Over the last few years small builds have been becoming more and more popular. Both for LAN rigs like we have been using for a long time, but even for main PCs. This is partially due to more parts being available but mostly some people are tired of dealing with huge heavy cases, especially when you can do nearly anything you want in the Mini-ITX form factor. Late this fall I started thinking about a new LAN rig, maybe even another iteration of our LunchBox series, before I did that though I really needed to check out the new Z170 boards. That leads me to today where I’m going to check out MSI’s gaming focused Mini-ITX board, the Z170I Gaming Pro AC. I’ve used a few of MSI’s ITX boards in builds before and I’m excited to see what this one has to offer.

Product Name: MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC

Review Sample Provided by: MSI

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

Amazon Link: HERE

 

Specifications
CPU Supports 6th Gen Intel® Core™ i3/i5/i7 processors, and Intel® Pentium® and Celeron® processors for Socket LGA1151
Chipset Intel® Z170 Chipset
Main Memory

2 x DDR4 memory slots, support up to 32GB

Supports DDR4 3200(OC)/ 3000(OC)/ 2800(OC)/ 2600(OC)/ 2400/ 2133 MHz

Dual channel memory architecture

Supports non-ECC, un-buffered memory

Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)

Slots 1 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots
Onboard Graphics

1 x HDMI™ port, support a maximum resolution of 4096x2160@24Hz, 2560x1600@60Hz>

1 x DisplayPort, support a maximum resolution of 4096x2304@24Hz, 2560x1600@60Hz, 3840x2160@60Hz, 1920x1200@60Hz>

Storage

Intel® Z170 Chipset

4 x SATA 6Gb/s ports

1 x M.2 slot (on the botton of the motherboard)*

Supports PCIe 3.0 x 4 and SATA 6Gb/s standards, 4.2cm/ 6cm length M.2 SSD cards

1 x SATAe port (PCIe 3.0 x 2)**

Supports RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10

Supports Intel® Smart Response Technology for Intel Core™ processors

USB

Intel® Z170 Chipset

6 x USB 3.1 Gen1 (SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps) ports (4 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB connector)

5 x USB 2.0 (High-speed USB) ports (3 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB connectors)

Audio

Realtek® ALC1150 Codec

- 7.1-Channel High Definition Audio

- Supports S/PDIF output

LAN 1 x Intel® I219-V Gigabit LAN controller
WLAN / Bluetooth

Wi-Fi Bluetooth® expansion module with Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 chip

Supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual band (2.4GHz, 5GHz) up to 867Mbps speed. Supports Dual Mode Bluetooth® 2.1, 2.1+EDR, 3.0, 4.0 BLE, 4.2

Internal I/O Connectors

- 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector

- 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector

- 4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors

- 1 x SATAe connector

- 1 x USB 2.0 connector (supports additional 2 USB 2.0 ports)

- 1 x USB 3.1 Gen1 connector (supports additional 2 USB 3.1 Gen1 ports)

- 1 x 4-pin CPU fan connectors

- 1 x 4-pin system fan connectors

- 1 x Front panel audio connector

- 2 x Front panel connectors

- 1 x TPM module connector

- 1 x Chassis Intrusion connector

- 1 x Clear CMOS jumper

Back Panel I/O Ports

- 1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse port

- 3 x USB 2.0 ports

- 1 x DisplayPort

- 1 x HDMI™ port

- 1 x LAN (RJ45) port

- 4 x USB 3.1 Gen1 ports

- 1 x Clear CMOS button

- 2 x antenna connectors

- 1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT connector

- 5 x OFC audio jacks

Dimension

6.7 in. x 6.7 in. (17 cm x 17 cm)

Mini-ITX Form Factor

Mounting 4 mounting holes

 


Packaging and Accessories

With the Z170I Gaming Pro AC being one of MSI’s Gaming Series boards they went with the standard red and black theme both on the board and on the packaging. The box has a black background with a slightly stylized sports car screaking across the front. Beyond that the top is simple, with the model name, MSI logo, and Gaming Series logos on it. They also slipped the required Intel chipset logos up in the top right corner. Around on the back, the box has a LOT more going on. Here MSI has broken down the key features like the gaming LAN, LAN protect, Audio Boost 3, USB Audio Power, and Turbo M.2. Each has a photo and a graph or diagram to show what it does. There isn’t really any fluff text and everything is right to the point. They also included a specification listing and a line drawing of the rear I/O panel to show all of the connections available.

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Inside of the box the tiny Mini-ITX motherboard sits on a cardboard tray and is wrapped up in a static protective bag. Up under the tray that the motherboard sits on the rest of the box is packed full of accessories.

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For starters you get two different driver disks. One has the software and motherboard drivers and the second comes with the LAN/Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/Thunderbolt drivers and utilities.  Then of course there is a stack of documentation as well. There is a quick installation guide, a thick user guide, and a paper that shows how to install the CPU. MSI also slipped in a nice thank you card that explains how to register the motherboard as well.

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There is a page of stickers that you can use to label both ends of your SATA cables if you like. Then of course they include SATA cables also. You only get two and one of those comes with a right angled connection on the end, being an ITX board that number isn’t a big surprise though. There is also a small bag that has the two screw on antennas for the wireless AC / Bluetooth adapter. Lastly you get the rear I/O panel. MSI blacked it out and then used red for all of the legends and to highlight the amplified audio port and the USB Powered Audio port.

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Board Layout and Pictures

As we saw with the full ATX Z170 motherboard from MSI that I covered at launch, MSI has changed up the styling of their Gaming Series motherboards. They still have the same red and black theme that MSI and Asus use but MSI changed the red color to a brighter red. Typically companies try to hide the traces in the PCB but MSI actually highlighted some of them on the flat black PCB with red. This combined with the red on both heatsinks makes the Z170I Gaming Pro AC pop a little. I think going with red DIMMS would add to it a little but they kept them and all of the other connections blacked out. Being a Mini-ITX board there isn’t all that much to the board, it all fits into a 6-inch square PCB, a small portion of the size of a full ATX or even Micro-ATX board.

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Starting up in the top left corner behind the rear I/O panel the board has two 4-pin PWM fan headers. They have printed on the chip behind the Ethernet port to highlight that it is the Gaming LAN chip and of course we have the power circuitry just above the LGA socket.

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Over on the top right the 8-pin CPU power plug is tucked in to the right of the power heatsink, this is normally up in the top left corner but I think that this location is actually a little earlier to get to than normal. There are two DDR4 DIMMs and then along the edge is the boards 24-pin power. Just below that is the front panel controls header. This is normally in the bottom right corner on most boards but due to the space of the ITX board the Z170I Gaming Pro AC has it just under the 24-pin power. This actually puts all three of the board main connections up in the one area so wire management should be a little earlier.

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Moving down the right side we have one SATA Express port and then two normal SATA 3 ports tucked in between the chipset cooler and the DDR4 DIMMs. The last connection down in the bottom right corner is the boards one USB 3.0 header.

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Down along the bottom the Z170I Gaming Pro AC has a single PCI Express x16 slot like every ITX board and then they have the Audio Boost 3 chip tucked in just next to it. MSI went with high end caps but a few less than you would see on a full sized board. They have them packed tightly in next to the included Bluetooth and wireless AC card that runs on mSATA. In with the caps is also the headphone amp chip in the top right corner where the eight cap would go. The front panel audio port is just above the caps. This is the worst possible place you could have to deal with as far as wiring goes but there really aren’t many options on an ITX board when its packed full of features. Then there is a single USB 2.0 header just above the front panel audio header.

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Being such a small board there isn’t exactly a lot of room for cooling. The Z170i Gaming Pro AC does still have two main heatsinks. The one above the CPU socket helps keep the power circuitry cool. It doesn’t have a large footprint and it is packed up next to the CPU power but it does have a decent amount of surface area with multiple fins and cuts in the aluminum cooler. It is anodized black with two red strips on it. The second cooler is a lot lower profile and sits just above the PCI slot. This is the chipset cooler, normally these are low profile because they run under the video card but in this case it doesn’t. It is smaller than the coolers on full sized boards but the same as what I’ve seen on past ITX boards. The heatsink has a black base with a few angled gaps in it then a thin aluminum plate over top of it that has all of the decorations printed on it including the MSI logo.

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For being a Mini-ITX board the Z170I Gaming Pro AC has a lot going on in its rear I/O panel. Not as much as the Asus Impact boards but close. There are two USB 2.0 ports along with a PS2 port for legacy devices over on the left. Then you get four normal USB 3.0 ports and the vertical USB 3.0 port that has additional power to it for USB audio power. That one also has a gold housing, not that it’s needed. For display connections the board has a single HDMI and a single DisplayPort, being a gaming board I’m sure more people will be using a video card but it’s nice to have the option at least. Over on the right is the 5 port audio panel and an optical connection. All of the audio ports are gold plated and the single red one is the port with the built in headphone amp. Next to that are the connectors for the Wireless AC/Bluetooth adapter and also with those is a tiny button for resetting the BIOS without having to dig into your tiny ITX build. I can’t stress enough how helpful that CMOS button can be but anyone who has ever wired up a small form factor build will understand why you might not want to have to dig back into it often. The last port is the gig Ethernet connection in the middle. The NIC is running on an Intel I219-V Gigabit LAN chipset, I was a little surprised they didn’t go with a Killer NIC seeing they are in most MSI Gaming Series boards but I’m guessing they just didn’t have the room.

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The last thing to check out on the Z170I Gaming Pro AC is the underside of the board. This is where we can actually get a better look at the black PCB. MSI slipped all of the required logos here on the back of the board rather than trying to pack them on the top. We can see that the top heatsink is attached by screws. But the most interesting thing going on here is that MSI actually took advantage of the unused space of the back of the PCB and slipped the boards only M.2 slot onto the PCB. This idea comes from the small form factor PCs like the NUC where they use every inch front and back on the PCBs. It’s especially genius because the only other way to fit an M.2 drive on a Mini-ITX board is to go vertical with it like Asus did on their Impact boards. The problem with that is that cuts into wiring and can have conflicts depending on your case layout. This design will work with anything; the only issue is you will need to most likely remove the motherboard to get at the drive or to install one later.

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Software

While the hardware you get is the most important part of a motherboard purchase, the other half is going to be your overall experience. Part of that is the performance, something I will talk about later but a good portion of your experience relies on the software your motherboard comes with. This covers anything you install with it as well as the UEFI as well. The reason this is important is because if you get an amazing board and the software is crap you can’t really take advantage of all of the fancy features. Software development takes a lot of time and a lot of people but the biggest motherboard manufactures have really stepped up their game over the past few years. MSI like a lot of the manufactures has combined a lot of their programs to cut down on what it takes to get everything installed but there were still three programs that I wanted to cover.

The main program that MSI uses is their MSI Command Center. This is where you can dig in and find out how things are performing with access to all of the boards temperature and voltage sensors. In addition to that you have the ability to tweak your CPU, ram, and integrated GPU. You aren’t limited to just clock speeds you can also get into voltage adjustments. In fact, the only things you can’t control from the Command Center that you can from the BIOS are things like your boot order and turn on and off chipset and CPU features. For people who want to keep things simple the software has a tab called Game Boost that is basically the old OC Genie, it overclocks everything for you. Also in the Command Center is the option to be able to turn on USB 3.1 Speed Up, a feature that streamlines USB 3.1 performance. I test it in the USB section later on!

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Another key program is MSIs Live Update. Basically this program scans MSIs database and figures out if you are missing drivers or if your drivers are out of date. In addition to that it also helps you download and update the boards BIOS. There isn’t too much to the software but it does get the job done. If I had my way it would be built into the Command Center though.

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The last program I wanted to touch on is the Gaming App. Basically this is a small program that runs in your taskbar. When you open it up you can one click change your overclock from an OC Mode, Gaming Mode, and a Silent mode depending on how you are using your PC at the time. It also integrates on screen displays for your games if you want to see temperatures, clock speeds, and voltages while gaming.

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MSI’s UEFI is a lot like their software with the black and red theme that matches the board and of course mouse functionality. Navigating feels a LOT smoother than my experiences with MSI UEFIs in the past, I used to have weird issues with the mouse implementation in areas that would normally me navigated by a keyboard but those seem to be worked out. The home screen you start on is the advanced page and you actually have to look up top to flip to the simple page. I really feel like it should drop you into the Easy Mode first and let more advanced users navigate out to help prevent people who don’t know what they are doing from doing damage. If not what’s the point of the Easy Mode. The UEI has all of the normal Chipset and CPU options in the settings menu. They have split off anything clock speed, voltage, or ram related into the OC menu for easier overclocking as well. Up on the top is the quick Game Boost mode as well as a button to turn on XMP mode. You also have a line with all of the potential boot devices that you can drag and drop. Above that are a few main PC details and a current DDR and CPU clock speed and temps. They try to keep every option simple with an explanation of each on the right if you click it. All in all the UEFI is easy to navigate, has all f the features you might need, and themed to match the Gaming Series board.

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Test Rig and Procedures

AMD FM2+ Test System
CPU Intel i7-6700K Live Pricing
Cooling

Noctua NH-U14S for cooling

Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Paste

Live Pricing

Live Pricing

Memory Kingston HyperX FURY DDR4 16GB kit 2666MHz Live Pricing
Storage Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD Live Pricing
Video Card Nvidia GTX 780 Live Pricing
Power Supply Cooler Master V1000 Power Supply Live Pricing
Case Microcool Banchetto 101 Test bench Live Pricing
OS Windows 7 Pro 64-bit Live Pricing

 

Motherboard Testing
Passmark Performance Test 8.0 Overall PCMark score
PCMark 8 We use the Home Accelerated benchmark and track the overall score
3DMark We run the 2013 Fire Strike test on the performance setting
In Game Tests
Bioshock Infinite Using the Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool, we run Bioshock Infinite on the “Xtreme” quality setting.
Tomb Raider  Using the Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool, we run Tomb Raider on the “Xtreme” quality setting.
Hitman: Absolution Using the Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool, we run Hitman: Absolution on the “Xtreme” quality setting.
Sleeping Dogs  Using the Adrenaline Action Benchmark Tool, we run Sleeping Dogs on the “Xtreme” quality setting.
Subsystem Testing
Passmark Passmark Advanced network test
CrystalDiskMark Read speed testing on both SATA and USB 3.0 using a 60GB Corsair Force GT SSD

 


Performance

While performance is the goal, in the context of this review the numbers between the different Z170 boards don’t really mean much. I test the boards and document the performance to get an overall idea of performance with a good GPU and CPU and also to pinpoint if there are any glaring performance issues. For the most part there is a lot of parity between the boards because they share the same chipset, CPU, and GPU. It’s more important to focus on the subsystems where there can be more of a variance. Not to mention the performance numbers change more from updates in the graphics card drivers than anything else.

That said how did the MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC Perform? Well our benchmark includes synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark and Passmark and then moves on to real world testing in PCMark 8 and in a few in game benchmarks. In most of the tests the numbers were spot on with the previous MSI board as well as the Gigabyte board. In 3Dmark the Gigabyte board did outperform both MSI boards by 200 points that can’t be accounted for with driver updates. In PCMark and Passmark the ITX board pulled ahead from the other two slighting. All in all the MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC showed that you aren’t going to see a difference in performance going from a full ATX setup with one card to a single card ITX build, something a lot of people seem to think when they see the small ITX boards.

3DMark
Motherboard Overall Score Graphics Score Physics Score
MSI Z170A Gaming M5 8653 9635 12451
Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 8849 9783 13622
MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC 8693 9524 13694
PCMark 8 Home Accelerated Score
MSI Z170A Gaming M5 4712
Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 4798
MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC 4906
Passmark Overall Score
MSI Z170A Gaming M5 5507.6
Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 5669.8
MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC 5831.3
Bioshock Infinite Average FPS
MSI Z170A Gaming M5 108.28
Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 108.96
MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC 108.05
Tomb Raider Average FPS
MSI Z170A Gaming M5 57.8
Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 57.9
MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC 55.5
Hitman: Absolution Average FPS
MSI Z170A Gaming M5 46.8
Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 46.3
MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC 46.5
Sleeping Dogs Average FPS
MSI Z170A Gaming M5 60.3
Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 61.1
MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC 59.6

 


USB and SATA

For the next batch of testing I busted out CrystalDiskMark and our trusty old 60GB Corsair Force GT drive. I started by testing the SATA 3 performance. The ITX board outperformed the original MSI board by a decent margin as well as the Gigabyte board by two MB/s. For USB testing I did the same test using the same drive only this time I used a Thermaltake BlackX USB 3.0 dock. This is where the MSI Z170A Gaming M5 fell behind but its smaller ITX brother kicked butt and matched the performance of the Gigabyte board. I also took the chance to test out the performance improvement when using MSIs USB 3.1 Boost option in their Command Center software. This gave us a 30MB/s improvement. Individually this looks great but honestly I had higher hopes as previous experiences with Asus’s USB Turbo Boost option has netted improvements of closer to 200MB/s in our past tests. I’m glad that MSI has included it but I do hope they work on it more in the future to see even bigger performance improvements.

SATA3 Read Speed
MSI Z170A Gaming M5 435.6
Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 442.8
MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC 444.4
USB 3.1 Read Speed
MSI Z170A Gaming M5 220.3
Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 251.5
MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC

251.3

280.9 w/USB 3.1 Boost

 


Network

To test the NIC on the Z170I Gaming Pro AC I use Passmark’s Advanced Network tool. I connect to another PC on the network and I run the benchmark at default settings then document the average network speed. Of all of the tests I do this one tends to have the biggest range. This is because a lot of the boards use different NICs. The Gigabyte for example actually came with two, a Killer NIC and an Intel. The full sized MSI board I tested at launch had a Killer NIC as well but the MSI Z170I didn’t have room for that and is using an Intel I219-V NIC. In the past I have had performance issues with the I218V NIC, the older brother to the I219V and I was hoping they had worked them out for the new model. Sadly it doesn’t look like they have as the Z170I came in considerably lower than the other boards tested. The issue isn’t across the board, it seems to be specific to just some network switches and the Trendnet TEG-S24Dg that we use in the office. From past experience I can say that some switches won’t have any performance issues, but it’s always concerning when some switches end up with half the transfer speed than expected.

Motherboard Average Network Speed
MSI Z170A Gaming M5 873.0
Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7

Intel 760.0

Killer 922.4

MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC 578.5

 


Overall and Final Verdict

So it’s 2016, Mini ITX boards have become mainstream and every manufacture makes them. That said it still sometimes feels like only a few manufactures really get the whole LANrig idea. A lot of manufactures only make basic Min-ITX boards. Part of this is because frankly, it’s actually a lot of work to try to pack all of the features that gamers and enthusiasts are looking for. MSI gets it though and they have for a long time now, hell for the last few years they have even been selling barebones LAN rigs with the Nightblade series. The Z170I Gaming Pro AC fits right in. Sure the name is unnecessarily long, I would prefer it be something like Z170 Gaming ITX, the pro just doesn’t do anything and we know it has AC.

As far as features go the Z170I hits the nail on the head. MSI of course packs in Wireless AC and bluetooth, two features that come in handy with small form factor builds. But it was the attention to detail like with the hidden M.2 drive slot on the back of the PCB. They get that we want the fastest without compromise and you can’t do that by skipping an M.2 drive or making to sit vertical in a tiny build. I was also really digging that most of the connections ended up in the top right corner of the board, so wiring should be cleaner. The exception to that of course is the onboard audio port that is tucked on the left side of the board just above the GPU. I also dig the red and black theme and the boards mostly clean styling.

The Z170I performed well in most of my testing, keeping up and even surpassing the full ATX boards in nearly every test proving that size doesn’t matter when it comes to motherboards. Packing in a 6700K and paring it with a GTX 980 proved to be a bit of a monster actually. Swapping to a more size appropriate Fury Nano would allow for impressive performance numbers in a form factor smaller than the lunchboxes I used to take to school when I was young. I did run into one performance issue with the Z170I, specifically with the Intel NIC that MSI went with. I saw slower transfer speeds with it when testing on our Trendnet Switch. This was limited to just some switches and frankly while slow in comparison to other NICs I doubt you would ever notice a difference in realworld testing, it is still faster than you will see on wireless in most cases.

So how does the Z170I compare to the competition? Well it stacks up very well when comparing features to everything except the Asus Impact. Add to that good software and what I think is an improving reputation I think it is a great board to consider. Its price is up a little higher than some of the boards but still well below the Impact and the Stinger from EVGA as well. I wouldn’t consider it to be an amazing value, but it is priced well for the features you get.

fv4recommended

Live pricing: HERE

Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #37566 16 Jan 2016 02:20
Today I check out the Z170I Gaming Pro AC from MSI, their gaming focused Mini-ITX board
VaporX's Avatar
VaporX replied the topic: #37567 16 Jan 2016 02:38
I have reached the point I do not like the "gaming" motherboards. You can often get the same performance, minus a little overclocking potential for as much as 30% less, especially in ITX format.

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