MSI Z170A SLI Plus LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: -Matte Black design that will match with any color scheme in your case<br>-Fully functional BIOS on par with MSI's gaming series.<br>-Small, but very effective heat sinks on the VRMs<br>-Intel Nic<br>-M.2 slot at such a low price point<br>-Overclocking ability<br>-The price!

Cons: -Cheap looking Sata ports/ vertical sata ports (4 horizontal and two vertical)<br>-Lack of USB ports<br>-No numerical LED (The debug LED provided is very generic)

Overall Review: I actually did my research and read reviews on this board from 4 independent sites that I trust and they were all very positive. The board is well made with MSI's military class materials despite it being a budget productivity board. Installation was a breeze and I updated the BIOS to version 130 since the board shipped with the 110 version. I usually never use the CD to install drivers, but was forced to this time around due to the board shipping with no network driver installed, no biggie, but something like this could be an issue for people without access to an internal or external DVD drive. <br><br>The BIOS is well rounded with a ton of options, just like the MSI gaming series and that was a welcome plus. I was able to get my 6600K up to 4.6 GHz on 1.36v (safe for watercooling) with max core temp hitting 63 degrees. This board is very much intended to be used for overclocking. Understand that when you purchase. All in all one of the best value tech purchases I have ever made since I purchased it on sale during a Newegg sale for 119.00. <br><br>This is a great board to consider for those looking for a minimalistic looking mainboard that does not sacrifice on functionality. The vertical sata ports and the minimal amount of USB ports were not enough to remove an egg. I'm to the point in my building life where I don't need flashy gimmick colors and corny features. Thank you MSI for a "grown up" affordable product. Edit: This motherboard just got better. After having trouble overclocking my RAM above 2666MHz it seems a recent BIOS update (140) has solved that issue. By increasing SA voltage, IO voltage and DIMM voltage I have a stable overclock of 3000MHz on my Hyper Fury X 16GB kit of RAM. Not to mention this motherboard is on sale again for the same price that I bought it with a rebate. Total price after rebate is 109.00. That's crazy. It's a steal.

Pros: -Black design, matches just about anything -Fully functional BIOS, should lets you get a lot out of it it should you overclock -M.2 slot at such a low price point, to future proof it. -1151 socket on a z170! -The price, I payed about 120 for it.

Cons: -Port placement made for difficulty to wire up -wish I did not need to buy a CD/DVD drive to install the bios, that really should come on a jump drive. -Not that I had to use them, but the debug LED provided is very generic, if something goes wrong it be nice to know more specifically what is wrong. -no dust cover to protect the board -could use more USB ports -surprisingly slow shutdown.

Overall Review: When i got this I was looking for the absolute cheapest motherboard I could find to mount I5 core on, with the possible intention of freshening it up later on with some overclocking if needed. I never overclocked before so I figured it might not be a good idea to get too expensive of board in case I messed up... but at the same time I did not want to feel like I gave up too many thing just to get a cheap board, and had a eye on the future knowing things could change.. I decided on this board because, I need a lot of ram, a M2 slot if they become even more popular in the future, the 1151 socket since that just come out, and all this mounted on a cheap but reasonable z rated board with easy to understand overclocking software.. Putting it together was a bit difficult. the spot where you put the SATA cable is right under your main video card and you will need to pull that out to install a new hard drive every time. On top of that the ports along the bottom edge are super closer to the edge making it difficult to plug in should you have a bottom set power supply. In general cable management is a bit more complicated then it should be with this board. Setting it up with windows 10 was a breeze for the most part. It put together easily and recognized the software no problem. If there was one thing I wish was better, it be I wish I did not need a CD/DVD drive to put it together.. what do you mean my hardware needs to download its drivers from a CD!? Compared to the rest of the computer, this is obsolete technology I barely will ever use, and I just as well could take it off my computer and be happy I never use it. save me 20 bucks on my next computer and build and figure out how to get my drivers on a jump drive instead. Now aside from the nitpicking about the CD drive debacle... I really am glad I got this motherboard. With the MSI Fast boot system, my computer starts up in 10 seconds from the 500 GB Solid state drive I paired it with. It runs nearly perfectly and I'm pretty sure I will get years of service out of it. It was cheap, but with all the software included in it I'm sure I could later on easily overclock it. and with it having mostly all the things I was shooting for, I don't really feel like I need anything more out of it. I eventually plan on overclocking it but right now all I have attached to it is coolmaster Evo 212 CPU fan and 4 sticks of G.SKILL DDR4 2400 ram... This might be good but I not really had to push the CPU and the ram is more then enough for the rest of my needs so its staying stock till I get a second computer around. Things I might wish to see in the future from a board like this is better debugging system. I not needed to use it.. but I'm worried down the road the 3 lights will not be enough to help me debugging issues if they should arise. I also have a issue with dust so having my board protected from dust is important to me even if the board is not the most like part of the computer to be effected by dust. I was surprised how much more MSI changes for a board with a protective cover surface over its companion. Having more connection points was also important to me but something I feel like I scarified to get a board this cheap, its something that can be overlooked with the fact I can add more if i get desperate but it would of been nice to have that solved for me. Finally the one thing I notice that is slow on this board is shutting down. It takes over a minute for everything including the lights on the case to shut off. this is only a issue if you want to restart the computer, and maybe a strange quirk that all motherboards exhibit, but I notice it since the rest of the time the computer is so great. G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 Intel Core i5-6600K Desktop Processor Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan Mushkin Enhanced TRIACTOR 2.5" 500GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1070 Video Card

Pros: - LGA 1151 Skylake CPU - 4 x DDR4 3600 RAM for up to 64 GB - One USB 3.1 Type C reversible connector, up to 6 USB 3.0 and 6 USB 2.0 - Realtek ALC1150 audio - 6 SATA ports - M.2 (if you think M.2 is worth the price premium) - SLI, if you care about that

Cons: - Installing Windows 7 is a PITA since MS did not include drivers for 170 chipset. - not all SATA connectors face the conventional direction and the right angle ones are a pain to use

Overall Review: If you want to put Win 7 on this board using a USB stick install use this utility: http://download.msi.com/uti_exe/Win7_Smart_Tool.zip to create a USB to create a bootable USB with the correct drivers. After that it was smooth sailing but getting a Win 7 USB install stick set up was a lot more hassle than I anticipated. Blame for this appears to rest on Microsoft not MSI, and MSI supplied utility does work but it took some research to find it.

Pros: Have had this board for a month now. Great budget board. Have had no issues with it. The board was able to recognize my Gskill Ripjaws V (Silver) and load the XMP Profile to 3200mhz on my 6700k. Board feels solid , well built. If you order , make sure you update it to the latest BIOS which is 1.4 as of May 21st 2016. I would highly recommend this board if you're on a budget. 8.5/10 ++Stable + Runs cool despite not having "fancy" heatsinks +Excellent on board sound + Reinforced PCI Slots + Great Layout

Cons: +Doesn't come with much extra aside from cables + Could use 1 or 2 more PWM fan headers + Lack of Optical Audio port ( Sound is excellent regardless) + 1 or 2 more USB ports would be appreciated

Overall Review: Again, make sure you update the BIOS out of the box. Its a really easy process that can be done by following instructions on the MSI website.

Pros: - Price/performance ratio is excellent - Features - Minimalist design

Cons: - Failed on me within 3 months - MSI has a ridiculously long RMA process (It's been 4 weeks after sending the package in, and it still is stuck at "Received") - Low reliability?

Overall Review: This board has an excellent selection of features, with the option to go SLI in the feature, and having DDR4 and Skylake compatibility. However, I could not post anymore within 3 months, with only normal use (no OCing or anything). MSI has a stupidly long RMA process, so I have not been able to use my computer for work for the past month. I generally liked MSI products, but my next motherboard will not be from them

Pros: All black color is nice and will go with any build. A few sata data ports are sideways and make for much easier cable routing and management. There are plenty of fan headers on this motherboard. There is a M,2 port on the motherboard which is great for faster transfers of data. It is easy to install and it does not get hot at all during gaming or other heavy uses.

Cons: The M.2 port is only for PCIE M.2 modules (I think only PCIE gen3 is supported). Do not buy a SATA M.2 because the motherboard does not recognize it. I did not know this and bought the wrong M.2. A simple exchange will fix that. There is not a lot of USB ports on the rear IO. Only 4 of them. 2 of 2.0 and 2 of them 3.0. You may want to buy a PCIE USB expansion card if you plan on having many peripherals with USB plug in.

Overall Review: I would greatly recommend this product. It is something you won't have to worry about if you plan on doing an SLI or Crossfire build or plan on upgrading to that. Download Live Update 6 from the MSI website. This is the easiest way to make sure all the drivers you need are up to date and make your board work properly right away. You will still need to download the drivers you can get from the CD or on your USB to get the motherboard working to get internet access.

Pros: - Decent price for the features, bought this at $119.99 a few weeks ago - Great documentation provided by MSI, explaining which RAM slots to use, how to connect audio connectors, thorough diagrams, etc.. (Very easy for new PC builders to understand) - Military grade components - Easy to navigate BIOS - Love the simple matte-black finish. Looks great with Hyper X black memory and black graphics cards. - Easy to setup. Had no problems connecting things. I am using an old case, a first gen Antec Sonota, so cable management wasn't going to be ideal, but thats on me for not going with a new case. - Debug LEDs

Cons: Ive had my build running for over a week now, and I don't any issues with the board, but the one thing I did find a little odd was the SATA connectors on the board, some being mounted at 90 degrees while others at 180. Not really a con in the grand scheme of things, but for those who have builds using 3-4 SATA connections, it might get a little cumbersome.

Overall Review: Originally bought this board with the plan to get an i5-6600k and OC, but decided against it and got the i5-6500 instead. My build: - MSI Z170A SLI Plus - Intel Core i5-6500 - HyperX Fury DDR4 2133 16 GB - Sapphire R9 380 4 GB OC w/backplate - Western Digital 1 TB 7200 HDD

Pros: Super easy setup, just enough in the UEFI to have fun with overclocking but not so many things I'll never use. Flat black, No bells and whistles or bright LED's. Just 3 small LED's they are marked CPU, Dram and Video, if there is a fault that particular LED will light up. System booted first time and has been stable since. MSI makes good products my last MSI mobo lasted over 8 years and Now I'm using it in my cheapo HTPC build.

Cons: Cannot get the bios to beep when booting up, Tried 3 different plug in speakers that I know for a fact work. I tried putting it in upside down and right side up. Maybe I'm missing something in the bios ? Doubtful but maybe.

Overall Review: So far this mainboard runs flawless, very easy to overclock. I have it running @ 4.1 ghz on air and it hasn't gone above 36c under heavy load it idles between 22 and 25c *edit* as of 3/5/2017. I've thrown just about every new game at my system with this Board and I5 6600K leading the way. Since installed this board has been ROCK SOLID. Once I gets above 4.2 ghz it gets unstable but that's because I'm on a cheap air cooler and not a hydraulic cooler. System specs. This Mother board I5 6600K skylake cooler master 212X cooler 16 gigs Gskill 2133 Seagate 1TB AMD MSI radeon R9 380 (steady 60 fps in ARK on medium @ 1080P) Phantek enthoo Pro case Windows 10 64bit Home Don't fall for the Gaming motherboards the word gaming is a marketing ploy