Test System

This is where my "standard" approach to reviews is broken. Rather than simply comparing this board with a bunch of boards I have previously tested, I am comparing it with itself. I employed several different configurations with the same hardware to explore how things work when conducting different types of overclocking and to look at how the MSI Z370 GAMING PRO CARBON AC behaves when I overclock the CPU or the memory, or both. I've provided CPU-Z screenshots down below of each of the three tested configurations, so you can see exactly what's what with how the hardware was set up. You can also take a look at the BIOS screenshots a couple of pages back for some settings I made use of should that be more to your fancy.

When it comes time to consider the overclocking abilities of the MSI Z370 GAMING PRO CARBON, those of you who will use a "K" SKU CPU will find that things work great as the board scales well with just multiplier changes, and there is just enough BCLK headroom for you to be able to eke out every last MHz your CPU has to offer, but I found my non-K CPU to only be able to hit 102.5 MHz and not one iota more. Some boards with specialized clockgen chips will be able to go further, or so it is rumored... I haven't had much luck in that regard so far no matter the board. Maybe it's my CPU... but maybe not.

Default Settings

CPU-only Overclock Settings

Full Overclock Settings (CPU and memory)