Pros: Great Specs

Cons: 3 of the memory slots not working.

Other Thoughts: don't wast your time, look for a different board

Pros: Great value, latest and greatest features without breaking the bank; Skylake, DDR4, 2 PCIe x 16, USB 3.0 - no problems with first time build. Just be prepared to refer to the doc when you build - it has all you should need.

Cons: None.

Pros: Price, about $90

Cons: First board had to be RMA'd as two of the memory slots did not work. It cost $12 to ship it back to Calif. Memory slots on replacement board worked but board would intermittently not boot to the OS hard drive designated as no. 1 in the bios boot order. It routinely and automatically disabled that drive, putting me into the bios setup where I would have to manually re enable it. After wasting about 20 min. to write up an online tech support ticket, it could not be submitted--nothing happened when the submit button was clicked and it did not go through. I then called tech support and was told (I could see this coming) that the problem was not with the board but rather with my hard drive which must be failing (this SSD is not that old and had worked perfectly in my previous system). Howerver, in case he might be right I actually bought another SSD and installed it but of course this did not solve the problem. Finally, in experimenting with the bios settings (the latest bios version was installed), at one point I tried to boot from a known bootable USB drive. I was completely unable to do this regardless of how I rearranged the boot priority settings. Once again on startup it kept recycling directly into the bios setting screen and, unlike with the boot SSD, I was unable to manually set the bios to start from the USB drive.

Other Thoughts: No, I would not recommend this product or purchase it again (or any MSI product for that matter). It is an inferior piece of junk and there are too many other reliable brands to choose from. I have built many systems, and this is by far the worst experience I have had. I am not even going to bother RMAing this already RMA'd once board. I don't want to waste another $12 in shipping and I have no confidence that the replacement would be any better. This board is going straight to the recycling plant and its cost written off as a lesson learned the hard way about the MSI brand.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear George,
Thank you for the feedback, sorry to hear that you're having issue with the RMA motherboard, can you provide us with the motherboard serial number or RMA number? If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com or contact our support phone number 626-271-1004 M-F 9am to 6pm pst. 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: None.

Cons: Board was broken when I got it but none of the boxes were damaged in any way. I open the motherboard box to find a motherboard with a PCIe slot rolling around on top of the thing. I'd imagine that they would have picked up on that and taken it off of the production line but no ship it anyway! Out of curiosity I decided to test the board to see if it even worked and surprise the board was dead too. Sent it back to Newegg to get a refund and they tell me that the board is broken and the warranty does not cover it so now I'm out 120 dollars or so.

Other Thoughts: Would not recommend this board because it is simply junk. Don't waste your money and buy another board.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Brady,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Before considering an RMA can you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected firmly, clear CMOS.
2. Check your other major hardware’s (memory, video card, CPU and power supply) to ensure that they are not the cause of the issue.
3. If possible test motherboard outside of the case to eliminate any possible ground/short issue.
4. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

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

Pros: White lines look cool.

Cons: I've RMA'd the first board and now I might need to RMA the 2nd Board. Apparently MSI supports the BCLK clocking on their board through a different bios update. Bios update is successful and works fine. The board goes dead after slight change in BCLK and nothing can be done to restore default bios settings. Motherboard turns on but does not boot into bios. Screen stays dark and CPU troubleshooting led light is lit. CMOS does not clear to go back to default. Also the bios UI is lagging and takes a while to switch to different settings. I believe this motherboard is flawed by design and has super poor component quality.

Other Thoughts: Why doesn't the motherboard reset the CMOS after battery is taken out and CMOS clear is initiated? Also, bios chip is not removable and can't be replaced if you have a spare one.

My conclusion: Stay away from this board by all means.

Reason #1: Bios is lagging and may have compatibility issues with some components.

Reason #2: BCLK clocking will not be successful on this board with MSI's bios to support BCLK clocking.

Reason #3: If you update to BCLK unlocked bios, the board will be dead and wont reset back to default settings even with CMOS reset. For some reason CMOS reset does not work if you update to the BCLK bios.

Reason #4: MSI's RMA time takes anywhere close to 2-3 weeks to replace the board.

I purchased this board because its cheap and wanted to explore BCLK clocking to see how far I can go on a G4400. I used 8GB of D.Channel DDR4 Ram @ 2800 Speed. I updated the bios to allow BCLK clocking and motherboard booted fine on stock settings. The moment you increase BCLK by 1-2Mhz and restart, the board will go into a dead state with CPU led light on. CMOS clear does not work after that bios update and nothing can be done to reset back to stock settings (with battery removed and CMOS clear). Now I have to RMA this board because bios chip is not replaceable and there's nothing I can do to reset the CMOS.

This board is selling way to high at this price point and with so many faulty problems.

You may be fine running this board at stock speeds but you may experience incompatibility.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Luriy,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Can you provide us with your systme BIOS version and hardware's system configuration? If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product or 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: Was a no brainer to install. Has everything needed.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: I recommend this motherboard to everyone!

Pros: Might be a solid board if you are using Windows 8.1 or 10. But being a Windows 7 user, I couldn't say for sure.

Cons: I found it impossible to install drivers for the USB ports without causing total system freeze and corruption of the OS! This board has a Windows 7 installation feature in bios, which I enabled (obviously). But it makes no difference, my system still freezes up solid immediately after installing the USB 3.0 drivers and my C drive becomes unreadable! I then have to restore from backup before the installation attempt, and deal with having no USB functionality!

Other Thoughts: To make matters worse, attempting to use MSI's tech support was equally useless! Even after explaining in the best possible detail, my issue, they simply referred me back to the OS installation procedure, as if I had not read the manual before attempting OS installation! They simply ignored my second attempt for tech assistance!

I have some choice words for MSI, but it would not be appropriate to post them here! Save it to say, this was the first, and LAST product I will ever purchase from MSI!

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Brian,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Below are FAQ that will help you install USB under windows 7 and installation instructions.
1. How to use MSI Win7 Smart Tool https://service.msicomputer.com/msi_user/support/TechFAQdetail.aspx?formid=3350
2. Do the Z170 H170 B150 Motherboards Support Windows 7? https://service.msicomputer.com/msi_user/support/TechFAQdetail.aspx?formid=3339
3. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

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

Pros: - Good feature set for the price
- USB 3.1
- Easy to follow documentation

Cons: No cons. More costly boards will obviously give you more dials to fiddle with or style for a showboat rig. But for a solid Z170 foundation, I can't report any faults.

Other Thoughts: I already have a rig where I try to turn the dials up to 11 on all the parts. I wanted to build a second rig for my daughter where I focused on performance per dollar with a touch of speed. I typically use another brand of mainboard. For this build I also wanted to explore what other makes have to offer. With that said, I finally settled on this MSI mainboard paired with a Skylake i3-6100 processor. I must say that I am very impressed with the MSI product. It was packaged well, had great documentation, and I also really like the bios interface. It booted right up and has been solid ever since. I got some DDR4 memory on sale and had no trouble setting the XMP profile to get maximum performance from the sticks.
All in all, I will definitely consider MSI mainboards as my first choice going forward.

Pros: It's cheap and offers everything a basic build could want.

Cons: Incompatible with G.Skill DDR4 2133 2x8 RAM sticks. I tried every configuration and process to remedy the situation and still had issues.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Joshua,
Sorry to hear about the issue you reported. Before considering an RMA can you check following steps below since many reasons can cause the situation like this ,
1. Check and make sure that power are connected firmly, clear CMOS.
2. Ensure you have latest BIOS update provided from our website for best results. www.msi.com
3. Can you verify different rams to check?
4. If you need further assistant, please feel free to contact our technical support department directly at 626.271.1004 from M to F, 6am to 6pm Pacific standard Time.

Thanks for choosing MSI

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

Pros: UEFI Bios is nice and detects all of my equipment
Has been running for around a month so far.

Cons: n/a

Other Thoughts: haven't overclocked yet