Gadgetory

so let's take a look at a skylake motherboard this is the z170a gaming in five from MSI ladies john welcome back to tech es city this is brian coming to you guys today with a skylake motherboard review this is the msi z170a gaming m5 now first of all this review we'll take a look at what you get in the box take a look at the features on the motherboard then we'll look at the bars quickly and then we'll take a look at the onboard audio and the killer and IC and then I will tell you guys my subjective thoughts and opinions on this motherboard with that being said though let's get on with it so included in the box you get six SATA cables you also get an SLI connector a easy Quick Start manual you also get a driver CD and some little notes there to put on your cables as well which is an interesting touch and you also get the famous door note hanger there which you can hang on your door to let people know that you're gaming now as soon as you pull this motherboard out of the box you'll notice that it has a red and black theme to it and also the paint included on the motherboard is a matte black finish now going over the vrm so upon pulling off the heat sinks I noticed that it had a 10 + 2 phase power design so that's ten phases dedicated to the CPU and then two phases dedicated to the ddr4 memory there now an important thing with skylake is that they've put off the voltage regulator off the CPU back onto the motherboard so vrm is a little bit more important on skylake than it is on house well now the good thing about MSI is what they've done here is they've included a really good vrm solution you've got Nikko's MOSFETs they're on the low side you've got 20 amps on the MOSFETs on the high side you've got them rated at 13 amps you've also got titanium chokes they're all the way across the vrm there and then you've got MSI's dark solid caps which all in all this will give you guys a very solid and stable overclock when I tested the heatsink out after gaming on it at 4.6 gigahertz at one point three five volt I noticed that the temperatures were like 37 degrees for the VR this is in a 23 degree cooled environment so the vrm is certainly capable of handling any cpu or any four core overclocks that you throw at it now moving to the right of the board you've got four ddr4 black-themed memory slots there and one thing that I notice is that they've got ddr4 boost printed there and upon inspection I've noticed that they've isolated the circuitry for the ddr4 memory which is a cool thing if you're going for a really high overclock though when I tried overclocking my memory my memory wasn't that good so the ddr4 boost couldn't help a lot there so moving down the right side of the board there you've got a USB three front out you've also got six sided three ports and to solder Express ports there so if you use two of those Saito Express ports they will cancel out four of the side of three ports there so that's something to keep in mind below that you've also got a LED indicator which will oddly enough tell you your cpu temperature and I found this to be a really useful touch and I really like what they've done with this because especially if you're gaming you want to know if your CPUs getting really hot now just besides that you've got a heatsink there with the dragon logo covering the chipset hub there which they're still kept on the z1 78 architecture now moving down to the bottom of the board here from right to left you've got a power jumper there as well as a clear CMOS jumper and then you've got two USB to front outs there as well as a TPM connector a serial connector and a chassis intrusion connector you've also got the slow mode switch there is just something there interesting that they've brought into the gaming m5 motherboard they're now moving to the left of that we have the audio boost 3 with its own dedicated section this is the real tach 1150 which has its own electromagnetic shield you've also got tray sliding there which lights up red in the dark now moving to the right of that you have a m dot 2 slot there and you actually get two of these one further down the board as well and then you have four PCI one speed slots and you also get three PCI 16 speed slots however the first port is the only port that will work in 16 speed mode the one below that will work in speed if you wish to put your graphics cards in SLI or crossfire and then the one below that is dedicated for 3-way crossfire which will work in four speed only they are all PCI 3 compatible now looking at the fan connections you get a total of five with two of them being for pin and three of them being three pin and then at the top of the board you lastly get the 12 volt connection there which is really easy to access and it isn't a good location so for input output from the top to the bottom of the motherboard we get one ps2 there we also get two USB to ports a DVID port and then six USB 3.1 slots there one of those being type C and then five of those being type a you also get a HDMI output meshed in there as well as a killer ni c e 2400 land input that now for audio out you've got a optical out there you've also got manual configuration for analog 5.1 out as well as a headphone out and a mic in and line in port also with the motherboard it's a very solid motherboard with the PCB being pretty thick and I'll surprised at how rigid the motherboard was and how good everything felt on the motherboard but a quick look at the boss one thing that I've noted with the boss is that they've changed it since the z87 iteration when I use the G 45 gaming they've made it more simpler that made it easier to use but they've also kept the options they're more advanced overclockers so I noticed that I had all my favorite options there and even though with skylake I believe they've done down the overclocking a little bit which is an MSI's fault they've still given you all the options you would need for an enthusiast overclocker now with that being said let's take a quick look at the onboard audio solution and the killer and IC software suite now let's take a look at the onboard audio solution included with the MSI zi 178 gaming but this is the audio boost 3 now when I started putting on my pair of headphones this is the Fidelio once and started listening to music I was blown away by how good this output was the bass and the sub bass were there which is indicative of a decent or a good dak ant solution and I think on this output stage they've included jewel Opie amps they've also included a real tech 1150 dak and as well as that I will state the separation was pretty good as well if you've got easier to drive headphones like mine which are low impedance these are the Fidelio wants high sensitivity then the volume will be more than enough and it will sound phenomenal though one thing I will stress is that if you have hard to drive headphones for instance hi-fi man hey chief for hundreds and obviously you will want to go out and get a separate amp to power those hard to drive in its headphones so keep that in mind another thing as well is the crosstalk was extremely low which means that you're going to get a true stereo sound coming into these headphones also the included software suite was actually really easy to use you've got preset accuser you also got things like room correction and you've got profiles that you save there the one thing I couldn't find was a custom EQ which I would have liked to have seen though that's easily remedied by a free program called equalizer apo and I've actually got a tutorial for that up with a link in the description below that now let's move on now to the mic input so now we've talked about output let's talk about input and now for this segment and the previous segment I've been using the v-moda boom probe plug directly into my onboard audio and now when I started critically listening to the audio going into the black input I noticed that when I started speaking there was a little bit of noise but if I went and I didn't say anything there'd be no noise at all did you hear any noise I bet you didn't so what that means is that noise suppression is turned on by default now when I check the options I couldn't find any checkboxes to turn on or off noise suppression which is a little bit of a bummer because if you're using this for even relatively professional recordings like doing streaming or something like that then you do want noise suppression off because it ultimately changes your voice and it I believe it makes it a little bit lower quality the one good thing about the mic input is that it is really loud and when I was doing a quite a Skype conversation with my brother I noticed that he could hear me very clearly and there was no hissing or anything like that so it was a good thing I mean the mic input is solid I would just like to see the option to turn on or off noise suppression so let's quickly take a look at the killer a 2400 which comes included on the gaming m5 motherboard now when I first installed the drivers and the software suite or the killer a 2400 I was impressed by how much more simpler they've made the user interface so it's a lot more easier to use nowadays and the good thing about killers claims is that they're actually legit I've tested this in the past I'll put a link in the description block to the testing but basically if you're a a university student for example at a dorm where you're on a congested network and you will get a better online gaming experience now if you're using the killer and I see with the software as opposed to another and I see which is a great thing the killer are offering their with their software suite however another good thing that MSI is done with the implementation of the killer is that they've allowed the option to just install the drivers only which is a fantastic thing with people like me who aren't on a congested network don't need the accompanying software suite so kudos to MSI and also I haven't come into any problems with the NI C so in conclusion the z170a gaming motherboard from MSI is one solid solution I was really impressed with the three top things that I look for in a motherboard that is the vrm solution first off I look at that it was a really good implementation that they've done here you've got a 12 phase power design with all solid components and a decent heatsink there which takes care of cooling and it ran cool in practice and this was with a pretty heavy overclock so for the VRM they've checked the box there next thing I look at is the onboard audio solution now the audio output was phenomenal so if you're a guy who wants to get into gaming and enjoy your games this motherboard has a really good onboard or their solution to boot now one thing I will critique though is the mic input there I do believe that could use a little bit of work there as I know as rock for instance on their motherboards are including pretty solid mic imports there so that's one thing I'd like to see improved on this motherboard however the killer and I see the third thing that I look for on a motherboard the killer and I see is definitely solid when I was playing some games on this motherboard I noticed that the killer and IC did not miss a beat and also the software suite has improved a lot since the last time I used it so all in all this motherboard is a solid solution for someone who's looking to get into overclocking with this simple and easy to use UEFI bass also some things that I forgot to touch on you get included an xsplit license with this motherboard and they've also put metal shrouding on the PCI Express ports they call this the impregnable armor so this will essentially make it so that you don't break your PCI Express ports I mean if you're into being a barbarian and installing graphics cards then this motherboard might be really good for you even though I don't know anyone who does that though on that note I will say that I could not find a clear CMOS button which was something that I was worried about first however upon overclocking on this motherboard and then coming into failed overclocks like for instance I just tested it with a complete failure an overclock I noticed that the boss just reset itself really quickly when it came into a failed overclock and it got you back up and running in no time so essentially giving way to not needing a clear CMOS button in the first place so very good implementation of the UFL BIOS by MSI there now for the ultimate question of is the z170a gaming m5 motherboard from msi worth your money and in my opinion yes and I will be giving this product a four out of five stars today because it has a fantastic vrm solution that's the military class 5 which besides the marketing is a very cool vrm solution you also got a great implementation there of the bias which both beginners and advanced users will find familiar and easy to use and you're also having things like included xsplit license and just overall a great output on the audio there which is the realtek 1150 so if you're using headphones you will have an amazing experience or easy to drive headphones you'll have an amazing experience listening to audio however I will be knocking off one star for that mic input because I believe a product that's aimed at gamers especially one with an included xsplit license should have a more solid mic input or a more solid amp included on the mic input so I will be knocking a staff for that so that's about it from me guys if you like this review then please give it a thumbs up and if you have any questions then drop a comment in the comment section below also this motherboard was provided for me by MSI Australia and it does cost around about 300 AUD however here in the States and you're in the UK and you can pick it up for cheaper then by all means do so it is one great motherboard to use in practice though that being said you go probably want to know how it performs house Kylie performed Brian house Kylie performed well I've done some preliminary tests and in gaming I did the ARMA 3 benchmark which is my cheap EU bound test it performed about five percent better than the four deep near the house wall floor core 46 70 K at four point six gigabits also in productivity it did very well and it is a snappy cpu however it's not leaps and bounds ahead of we'll just keep that in mind however I'll be leaving the benchmarks for the CPU review for you guys and I'll catch you in the next tech video very soon peace out for now bye