The Board - Layout

THE MSI Z170A GAMING PRO is quite obviously not a normal board when you first take a look at it. I mean, it is red and black and all, but what is with the board's side? The back of the board is pretty normal too, mostly.


We have a nice open socket area, although the number of phases here is obviously on the smaller side, making as much room as there is possible. Connected by the white "traces" to the socket are the DIMM slots capable of pushing high speeds and large capacities.


Slot connectivity includes the usual PCIe x16 and x1 slots, with a PCI slot thrown in for those who might want it. There's also a single M.2 slot capable of pushing both SATA 6 Gb/s and PCIe x4 drives.


The backplate is full of USB, DVI HDMI, LAN, and audio, with the PS/2 tower also including the USB 2.0 ports. SATA drive options offer the ability to connect six devices in total, although two of these bridge into a SATA Express Port for those who need it (for, say, a USB 3.1 bay device?). The lack of right-angled ports here is glaringly obvious.


Since that SATA Express port sits along the board's lower edge, there is very little case connectivity at the board's bottom edge, though there are more than enough USB headers and such for most cases out there right now.