MSI Z170A MPOWER GAMING TITANIUM (Intel LGA1151)

[cadaveca]

MSI has gone and smashed overclocking and gaming into a single motherboard! The MSI Z170 MPOWER GAMING TITANIUM has a huge list of abilities to go along with its huge name! Fitted with an aesthetic unmatched by anything else on the market today, MSI's Z170 MPOWER GAMING TITANIUM is truly a board built to be tougher than steel!

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[GreiverBlade]

me liking that one ... almost want to swap my GA-Z170X-G5 EU... for coloring scheme purpose ... silver would match my MSI Armor CG ... although it's a 1070 ...

noticed the pricing ... WHAT THE HECK! it's actually only 50$ more expensive than my GA-Z170X-G5 EU

ohhh if only the pricing in Switzerland was not ... so different ... i would be most tempted, not a fan of the Krait serie .... but that Gaming Titanum is ... yummy ...


thanks for the review @cadaveca


edit: Mpower pricing confirmed, well not that different ... +/-10-20$
(mixed up with the Xpower who is +50)

 

[Dirk_P_Broer]

Actually this is the watered-down version of the only slightly more expensive Z170A XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM....

 

[cadaveca]

Actually this is the watered-down version of the only slightly more expensive Z170A XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM....

I wouldn't call it that since they both have completely different PCBs. XPOWER has 4X PCIe x16 slot. IF you want to run two card, you get the XPOWER. You want one card, you buy the MPOWER.

 

[Chaitanya]

Good to see this board doesnt have too much light pollution compared to some of the recently released boards. That is really unique look to motherboard in a sea of ugly red/black mess.

 

[Caring1]

Nice features and layout, but I think it would look better with Titanium thermal armour instead of a bland painted board look.

 

[Assimilator]

The colour scheme is different and actually ends up being tasteful. This is the first time I've ever been able to say that about an MSI product.

Good to see no SATA Express on this board. Hopefully that interface is finally dying the death it should.

Putting M.2 ports on the front side of the board is a massive waste of space IMO. mITX boards have been mounting them on the rear for a while now, I'd like to see the same thing from all other boards. As a further benefit this would remove the length restriction, allowing 22110 devices to be used anywhere.

They really flubbed the PCIe slot placement. If they'd swapped the first x1 slot and x16 slot, so the x16 slot was below the upper M.2 port, then the layout would've been perfect for single and dual GPUs.

Another niggle are the USB 3.0 headers - I don't know why manufacturers insist on making one right-angled and one straight, it looks ridiculous. Pick one orientation and stick to it FFS.

Not sure about the use of having a USB Type-C port mounted on the board... adoption of devices with that port is still very low, I feel that a standard USB 3.0 Type-A port would've been more useful, which would've allowed the use of standard USB flash drives.

Considering the capabilities of Z170, this board has relatively few USB ports. I would've liked to see at least two more on the rear IO.

 

[Apocalypsee]

Love the silver color, this brings back to Triplex silver PCB graphics card during old days of GeForce 3 and 4 eras

 

[BorisDG]

Beautiful motherboard I'd say. In this days white/silver PCB still looks luxury and really fresh choice. I'm tired from black pcbs, but at same time I'm remembering how we moved to the black, coming from yellowish/green default PCB and the reactions was the same. It's shame that in VGA insustry the only one that try to be different are Galax with their HOF series.

 

[cadaveca]

Not sure about the use of having a USB Type-C port mounted on the board... adoption of devices with that port is still very low, I feel that a standard USB 3.0 Type-A port would've been more useful, which would've allowed the use of standard USB flash drives.

Type-C is faster, more capable (higher power limit, electronically-active cables), so using Type-A plug would be giving you a lesser port to use.

That's why I test rear Type-C ports separate from Type-A ports on front panel; they are different (as seen in my benchmarks for both which are using the same drive and dock for testing).

 

[Pugs501]

I'm really glad that there is a x1 Slot above the x16 Slot. This makes installing a WiFi Card way neater

 

[gazzyk1ns]

TITANIUM BACKPLATE: For the biggest and heaviest graphics cards and CPU coolers.

1. Is it really made out of solid titanium? All sorts of things can have "titanium" written on them and not actually feature the metal in question. See: Almost everything made for a PC, ever.

2. Even if it is a titanium backplate, it doesn't affect what sort of GPU you can put into it. The card still obviously inserts into a plastic slot with the normal gold plated and soldered contacts, on to the PCB intself. The end of the GPU is supported by the PC's case and its screw, when it comes to potential "sag". And of course, your GPU's bacakplate. Although if you've got a heavy GPU then a big, strong backplate on your graphics card, and a big strong case, and a massive backplate on your motherboard (which is a gimmick) might well result in the weakest link being your graphics card's PCB, at the point of connection to the mobo.

3. The backplate doesn't support any CPU cooler, either. That, also, would be left as always to the mobo's PCB. In fact, it looks like that backplate could possibly be a hinderance to the backplates of some CPU coolers, in which case you'll end up removing it and relying on your PC's case for mobo rigidity and support, as you always did.

This board sounds over-hyped. Too many capital letters in the literature gives it away, doesn't it? DDR4 BOOST!!!

 

[Joss]

@gazzyk1ns your comments are spot on.

 

[Vlada011]

Yes nice motherboard, I agree. But X99 Titanium look even better.
After Rampage V Extreme and Rampage V Edition 10th I would choose Titanium 100%.

 

[Sabishii Hito]

How was the memory OC capablity of this board? Specifically with Samsung B-Die, can it manage 3866C12 CRT or 4000C12 CR2?

 

[cadaveca]

How was the memory OC capablity of this board? Specifically with Samsung B-Die, can it manage 3866C12 CRT or 4000C12 CR2?

my memory selection is limited at this time. Not sure what I got, even!