MSI Z170 Gaming M Series Motherboards Pictured

[btarunr]

MSI is readying a trio of Gaming "M" Series socket LGA1151 motherboards with DDR4 memory slots. It's important to note that the "M" does not denote micro-ATX, as it used to, in previous generations. It's inserted before the model number, letting you know that it's an MSI Gaming product, and not by one of its competitors, which imitated its nomenclature, with its Z97 motherboards. The lineup includes the Z170A Gaming M5, the Z170A Gaming M7, and the Z170A Gaming M9 ACK.

The Z170A Gaming M5 offers all the features you need to build a slick gaming PC build, with up to two high-end graphics cards. It offers a 10-phase CPU VRM, an all-PCIe gen 3.0 expansion area, ten SATA ports (including two SATA-Express 16 Gb/s), two M.2 slots (both 32 Gb/s), and AudioBoost III audio, with Killer E2205 GbE. The Z170A Gaming M7 takes things a notch up, with a 14-phase CPU VRM, a "Game Boost" rotary knob that steps up CPU and memory clocks in 11 preset steps, and better onboard audio. The Z170A Gaming M9 ACK leads the pack, with a back-plate, liquid-cooling preparation for the VRM heatsink, and Killer ACK WLAN. All three feature USB 3.1 with both type-A and type-C ports.



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[Deleted member 138597]

What happened to GODLIKE?

 

[jboydgolfer]

Shhhh!! Theres a man standing behind those motherboards

theyre pretty motherboards tho

 

[erixx]

How many PCI-E lanes does this chipset/architecture offer?
BTW, no PCIE 4x slot...

 

[GreiverBlade]

they totally confirmed my fear from the 1st press announcement, Asus ROG line copycat ....

or i am the only one to see no difference (except in orientations of the heatsink and branding)
Ie: the Z170 M5 and the Maximus VII Ranger/Hero.

What happened to GODLIKE?

not the same line.

How many PCI-E lanes does this chipset/architecture offer?
BTW, no PCIE 4x slot...

surely the same as Haswell +4 lines (thanks @erixx to make me notice it) .... Skylake is not a big improvement, save for DDR4 compatibility, power efficiency, Iris IGP and USB 3.1/TB 3. (which are still nice improvement for those with CPU under Haswell/Haswell refresh ofc)
btw why would you have a X4 slot? there is already one of the 3 Physical X16 that would be wired electrically in X4 as on Haswell (mostly the one at the bottom or the middle in the ACK, the black one)

• 14 nm manufacturing process
• LGA 1151 socket
• Z170/H170 chipset (Sunrise Point)
• Thermal design power (TDP) up to 95 W (LGA 1151)[
• Support for both DDR3 SDRAM and DDR4 SDRAM in mainstream variants, using custom UniDIMM SO-DIMM form factor[23][24][25] with up to 64 GB of RAM on LGA 1151 variants.
• Support for 20 PCI Express 3.0 lanes (LGA 1151)
• Support for Thunderbolt 3.0 (Alpine Ridge)
• 64 to 128 MB L4 eDRAM cache on certain SKUs
• Up to four cores as the default mainstream configuration
• Support for SATA Express
• AVX-512 F, CDI, VL, BW, and DQ for the Xeon variants
• Intel SHA Extensions: SHA-1 and SHA-256 (Secure Hash Algorithms) for the Xeon variants
• Intel MPX (Memory Protection Extensions)
• Intel ADX (Multi-Precision Add-Carry Instruction Extensions)
• Skylake's integrated Iris Graphics GPU supports Direct3D 12 at the feature level 12.0

 

[erixx]

la
btw why would you have a X4 slot? there is already one of the 3 Physical X16 that would be wired electrically in X4 as on Haswell (mostly the one at the bottom or the middle in the ACK, the black one)
...

• Support for 20 PCI Express 3.0 lanes (LGA 1151)

...

Yeah, well, my Intel 750 PCI-E SSD (4x) is about to arrive...
Z97 is 16 lanes, but 2 GPUs and 1 SSD= 8+8+4= 20!!!!

 

[GreiverBlade]

Yeah, well, my Intel 750 PCI-E SSD (4x) is about to arrive...
Z97 is 16 lanes, but 2 GPUs and 1 SSD= 8+8+4= 20!!!!

well they got 4 line more i forgot that my bad

in your case it's right what you need if you want to run a SLI + the SSD

 

[AsRock]

Not in to all the red they use, i would like to see all the red white so you could influence what color they are.

What happened to GODLIKE?

Come on they have ACK(ed) together one too.

 

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

WTB black and green motherboard scheme.

 

[Deleted member 138597]

Shhhh!! Theres a man standing behind those motherboards

theyre pretty motherboards tho

That's three man actually

 

[Assimilator]

"Gaming" motherboards = crappy blinged-out junk with crappy Killer ethernet. Why can't manufacturers just produce motherboards with loads of functionality and decent performance, but that don't blow the budget on price by trying to look like something out of Tron? I'm sure all the hardcore overclockers don't give a rat's ass what their boards look like under layers of insulation and LN2 pots, and neither do I.

 

[cadaveca]

"Gaming" motherboards = crappy blinged-out junk with crappy Killer ethernet. Why can't manufacturers just produce motherboards with loads of functionality and decent performance, but that don't blow the budget on price by trying to look like something out of Tron? I'm sure all the hardcore overclockers don't give a rat's ass what their boards look like under layers of insulation and LN2 pots, and neither do I.

The killer NIC isn't that bad. ROFL. And given your affinity to them, you'd not know, either lol.

 

[the54thvoid]

they totally confirmed my fear from the 1st press announcement, Asus ROG line copycat ....

or i am the only one to see no difference (except in orientations of the heatsink and branding)
Ie: the Z170 M5 and the Maximus VII Ranger/Hero.



not the same line.



surely the same as Haswell +4 lines (thanks @erixx to make me notice it) .... Skylake is not a big improvement, save for DDR4 compatibility, power efficiency, Iris IGP and USB 3.1/TB 3. (which are still nice improvement for those with CPU under Haswell/Haswell refresh ofc)
btw why would you have a X4 slot? there is already one of the 3 Physical X16 that would be wired electrically in X4 as on Haswell (mostly the one at the bottom or the middle in the ACK, the black one)

• 14 nm manufacturing process
• LGA 1151 socket
• Z170/H170 chipset (Sunrise Point)
• Thermal design power (TDP) up to 95 W (LGA 1151)[
• Support for both DDR3 SDRAM and DDR4 SDRAM in mainstream variants, using custom UniDIMM SO-DIMM form factor[23][24][25] with up to 64 GB of RAM on LGA 1151 variants.
• Support for 20 PCI Express 3.0 lanes (LGA 1151)
• Support for Thunderbolt 3.0 (Alpine Ridge)
• 64 to 128 MB L4 eDRAM cache on certain SKUs
• Up to four cores as the default mainstream configuration
• Support for SATA Express
• AVX-512 F, CDI, VL, BW, and DQ for the Xeon variants
• Intel SHA Extensions: SHA-1 and SHA-256 (Secure Hash Algorithms) for the Xeon variants
• Intel MPX (Memory Protection Extensions)
• Intel ADX (Multi-Precision Add-Carry Instruction Extensions)
• Skylake's integrated Iris Graphics GPU supports Direct3D 12 at the feature level 12.0

noob question, is 20 lanes not low? 16 lanes is required for 1 gfx card at full speed? i.e. the x99 boards with 5930/5960 offer 40 lanes, the 5820 only offers 28. Does this not make the speeds x8,x8 for sli/crossfire and not x16,x16.

 

[cadaveca]

noob question, is 20 lanes not low? 16 lanes is required for 1 gfx card at full speed? i.e. the x99 boards with 5930/5960 offer 40 lanes, the 5820 only offers 28. Does this not make the speeds x8,x8 for sli/crossfire and not x16,x16.

Show a huge performance impact going to x8/x8. Then that might be a worthy question. Yet at this time, there is nearly no performance lost, and ergo, 20 lanes is sufficient.

 

[Deleted member 138597]

noob question, is 20 lanes not low? 16 lanes is required for 1 gfx card at full speed? i.e. the x99 boards with 5930/5960 offer 40 lanes, the 5820 only offers 28. Does this not make the speeds x8,x8 for sli/crossfire and not x16,x16.

That's why 5820K is cheap!

 

[GreiverBlade]

noob question, is 20 lanes not low? 16 lanes is required for 1 gfx card at full speed? i.e. the x99 boards with 5930/5960 offer 40 lanes, the 5820 only offers 28. Does this not make the speeds x8,x8 for sli/crossfire and not x16,x16.

it's more than enough even at 16 lane for a SLI/CFX since PCIeX 3.0 bandwidth is more than enough for current GPU line but 20 is better for those who want a X1-X4 SSD, well if they changed the CPU line distribution ... IE: 3 X16 slot

GPU
Empty or SSD
SSD or Empty
Equal to X8 GPU slot iirc

GPU
GPU or Empty
Empty or GPU
Equal to x8/x8 SLI/CFX

GPU
GPU
GPU or SSD
Equal to X8/X8/X4 on current Z/H97 but the last X4 is wired to the PCH and thus it's CFX only

the main difference for me reside in the fact that a

GPU
GPU
SSD or GPU (CFX only or does a X4 3.0 can be SLI? )
will still run a X8/X8/X4 but full 3.0 speed and the SSD would be in a X16 Phys/X4 Wired slot. now would it be wired to the PCH or direct CPU? i wonder...

to i might be mistaken

That's why 5820K is cheap!

cheap ... nope it's still overpriced for what it is. (tho can be useful in a more than 2xSLI/CFX but SLI/CFX is really worth it on X2 ... or even better single board... )
tho ... 395chf where i am ... i could call that cheap ... if the mobo and RAM kit weren't 1.5 to 3 time the price of a good Z97 board or DDR3 kit

 

[Deleted member 138597]

cheap ... nope it's still overpriced for what it is. (tho can be useful in a more than 2xSLI/CFX but SLI/CFX is really worth it on X2 ... or even better single board... )
tho ... 395chf where i am ... i could call that cheap ... if the mobo and RAM kit weren't 1.5 to 3 time the price of a good Z97 board or DDR3 kit

Well, once you are starting to compare Z170 and X99, you'll see you'd actually get more performance/price on 5820K.

6700K vs 5820K
~$350 ----- $390
same RAM price
similar motherboard price
20 lanes ----- 28 lanes
4 cores ----- 6 cores
​

I'm not trying to say 5820K is better, but just pointing that 5820K is cheap for its performance

EDIT: One thing though, we don't know how 6700K performs yet
Sooooo, it's not overpriced as I'd say, but within range

 

[GreiverBlade]

Well, once you are starting to compare Z170 and X99, you'll see you'd actually get more performance/price on 5820K.

I'm not trying to say 5820K is better, but just pointing that 5820K
is
cheap for its performance ​

EDIT: One thing though, we don't know how 6700K performs yet
Sooooo, it's not overpriced as I'd say, but within range

i was talking on comparison of a 4790K (intel HEDT platform doesn't rhyme with good or better performance/price ratio )

the 6700S (it's S now not K anymore) will not offer a huge IPC improvement over Haswell/HW-Refresh, and if the Z170 mobo price will be similare to a X99 then even Skylake is not worth it over a 4690K/4790K
at last Skylake has a advantage: to be DDR3 compatible.

btw ... find me a 390$(well for me it cost more around 414$ ) 5820K and a 179$ (and not above thanks.) X99 mobo and i will gladly change my 230$ 4690K and my 179$ Maximus VII Ranger(well maybe not ... since i would see nearly no improvement by doing so )

obviously for encoding and other heavily threaded work a 5320K would be a good budget one, but most of the people working with that kind would rather take the upper model, leaving the 5820K as a showoff for someone who think a 4790K is not enough.

i'm not trying to say the 5820K is worse, just pointing that the whole platform cost more than a good Z97/4790K/DDR3 platform (who will surely skip Skylake before really needing an upgrade )

just wait for Broadwell-E (wait what ? the next HEDT is Broadwell? and not Skylake-E? oh well at last Broadwell-E will be compatible with the X99 like the Broadwell line was Z/H97 compatible ah no wait it seems Skylake-E will be the next HEDT .... oorrrrrr, ah who care ... )

 

[FordGT90Concept]

There was a slide leaked back in May that excluded Broadwell-E (Q1 2016) in favor of Skylake-E (Q3 2016). Broadwell is quite the failure so it makes sense (Haswell really didn't like its 14nm node).

 

[iSkylaker]

And again, no fancy mATX Z100 boards. All I've been seeing is miniITX and ATX.

 

[GreiverBlade]

There was a slide leaked back in May that excluded Broadwell-E (Q1 2016) in favor of Skylake-E (Q3 2016). Broadwell is quite the failure so it makes sense (Haswell really didn't like its 14nm node).

well Broadwell U is quite nice .... i have a i5-5200U in my notebook, not too shabby ... Skylake is not better just the redeeming feature make it a upgrade for some (native TB 3/USB 3.1 DDR4/3, only this time since Iris IGP and power efficiency Broadwell already had them .... oh ... Skylake has a better IPC tho ... but not much more) luckily i did write

( ah no wait it seems Skylake-E will be the next HEDT .... oorrrrrr, ah who care ... )

And again, no fancy mATX Z100 boards. All I've been seeing is miniITX and ATX.

wait for Canonlake (as i will do)... Skylake is not a upgrade for the moment ... (well depend what you have in your rig ... depending on what ... you might want to change your forum name to iCanonlaker )

 

[Deleted member 138597]

I guess he actually means through his user name that he can walk by a lake that's on the Sky (like lakes on heaven of sorts) and not actually Skylake

 

[GreiverBlade]

I guess he actually means through his user name that he can walk by a lake that's on the Sky (like lakes on heaven of sorts) and not actually Skylake

well if he rename he will blaze like a canon on a lake instead of just walking

 

[FordGT90Concept]

well Broadwell U is quite nice .... i have a i5-5200U in my notebook, not too shabby ... Skylake is not better just the redeeming feature make it a upgrade for some (native TB 3/USB 3.1 DDR4/3, only this time since Iris IGP and power efficiency Broadwell already had them .... oh ... Skylake has a better IPC tho ... but not much more) luckily i did write

What I meant is that Broadwell requires more power for less cycles than Haswell. Broadwell is effectively a wash compared to Haswell. What drives HEDT is high performance computing, especially the server market. They can't sell Broadwell systems to replace Haswell but they can sell Skylake to replace Haswell. It makes no sense for Intel to waste time on Broadwell LGA2011. If they do, I expect it to only be a few processors like they did with Broadwell's desktop parts.

Broadwell is Intel's only real failure since the Netburst architecture underperforming.

 

[GreiverBlade]

What I meant is that Broadwell requires more power for less cycles than Haswell. Broadwell is effectively a wash compared to Haswell. What drives HEDT is high performance computing, especially the server market. They can't sell Broadwell systems to replace Haswell but they can sell Skylake to replace Haswell. It makes no sense for Intel to waste time on Broadwell LGA2011. If they do, I expect it to only be a few processors like they did with Broadwell's desktop parts.

Broadwell is Intel's only real failure since the Netburst architecture underperforming.

Skylake is not Haswell replacement tho ... still not worth it(just as Broadwel is ) ... Canonlake will be, Skylake is more a replacement for Nehalem/Sandy/ivy (10-15% is not that huge, if OC)

wait ... BW require more power for less cycles? but BW require less power than HW no?

and lucky i did write (secuuundo! )

ah no wait it seems Skylake-E will be the next HEDT .... oorrrrrr, ah who care ...

i just didn't wanted to re edit the whole line and added that in the end

gah ... i bought a Laptop with a failure of a CPU by Intel, inside ... i feel cheated