Pros: - Gorgeous silver/black coloring(its honestly HARD to find a board with those main colors)
- Reinforced PCI-E slots make for easy installation
- PCI-E kill switch for those who are bit more wary of their power usage
- External OC tool on board(haven't used it yet, but I plan to)
- M.2 connection(sadly I can't utilize this cause dual GPUs)

Cons: - As others have stated, this boards USB 3.0 pins were either bent, or were easily bent in the process of connecting a USB port(in this case it was straight from my tower case.) Worry not though, even if you aren't a PC super tech, the pins are fairly easy to readjust. All it takes is a steady hand(be warned, you should probably do this with your motherboard uninstalled, I did it with it installed and it was NOT fun)

Other Thoughts: Overall, even with the bent pins, this board is EASILY a 5 egg/star/rating. Coming from an AMD, I was quite concerned about the price to performance ratio of some of these more expensive Intel boards, but with tons of features from MSI, I am literally stunned that I didn't make the switch sooner. For those of you wanting a great board without shoving over $400 on one, this should be your one and only choice.

Pros: Unfortunately Newegg was out of stock on this item so I had to buy it through B&H. This board is gorgeous and very well made. It is a very heavy board compared to others. Some people were saying they had an issue with bent pins in the 1151 socket. In both of the ones I purchased they were spot on. So far I have an i7-6700K OC'ed at 4.6Ghz with no problems so far using the built in OC dial. I was able to fit an H50 AiO cooler with no modifications. This thing was a breeze to set up and is extremely user friendly.

Cons: My only con is I wish all of the Express Ports were reinforced with metal. I mean for dual SLI support you don't need it but for me it is more of an aesthetic.

Other Thoughts: I would highly recommend this board to anyone who wants to get in to the Z170 series boards. Like I said unfortunately I cannot be verified as an owner because I had to order through B&H. I actually ordered one through Neweggs EBay account since it showed one in stock. That was not the case. All in all this board is exactly what I wanted and needed and it is beautifully done.

Pros: Easy set up!!

Cons: None so far!!!

Other Thoughts: I've only had this build together for 2 weeks + and haven't tinkered with it yet, but everything is running as expected!!!

Pros: Visually very Striking, installed an Core i7-6700K, G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB), Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler, Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD in a CM Storm Stryker full Tower Case.
Installation was easy with one problem (see the Cons section). Booted right up, I updated the BIOS, then set the memory X.M.P at 3200 MHz, and Installed windows 10, No Glitches so far
I have another Samsung SSD Evo 512GB and 2 Hard drives installed as well
One nice feature is the game boost over clocking. Both the dial on the motherboard and the MSI software in Windows 10. they work as Advertised. took the CPU right to 4.6 GHz. By just turning the dial

Cons: The on board Header for the USB 3. It's very easy to bend the fine pins, once the MB is installed in the case as the receptacle lays at 90 degrees to the MB, I had to remove the Board and install USB 3 chord reinstall the MB

Other Thoughts: Would recommend

Pros: -Fast
-Multiple BIOS
-Has pre set over clock settings

Cons: Nothing

Other Thoughts: Do your research before you buy this board. This is the first brand NEW computer I have put together and I had no problem figuring out what I needed. Update your BIOS to get around the skylake bug, and you are GOLDEN. This board runs like a champ. My samsung 950 pro screams in this thing even without a graphics card.

Pros: Windows 8.1 and 10 recognize M.2 socket 950 pro; Once windows OS is installed, download and update NVME drivers from Samsung.
Using skylake 6700 with G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000) and XFX radeoen R9 390.


I recommend this MB for M.2 SSD upgraders. Before you install OS, go to advanced setting in BIOS and enable option to use only UEFI BOOT. It seemed to help windows 10 not to hang in the final installation screen.

Cons: Bent pins are unfortunately common with MSI motherboards. I recommend to closely look for any bent pins with a magnifying glass and flash light before placing the intel CPU in the socket. Many times you can correct the bent pins with a small tool instead of returning the motherboard.
If BIOS/POST screen appears blank when you using a single RAM stick in slot 2, it indicates bent pins. At this time all the MB lights power on normally with a small RAM display jumping through various numbers (22, 55 etc.).Try using a different slot to see if POST screen works and if it does, go back and look for bent pins in CPU socket. Calling MSI tech support is useless as they tell you to reset BIOS if it doesn't work, return the MB.

Other Thoughts: Installation procedure for dual M.2 SSD's in raid 0 mode for MSI MSI Gaming Z170A XPOWER GAMING TITANIUM edition motherbaord;
1. Prepare to install windows 10 OS in a bootable flash drive.
2. Google Intel RST raid driver and choose FLOPPY drivers for windows 10/8.1
3. Create a folder "Raid" inside the OS flash drive and place the Intel RST raid floppy drivers.
4. make sure to enable "windows 10 compatibility" in motherboard BIOS settings. Then only you can see both SSD's to enable raid 0 in "integrated peripherals"
5. Once you see both M.2 SSD's change SATA mode to "RAID" and also "enable remapping" for both SSDs.
6. Go back to settings/advanced/intel rapid storage technology and "create a raid volume" and select both drives which makes both to become a single drive.
7. Reboot and proceed with OS installation by selecting F8 to choose OS flash drive.
8. Once you go through the initial steps, windows will show a blank hard drive screen.
9. At this point, choose to load drivers and install the "intel RAID floppy drivers" from the folder in OS flash drive.
10. Now windows should recognize the single SSD raid ) volume and you can complete the installation.
11. dual M.2 SSD's 256 x2 in raid 0 will be faster than a single 512 M.2 and game/map loading times and lags while playing 4K games are nonexistent.

I highly recommend anyone with this motherboard to try raid 0 with dual M.2 SSDs.
PS; If you ever update BIOS or hard reset them, you have to redo the first few steps to show the boot drive to windows boot manager (you won't lose any hard drive data or windows OS).

Pros: Has excellent features and a ton of ocing options.
Extremely stable, no hiccups at all.
Love the look and PCB color.

Cons: Nothing I have come across yet

Other Thoughts: I started with a Gigabyte Z170 Gaming GT board and it was awful. Constant crashes.. either was a dud or just not a good overall board/bios. I have always had Asus and Gigabyte boards in the past, this is my first MSI and I am happy I gave it a try.

Pros: I have had this motherboard for just over 3 months now and have had no issues with the i7 6700k processor. The bios is awesome and works flawlessly, just make sure to update it. Picked up all the devices I am using without any problems.

Cons: The placement for the 6 pin power connector is in a bad spot if you have a big air cooler. This however is not a problem, as you do not need to have power connected to it, if you are just running 1 video card.

Other Thoughts: Nahimic a utility for this motherboard did have a problem and was locking up other programs like origin and teamspeak. This was fixed with a later update, so don't worry about it.

Pros: Literally none.

Cons: I am writing this review for my girlfriend who just bought the bundle for this motherboard, case, power supply, CPU, and ram. All other components aside from this motherboard are quite good. However after I get everything together the monitor doesn't detect a signal. So after looking online for more directions, which are not helpful at all. Then called MSI support who helped narrow down the problem to bent motherboard CPU socket pins, and as soon as I took out everything sure enough, bent pins from the factory. This is really unacceptable, Intel uses their special socket just so you won't bend the pins on install. Never had this problem with AMD mobo/CPU combo. Anyway, because of the fact that the socket pins are bent I doubt newegg will even replace it. So now I have to pay someone to fix the pins cause I cannot manage that myself, and if that's the only thing wrong with it great! If not then I'll need to replace the whole blasted thing and I'll buy and AMD mobo and processor. Last time I ever buy Intel or MSI.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Samson,
Thank you for your feedback, sorry to hear about your issue reported. Please note that MSI Intel motherboard comes with a CPU socket protector so this prevent pins to be bent during shipment. Ensure to refer to our user manual for proper CPU and heat sink installation guide. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product or need assistant on RMA, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Thanks for choosing MSI

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: This motherboard is fast. It's also easy to upgrade and quiet.

Cons: This motherboard is shipped from the factory with bent pins in the processor socket. It's easy to fix if you know what you're doing. If not, don't mess with it. I had to pay a computer guru to fix the pin problem, which was frustrating considering it's a brand new board.

This board also has compatibility issues. It doesn't fit 115x series processors although it SAYS 115x. It doesn't fit the 1150's but it does fit the 1151. I had to return the processor I bought originally and get an 1151. Thank goodness Newegg was great about the return. Unfortunately, I'm still out $50 to have a computer guy fix the bent pins.

Other Thoughts: I'd still recommend this board. Just Caveat emptor, concerning the issues.