MSI MSI Gaming Z170A GAMING PRO LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Looks nice

Cons: I also had major issues trying to install Windows 7 with a USB drive and this motherboard. Turned on Windows 7 mode in the BIOS, tried every single USB port, and nothing would work. I decided to throw Windows 10 on instead and install worked flawlessly. Since my case is an NZXT H440 I did not have a CD/DVD drive to try in place of the USB. Guess I'm going to be out the cost of Windows 7.

Overall Review: I also had issues installing a Hyper 212 EVO. I was able to get 3 of the retention bracket screws in fine, but could not for the life of me get the fourth in as well as I would like. Never had issues like this before.

Pros: -Instant one click OC feature -Easy to set up

Cons: -Not good enough RGB control

Pros: It looks nice, easy enough to figure out the bios

Cons: No bios reset button, no way to recover original bios in case of a bad flash.

Overall Review: This board worked great until updating bios fro. V1.50 to v1.70 using live update. Computer shut down during bios flash process and never restarted. Error led indicates cpu not present or fail. Blue led on board Flashes 1 medium flash, 8 short flashes, 3 long flashes. Have tried swapping/removing all components except cpu (no one else I know has a skylake processor). Super annoying.

Pros: Zero issues after 2 months of use, and I've had it on almost 24/7 either uploading stuff to the cloud, running FoldingAtHome, or playing games.

Cons: none

Overall Review: MSI is a go-to brand for me, especially when it comes to motherboards. I have never had an issue with their products.

Pros: Was flawless for a two and half month period. A great board. And now it is in the process of dying.

Cons: It appears I am not the only one who experienced this lack of resilience. I had this in a RAID configuration. Symptoms of death are 1) major problems with the RAID system - constant warnings from the Intel RAID Manager. Steady corruption of the Raid drives. 2) Failure to bring up the video card, but not other LED trouble signals on the board itself. 3) Installed a new video card. Now it gets through most of the boot process, but craps out repeatedly during the Windows boot process. I swapped out the drives for some new ones. Still cannot bring it up, except maybe once in five-six tries. Have concluded the mobo is shot. Such a shame! No point in trying to invoke the warrenty-replacement process as this seems to be a "No Go" around here.

Overall Review: I'll probably try another mobo of the same kind, maybe the A model this time. But only because it worked so very well while it worked. If the replacement fails, I'll switch back to Asus.

Pros: Installation was as easy as any board. The design is beautiful. After "figuring" some things out I'm having no issues with it. It seems pretty solid and I'm having no stability issues. Eventually I plan to overclock the CPU.

Cons: Pertaining to the Sata ports - They are definitely not ideally located, and I don't understand MSI's thought process on having them all stand straight up. Why not put them all on the "back" side of the board with the ports at a 90 degree angle facing that way? Something else that bugged me was this board did not contain a back plate. This could have been an issue for me because the 6600k I bought to go with it did not come with a heatsink/fan. Not only that but I already had a water cooling setup in the case designed for Intel. Well, the heatsink I have for this needs a backplate to tie into. Luckily I had a spare backplate to use. Unless it's common practice to not include backplates with the motherboard I don't know why there wasn't one.

Overall Review: I noticed a reviewer mentioned issues with his mouse/keyboard. I'm guessing they're using a USB mouse/keyboard like most everyone is anymore. Anyway the mouse & keyboard works fine in the BIOS but as soon as you try to load Windows they no longer respond. Well, without trying to explain why this happens the fix is within the BIOS. You have change a setting in the BIOS for that the USB devices will work when trying to install Windows. No, I don't understand why this setting isn't enabled by default and that is annoying. But I won't throw the board under the bus for such. Something else that was rather annoying was the onboard sound. It would not work for me. I installed the audio drivers twice from the disc, nothing. It simply wasn't recognizing any speakers were hooked in. What finally solved this issue was going to device manager and finding the high definition audio throw Windows and telling Windows to find a driver for it. Again, something else I had never run into before. Those are the two issues I've had and both of them were solved relatively easily. They were both quite frustrating to deal with at the time though.

Pros: Awesome gaming features. Truly next gen motherboard. Its pretty, and gets the job done.

Cons: I had issues with booting up this for the first time. I would get the red LED near the 24pin connector but nothing would move. After troubleshooting for about 3 hours I found the CMOS battery needed to be taken out and put back in. Something reset, and we were good to go!

Overall Review: Lovely motherboard. Too bad it was a frustrating first boot. Most people I think would have RMA'd. Going to see how it goes from here.

Pros: None

Cons: Board kept freezing within the BIOS. Needless to say, I couldn't install Windows. Returned to Newegg. I'd advise looking elsewhere for a board.