Msi z270 gaming pro carbon review in Spanish (full analysis)

MSI Z270 Gaming PRO Carbon technical characteristics

Unboxing and design

The MSI Z270 Gaming PRO Carbon It comes in a full color box. Where we see a high-end car, the model of the motherboard and its compatibility with virtual reality.

On the back they indicate all the most important technical characteristics of the motherboard.

Once we open the box we find the following bundle:

MSI Z270 Gaming PRO Carbon motherboard . SATA cable set, rear hood, SLI bridge, instruction manual and quick guide, CD with software, stickers to identify all wiring.

As we can see, it is an ATX format board with dimensions of 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm for the LGA 1151 socket. The board has a minimalist design and a matte black PCB. It incorporates the latest Z270 chipset that is compatible with all Intel Skylake processors and the recent Intel Kaby Lake. Specifically, it supports both Intel Core i7, i5, i3, Pentium and the basic Celeron. Another advantage is the possibility of incorporating Intel Xeon processors.

Rear view of the motherboard, for the most curious.

The MSI Z270 Gaming PRO Carbon features two zones with cooling: power phases and one for the Z270 chipset. All its components are armored with Military Class technology. But what is this technology? Basically it incorporates improved components: power phases, chokes, capacitors of better quality than the rest of the most basic range. In other words, this allows us to perform a better overclock, greater stability and, above all, durability.

It has a total of 11 power phases, a digital PWM controller, voltage protection and the aforementioned Military Class components. Cooling detail of the Z270 chipset.

Another image that reflects the 8-pin EPS connection for auxiliary power.

The board incorporates a total of 4 64 GB compatible DDR4 RAM memory sockets with frequencies from 2133 MHz to 3800 MHz in Dual Channel and is compatible with the XMP 2.0 profile.

The MSI Z270 Gaming PRO Carbon presents a very interesting distribution of its PCI Express connections. It has three PCIe 3.0 to x16 slots and another three normal PCIe to x1. The PCI Express 3.0 to x16 incorporate an armature that better cushions the graphics that are so heavy that they exist on the market today, the same thing happens with the memories.

The motherboard offers compatibility with Nvidia and AMD graphics cards . In the case of Nvidia it allows us to connect two graphics cards in SLI, while with AMD in CrossFireX up to 3 graphics cards.

As expected, it incorporates an M.2 connection to install any SSD with type 2242/2260/2280/22110 format (42/60/80 and 110 mm). As we have already discussed, these devices are very fast and have a bandwidth speed of up to 32 GB / s.

One of the main improvements in this new line is the incorporation of the MSI Shield M.2 technology. What functionality does this new design offer us? It basically cools up to 40% more to M2 SATA and NVMe drives.

The design is quite simple, it is a piece of metal with a thermalpad that sticks on the M2 NVMe disk in question. Thanks to the box fans, the SSD can improve its performance and not lower the write / read power of these hot chips. We believe that even with a slightly thicker sheet metal these temperatures could be significantly improved.

The Realtek ALC1150 integrated sound card comes enhanced with Audio Boost 4 technology. What improvements does it offer us? Better sound quality through the use of premium quality audio components with 8 channels. What will make us enjoy a more crystalline sound and with a high impedance headphone amplifier

Regarding storage, it has six 6 GB / s SATA III connections with RAID 0.1, 5 and 10 support and no SATA Express connection . In the image we see only 4 SATA connections, but in the lower area of the board, we will find the other two connections.

RGB lighting takes on more importance in this new generation of motherboards. MSI specifically relies on Mystic Light technology with 16.8 million colors. What areas does it light up? Both the area of the rear connections, the sound card and the heatsink of the motherboard chipset. The result is great!

Finally we detail the rear connections of the MSI Z270 Gaming PRO Carbon. They are made up of:

1 x PS2.5 x USB 3.0.1 x DVI. 1 X USB 3.1 Type C.1 x Gigabit LAN. 8 channel sound output.

WE RECOMMEND YOU MSI Optix MAG322CR, A new monitor with refresh rate of 180Hz

Test bench and tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel i7-7700k.
Base plate:	MSI Z270 Gaming PRO Carbon
Memory:	Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR4
Heatsink	Corsair H115
HDD	Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB.
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 1080.
Power supply	Corsair AX860i.

To check the stability of the i7-7700k processor at 4500 MHZ and the motherboard we have stressed with Prime 95 Custom and air cooling. The graphics we have used is an Nvidia GTX1080, without further delay, let's see the results obtained in our tests with a 1920 × 1080 monitor.

BIOS

The BIOS maintains the same format as in previous generations. The modification possibilities are easy to predict and its operation is very simple. As always, it comes very complete, since it allows us to customize the speed of the fans, monitor all the connected components and change any essential equipment option. We really like this new BIOS!

Final words and conclusion about MSI Z270 Gaming PRO Carbon

We are at the end of the analysis of the MSI Z270 Gaming PRO Carbon and we can affirm that it is one of our favorites after the launch of the new Intel Kaby Lake processors. The touch of carbon fiber, a minimalist aesthetic and the power of a high-end motherboard makes it one of the best options on the market.

We recommend reading the best motherboards on the market.

As standard it allows us to connect up to 64 GB of DDR4 RAM at 3866 MHz, a multi-GPU SLI or CrossFireX system, double slot for M.2 NVMe disks, its Mystic lighting system with RGB lights ( 16.8 million colors ) and Military Class components.

MSI has put a lot of emphasis on incorporating an armor or shield for both memories and PCI Express x16 connections. In addition, we also really liked the incorporation of its new M.2 Shield cooling system that keeps M.2 SSDs 40% cooler.

In the next few days we will find MSI Z270 motherboards available worldwide. But if its price is good (194.90 euros), it will be a real top seller and will join our motherboard guide.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ VERY ATTRACTIVE DESIGN.
+ QUALITY OF ITS COMPONENTS.
+ M2 SHIELD.
+ REINFORCEMENT IN MEMORY SLOTS AND PCI EXPRESS.
+ 11 FEEDING PHASES.