Msi Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon Ac Atx Motherboard

Contents

Following is included:

Closer Look

The Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon from MSI is one cool looking thiết kế with a plethora of features tuned towards ultimate gaming experience. This is a feature-rich motherboard and given the extent of these features in this price, this is too good a deal. Let’ start taking a closer look at the motherboard.

As the name indicates, there are carbon wraps on two areas on this motherboard. The I/O shroud has typical dark colored carbon wrap on its top. The chipset cover’s middle portion has a carbon wrap over it. The PCB’s stenciling is in black/gray colors và this overall combination of the colors và carbon wrap speaks for itself. Taking a quick look at the overall motherboard, we can see 4 SATA ports in a standard kiến thiết whereas two ports have been implemented at the bottom as well. Seems lượt thích this approach was taken to save some space on the right side’s connectivity options of the PCB but I am not sure about this particular design. We have two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.1 ports with one in 90° angle. Total 6 PCIe slots can be seen. Two M.2 ports & 4 DIMM slots are visible. Steel reinforcement on DIMM and PCIe X16/x8 slots can be seen. The PCB has ATX khung factor measuring 30.5cmX22.5cm & it is compatible with Microsoft Windows 10. The audio solution is on a dedicated PCB layer and so is the kiến thiết of the DIMM slots. There are lighting zones on this motherboard as well which can be controlled using the MSI Mystic Lighting. The wire tracing is done in a particular design which looks that good in person but there is one caveat khổng lồ this approach. Any negligence while handling the motherboard could easily damage these traces that would render the motherboard damaged beyond repairs. So, take care while handling the board.

The MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon features hãng intel LGA1151 socket. Yup, the same socket with the third revision. The Z370 socket can host the Intel’s 9th generation of core processors for which BIOS update is mandatory. Though the socket is same, the user can’t use Intel’s Skylake & Kabylake series of the CPUs on this socket. Only the Coffeelake và 9th generation of the Intel core processors can be used on this socket. As the name indicates, this socket is using the Intel’s 300 series of the Chipset which is another different comparing to lớn the 100 series chipset for the Skylake & 200 series chipset for the Kabylake. The socket has four pre-drilled mounting holes on the nearby area. No surprise there as these are for the installation facilitation of the CPU cooler.

This motherboard has a stylish shroud on the rear I/O side which extends toward the MOSFET side on the top. Though it is a uni-body design, please take a lưu ý that two aluminum heatsinks under the shrouds are not inter-connected using any heat pipe. The heatsinks are in silver màu sắc which is typical for the aluminum ones. These heatsinks have cutouts and bear stepped thiết kế making sure that airflow would come handy in keeping the overall temperatures in check. The đứng đầu side aluminum heatsink has a slim design & this is where I believe MSI should not have skipped a full body heatsink. I will discuss it in the testing section when discussing the power & thermals. The motherboard is using 11 power nguồn phases though I could not kiểm tra for further details like which PWM VRM cpu is being employed & if the solution is using doublers or actual phases though from the looks of it. This is due lớn the restriction from the source that is why I did not remove the heatsink cover.

Xem thêm: Mạch Kích Pin Iphone Từ 4 Đến Xs Max Và, Cách Kích Pin Cho Iphone

The CPU nguồn connector is located on the vị trí cao nhất left side which is the standard ATX implementation. There is an RGB connector located before the EPS connector. It is labeled as JRGB2. It has 4 pins và is in +12V GRB pin format (5050 RGB). Keep in mind that this is not an addressable RGB header so take care while plugging in the RGB device. The maximum current rating is 3A with a 2m length of the strip.

The MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon has a total of 4 DIMM slots in the đen color. For two modules configuration, use the DIMM slots no 2 and 4 (A2 và B2) starting from the socket. These slots are steel reinforced. The latches on both ends of the DIMM slots are to be opened to lớn install the RAM which is unlike the typical kiến thiết these days in which one kết thúc is fixed and the other is used lớn secure the installation of the RAM. The motherboard supports up khổng lồ 64GB of DDR4 memory with dual channel architecture using non-ECC, un-buffered memory. The maximum supported speed or frequency on this motherboard is 4000 (OC) which is indeed a better offering và it supports intel XMP. DDR4 Boost is printed on the left side of the DIMM slots. Optimized traces và a fully isolated memory circuitry ensures perfect stability và performance on MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon. These slots have LEDs on top notches. These LEDs indicate the installed memory module on each slot. LED will not light up if the memory is not installed in that slot. On the lower right side of the DIMM slots, there is an LED labeled as XMP LED. This LED lights up if the XMP profile is loaded và activated.

The CPU tín đồ header is located between the DIMM slots và the CPU socket on the upper side. It is a 4-pin PWM fan hâm mộ header. It is labeled as CPU_Fan1. There is no other CPU tín đồ header or CPU_Opt header on this motherboard. The location of this header makes it convenient to connect the tín đồ of the cooler to lớn the nguồn source.

There is a header on the top right side of the motherboard labeled as JCORSAIR1. It has a pin format of +5V DG (3-pin header, addressable RGB) & is used lớn host a multitude of the Corsair RGB lighting devices lượt thích Node Pro, Commander Pro that would allow the user lớn control and sync those devices using the MSI Mystic Lighting. To hóa trang for this, MSI has bundled their proprietary RGB cable that connects the Corsair devices khổng lồ the JCORSAIR port. This is something new for me and I appreciate this approach as many peeps have been asking on how lớn sync the Corsair devices with the motherboard’s lighting solution and I think other manufacturers should take note of this implementation.

We have a 24 ATX connector located on the right side of the DIMM slots. It is labeled as ATX_PWR1. There are two more headers towards the right side of the ATX connector. The topmost is the 4-pin pump header labeled as Pump_Fan1. The user can connect their loop’s Pump or AIO’s pump nguồn cable to this header. The PWM header below this pump header is labeled as Sys_Fan4 indicating that this motherboard has 4 system fan headers in addition lớn the CPU & Pump fan headers.

There are two USB 3.1 headers on the left side of the ATX power connector. One of these is implemented in 90° angle. They are labeled as JUSB3 và JUSB4. Next, to lớn them, we have 4 SATA ports labeled as SATA 1_2 và SATA 3_4. These are rated 6 Gbps. The motherboard supports RAID 0,1,5, and 10. On their left side, we have a Sys_Fan3 PWM header.

From what we can see on the right side of the DIMM slots we have a single phase memory VRM using MOSFET with one high và two low configurations.

This motherboard does not have a debug LED to lớn display the codes that are very helpful in troubleshooting in case something goes wrong. Similarly, we don’t have clear CMOS dedicated button on the rear I/O or on the board but a two pin sạc jumper configuration. Still, MSI has implemented what they refer khổng lồ as EZ Debug LED. There are 4 LEDs located on the right side of the ATX power nguồn connector. They are labeled as CPU, DRAM, VGA, BOOT in that order starting from the top. This is the troubleshooting mechanism provided on this motherboard. In case of any issue or error, the corresponding LED will lit up continuously until the problem is resolved. This has been my complaint with the motherboard manufacturers as lớn how expensive the actual debug LED would be that we only get to lớn see them on the high-end offerings alone!

Let’s take a look at the bottom connectivity options of the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard. Starting from the right side, we have a JRAINBOW1 lighting header. As the name indicates, this is an addressable RGB header using the sạc format of +5V,D,,G. The user can connect addressable RGB LED strips using WS2812B with a maximum power rating of 3A. We have two more SATA ports labeled as SATA 5 và 6 on the left side of the ARGB header. Next, we have two 9-pin USB headers labeled as JUSB1 & JUSB2.

Next, we have two front panel connectors labeled as JFP1 & JFP2. If you are wondering why two then JFP1 will host your chassis’s front panel system cables excluding the speaker. The speaker is to be connected to the JPF2. There is no accessory bundled with this motherboard that would ease the installation of the system panel cables to the front panel header. Even the Gigabyte Z370 HD3 Ultra Durable motherboard has that! Next, we have demo LED button và LED Power đầu vào header labeled as DEMOLED1 & JPWRLED1. There is also a two-pin jumper labeled as JSEL1 right above the DEMOLED1 button. These are used by retailers to lớn demonstrate onboard LED light effects. If JSEL1 is short then pressing the thử nghiệm button will change colors on the onboard lighting zones. If this jumper is xuất hiện then pressing the test button will change lighting effects.

Next, we have 11-pins TPM header followed by Sys_Fan2 PWM tín đồ header. Next, we have JRGB1 RGB lighting header using +12V,G,R,B pin sạc format. The MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon has two +12V RGB lighting headers và one +5V addressable RGB lighting header. The front panel audio connector is located on the leftmost side.

The location of the CMOS jumper is inconvenient as it is located between the first PCIe 3.0 x16/18 full-length slot & second PCIe x8 full-length slot. Using a graphics card with a slot width of 2.5 or more will cover this jumper & the user will have khổng lồ remove the graphics thẻ to access it. It is labeled as JBAT1There is no dedicated clear CMOS button on the rear I/O. In order to lớn clear the CMOS lớn reset the settings, shut down the PC, disconnect it from the power source & touch both pins with something lượt thích a tip of the screwdriver or by using a jumper if available lớn short the circuit. Take off the jumper or the screwdriver and power up the PC.

The MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon motherboard is using Nuvoton NCT6795D-M as a super I/O controller chip. The Nuvoton 3947SA chips are located next to lớn each fan header.