket LGA1151
Chipset
• Intel® Z170 Chipset
Main Memory
• 4 x DDR4 memory slots, support up to 64GB
– Supports DDR4 3600(OC)/ 3200(OC)/ 3000(OC)/ 2800(OC)/ 2600(OC)/ 2400/ 2133 MHz*
• Dual channel memory architecture
• Supports ECC, un-buffered memory
– ECC UDIMM memory (non-ECC mode)
• Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
* Please refer to Compatibility reports for more information of compatible memory.
Slots
• 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (support x16/x0/x4 or x8/x8/x4 modes)
• 4 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots
Onboard Graphics
• 1 x HDMI™ port, support a maximum resolution of 4096×2160@24Hz, 2560×1600@60Hz
• 1 x DVI-D port, support a maximum resolution of 1920×1200@60Hz
Multi-GPU
• Supports 3-Way AMD® CrossFire™ Technology
• Supports 2-Way NVIDIA® SLI™ Technology
Storage
• Intel® Z170 Chipset
• 6 x SATA 6Gb/s ports* (2 ports reserved for SATA Express port)
• 1 x M.2 slot*
– Supports PCIe 3.0 x 4 and SATA 6Gb/s standards,4.2cm/ 6cm/ 8cm length M.2 SSD cards
– Supports PCIe 3.0 x 4 NVMe Mini-SAS SSD with Turbo U.2 Host Card**
• 1 x SATAe port (PCIe 3.0 x2)
• Supports Intel® Smart Response Technology for Intel Core™ processors
RAID
• Intel® Z170 Chipset
– Supports RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 5 and RAID 10 for SATA storage devices
USB
• ASMedia® ASM1142 Chipset
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen2 (SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps) ports on the back panel
• Intel® Z170 Chipset
– 6 x USB 3.1 Gen1 (SuperSpeed USB) ports (2 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB 3.1 Gen1 connectors)
– 8 x USB 2.0 (High-speed USB) ports (4 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB 2.0 connectors)
Audio
• Realtek® ALC1150 Codec
– 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio
– Supports S/PDIF output
LAN
• 1 x Intel® I219-V Gigabit LAN controller
Internal I/O Connectors
– 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
– 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
– 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (2 ports reserved for SATA Express port)
– 1 x SATAe connector
– 2 x USB 2.0 connectors (supports additional 4 USB 2.0 ports)
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 connectors (supports additional 4 USB 3.1 Gen1 ports)
– 2 x 4-pin CPU fan connectors
– 3 x 4-pin system fan connectors
– 1 x Front panel audio connector
– 2 x Front panel connectors
– 1 x TPM module connector
– 1 x Chassis Intrusion connector
– 1 x Clear CMOS jumper
– 1 x TBT connector
Back Panel I/O Ports
– 1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse port
– 4 x USB 2.0 ports
– 1 x DVI-D port
– 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 ports
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 port
– 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port
– 1 x HDMI™ port
– 1 x LAN (RJ45) port
– 1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT connector
– 5 x OFC audio jacks
BIOS
• 1 x 128 Mb flash
• UEFI AMI BIOS
• ACPI 5.0, PnP 1.0a, SM BIOS 2.8
• Multi-language
Dimension
• 12 in. x 9.6 in. (30.5 cm x 24.4 cm)
• ATX Form Factor
Unboxing & Closer Look
For this review we’ve produced a video which reveals the packaging, bundle and a close, detailed overview of the motherboard. Please check out the video below for a comprehensive look at the feature-set:
Intel Z170 Features
Intel’s initial release schedule for Skylake was planned well in advance, long before Microsoft officially announced the launch date of Windows 10. Most of August was set aside for conferences and seminars including the Intel Developers Forum in San Francisco, all with the aim of taking the wraps off and going deep into the technology within this new CPU architecture. Unfortunately bringing forward the release date of ‘K-series’ SKUs has meant that they’re unable to furnish detailed technical info to reviewers and members of the press, and won’t be releasing this information until IDF. The following is information which has been released thus far.
Developed under the codename Sunrise Point, Intel’s 100-series chipset is designed to operate hand-in-hand with an Intel ‘Skylake’ 6th Generation core processor. It utilises an LGA 1151 socket, underscoring the fact that neither CPU nor motherboard are backwards compatible with any of the previous generation hardware. As a result Sunrise Point is free to add additional features not present in x90-series and earlier chipsets.
Memory and Overclocking
Most notably from a consumer perspective Sunrise Point is the first Intel mainstream computing platform to be compatible with DDR4, and most Z170 and H170 designs are indeed likely to feature this memory technology rather than continue with DDR3L (a memory spec which Skylake CPUs can also handle). Default support is at DDR4-2133, however speeds above this are possible if a Z170 motherboard and K-Series CPU are used in tandem. One year on from the release of Haswell-E DDR4 pricing is quickly becoming more bearable, and so whilst it’s an additional expense to swallow compared with Haswell/Z97 it may not be quite the price premium you expect.
With Skylake Intel are, for the first time in many generations of Core architectures, once again re-enabling fine grade overclocking of memory at the Base Clock (BCLK) level. The PCI subsystem clock is now independent of BCLK, allowing for robust overclocking support which dispenses with coarse ratios in favour of a MHz by MHz stepping to far higher levels. Pre-launch testing by board partners have ascertained that stable BCLK’s of up to 400MHz are possible (with a stepping down of CPU multiplier), a far cry from even last year’s Haswell Refresh.
It should be noted that overclocking support has also been improved through greater control over individual CPU voltage inputs. Haswell made use of a Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator on the CPU itself; in essence, the motherboard supplied one input voltage and the FIVR divided this into individual on-board component inputs. With Skylake/Z170 the motherboard chipset controls each of these voltages individually, allowing direct adjustment for greater stability where necessary. This could theoretically be a great boon to enthusiast overclockers eager to get every last smidgen of performance out of a system.
Chipset and PCH Features
As we noted in our review of the two launched Skylake CPUs, up to 16 PCI-Express 3.0 lanes exist as a direct low-latency connection between CPU and 3rd party hardware such as graphics cards. These can operate in a 1×16 lane, 2×8 lane or 1×8 lane and 2×4 lane setup for multi-GPU configurations depending on the hardware implementation chosen by the board partners, but aren’t sufficient alone to support additional hardware options such as PCI-Express storage. The Platform Controller Hub therefore provides additional PCI-Express lanes to peripheral controllers.
In contrast to Intel’s 9-series motherboards Sunrise Point can supply up to an additional 20 PCI-Express 3.0 lanes, potentially resulting in double the bandwidth compared with the 20 PCIe 2.0 lanes of the previous generation. These new lanes augment the chipset storage options, most notably in respect to PCIe storage with many designs now featuring multiple next-generation storage options rather than a singular M.2 or SATA-Express port. Whilst not the low-latency connection you require for effective graphics processing, they will be more than suitable for new high-speed storage options including RAID for PCI-Express thanks to an upgraded DMI connection between PCH and CPU.
Further augmenting the platform’s storage capabilities is the adoption of new Intel Rapid Storage Technology protocols allowing PCI-Express storage to be used as caching drives for slower media. Potentially still a niche technology, the stark benefits of next-generation SSDs over mechanical drives as well as future SSDs could be just the breakthrough Intel RST needs to capture mainstream adoption.
In an additional change from the 9-series motherboards support has been added for up to 10 native USB 3.0 ports and 14 USB 2.0 ports, with a maximum of 16 ports in some combination thereof. It should be noted that so far as we can tell USB 3.1 isn’t actually native to the Sunrise Point chipset. Implementation is up to motherboard vendors through 3rd party controllers, and it’s to their credit that many have adopted the new high-speed standard without any fuss. For some both USB 3.1 Type-A and Type-C connectors are available, with Type-C the most common otherwise.
Those who make use of on-board CPU graphics can now enjoy support for up to three digital display outputs, or make use of the Intel 530 Graphics capabilities in tandem with discrete graphics. Microsoft Windows 10 (via DirectX 12) includes new options which allow disparate graphics hardware to be used in tandem, making best use of processing power where possible. Even without this, the transcoding capabilities of Intel QuickSync make it a tempting proposition for fast and efficient h.265 encoding and decoding, even if your discrete graphics hardware is formidable.
With unchanged support for six conventional SATA III storage ports, Intel 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet, Intel Audio options and comprehensive UEFI BIOS options, Sunrise Point (and by extension all Z170 motherboards) are choc-full of features. That’s not to say that there aren’t some omissions – lack of native USB 3.1 support being the most obvious, whilst native U.2 connectors are a premium feature supplied by board partners – but as a whole the platform is a significant step forward overall.
Test Setup, Methodology & Overclocking
Test Setup
CPU Intel Core i7-6700K
Cooling Corsair H100i GTX
Motherboard MSI Z170A GAMING PRO Carbon
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz
Graphics XFX R7970 Black Edition
Storage OCZ Vector 180
PSU Corsair HX1050 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU
Cooling Corsair H100i GTX
Motherboard MSI Z170A GAMING PRO Carbon
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz
Graphics XFX R7970 Black Edition
Storage OCZ Vector 180
PSU Corsair HX1050 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU
Benchmarks
Cinebench R15 – CPU/OpenGL Score
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA 2014 – CPU & Memory benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks
PCMark 8 – Home Suite
3DMark FireStrike – DX11 3D Benchmark
Games – Tomb Raider, THIEF
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA 2014 – CPU & Memory benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks
PCMark 8 – Home Suite
3DMark FireStrike – DX11 3D Benchmark
Games – Tomb Raider, THIEF
Other Software
Temperature Analysis: Real Temp
Stress Testing Software: AIDA64 Stability Test
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Stress Testing Software: AIDA64 Stability Test
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z
Overclocking
Overclocking with Skylake is now fully flexible since we can adjust many variables including BCLK and ratio/multiplier.
Our current milestone is 4.8GHz with the Intel Core i7-6700K – unfortunately the GAMING PRO Carbon wasn’t able to reach this milestone. With the CPU at either 4.8/4.7GHz, even with +1.4v we encountered errors so we pulled things back to 4.6GHz (100×46) and achieve stability with a maximum CPU voltage of 1.37v.
Benchmarks: Power Consumption
It’s interesting to note the power consumption across all motherboards. Although they are using the Z170 chipset, energy results can fluctuate between manufacturers due to the features and specifications that are integrated. First of all, for the idle tests the system is cold booted into Windows and no additional applications are executed – the watts are noted on the external energy monitor we use and then the system is loaded with 3DMark FireStrike – watts are again monitored for the duration of the test and the highest rated wattage result is then noted down. Below are the results of this energy test.
Benchmarks: X264 HD
Simply put, this test measures how fast your machine can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality x264 video clip. What’s x264, you ask? It’s more or less the next-generation Xvid/DivX codec. I think it’s ideal for a benchmark because the application (x264.exe) reports fairly accurate compression results (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encoding process, and it uses multi-core processors very efficiently.
Benchmarks: AIDA64
AIDA64 Product PageThis simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic “Queens problem” on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example — with HyperThreading disabled — the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.
Benchmarks: Cinebench R15
CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Iron Man 3, Oblivion, Life of Pi or Prometheus and many more.
Benchmarks: SiSoftware SANDRA
SANDRA isn’t always a benchmark that is included in hardware reviews but we believe it shouldn’t be ignored. SANDRA provides a vigorous package that tests your system in a rather large array of benchmarks. There are many aspects of benchmark that can be executed. We will be considering – CPU and memory tests.
Benchmarks: 3DMark FireStrike
3DMark FireStrike Product PageFire Strike is our new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today. Fire Strike will only be available in the Windows editions of 3DMark initially.
Benchmarks: PCMark 8
PCMark 8 combines performance benchmarking with battery life measurement and includes tests based on popular Adobe and Microsoft applications. Whether you are looking for long battery life, or maximum power, PCMark 8 will help you find the devices that offer the perfect combination of efficiency and performance for your needs. It’s the complete PC performance benchmark for home and business.
Benchmarks: Tomb Raider & THIEF
It’s important for us to perform a number of game benchmarks as well as the synthetic tests because gamers will want to know if there are any significant benefits. So here we have two popular and recent gaming titles which feature a dedicated benchmark tool within them to display results.
Conclusion
Finding an all-black Intel Z170 motherboard isn’t all that easy – many boards gracing the market come with a splash of colour which tend to override or determine the overall theme of a system configuration but the Z170A GAMING PRO Carbon is the epitome of sleek.
Throughout Carbon there is a matt-black livery which will marry up with other computer hardware very well. But, even if you did change your mind, MSI has included RGB lighting with this motherboard – allowing the user to personalise with colour and special effects.
Although MSI has trimmed down some of the features on Carbon in order to meet the respective price-point, this board still boasts a solid feature-set which covers the basics that most system builders will require.
When we put Carbon through our benchmark suite it was immediately apparent how capable this board is. In a variety of scenarios Carbon offers great performance – pushing to the top of our charts in some situations. Although this motherboard wasn’t able to achieve our current milestone for overclocking, we did however manage to reach a pleasing result of 4.6GHz with the Intel Core i7-6700K. Reaching this point was easy thanks to the intuitive UEFI BIOS which has a great layout and plenty of options to modify.
Priced at £127 GBP / $170 USD, the GAMING PRO Carbon represents great value for money. Around this price-point other rival offerings lack of the finesse of this board a few of its features. So, if you are looking to transition over to Intel Skylake this is a good route to take.
The MSI Z170A GAMING PRO Carbon is the epitome of sleek. This motherboard oozes style and does so while offering a great feature-set at an affordable price.
Pros
+ Super-sleek
+ Great features
+ Excellent performance
+ Overclocks reasonably well
+ Affordable
+ Arrives with LED lighting
Cons
– More focus on USB 2.0 than USB 3.0
– Single M.2 slot
+ Super-sleek
+ Great features
+ Excellent performance
+ Overclocks reasonably well
+ Affordable
+ Arrives with LED lighting
Cons
– More focus on USB 2.0 than USB 3.0
– Single M.2 slot
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
