Overclocking and Conclusion
Overclocking
To give a feel for the overclocking performance potential of the Z170A-XPower Gaming Ti motherboard, we attempted to push it to known CPU-supported performance parameters with minimal tweaking. The board was able to hit a maximum base clock speed of 267MHz (thanks to the decoupled CPU clock generator of the Z170 board design) with a CPU speed of 4.5GHz, a matching 4.5GHz ring bus speed, and a 2490MHz memory speed. With the base clock rolled back to 167MHz, we were able to push the CPU to 4.67GHz with a 4.5GHz ring bus and 3340Mhz memory speeds. With the base clock rolled back even further to its stock 100Mhz speed, we pushed the memory to a speedy 3470MHz with the CPU and ring bus humming along at 4.5GHz. All overclocking sessions remained stable for over 4hrs. System stability was tested running the AIDA64 stability test in conjunction with EVGA's OC Scanner X graphical benchmark running at 1280×1024 resolution and 8x MSAA in stress test mode. Note that 16GB (2 x 8GB) of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2666 and 16GB (4 x 4GB) of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-3200 memory modules were used for the overclocking tests.
267MHz Base Clock Stats
167MHz Base Clock Stats
100MHz Base Clock Stats with 3200MHz Memory
Performance
The MSI Z170A-XPower Ti motherboard performs equally well at both stock and overclocked settings with performance matching that of the other Intel Z170-based systems.
Pricing
As of October 12, the MSI Z170A-XPower Gaming Titanium Edition motherboard was available at Amazon.com for $299.99 with Prime shipping. The board was also available from Newegg.com for $299.99 and from B&H for $312.99 with free shipping.
Conclusion
MSI went above and beyond with the Z170A-XPower Gaming Titanium Edition motherboard, constructing a unique product in a "tough to differentiate" marketplace. From the unboxing, the board stood out with its silver colored PCB and "shiny" chokes. MSI upped the game with the power circuitry integrated into the board, including the Dr-MOS MOSFET chips as well as Titanium chokes (thus the Titanium Edition moniker) and super high-grade capacitors, ensuring the CPU would not be power starved under any conditions. The reinforced primary and secondary PCIe x16 slots (PCIe x16 slots 1 and 3) ensure that the board can easily handle any sized card with your larger than average cooler. The real measure of the board was in its performance though – it performed flawlessly without much performance difference between it and the other top-scoring Intel Z170-based boards.
The one factor that may come into play with this board is the price. It is a bit on the pricey side given its lack of integrated dual NIC or wireless ports, but it remains price competitive with the other flagship board offerings and does include a lot of high-end and nice-to-have features.
Strengths
- Stock and Overclocking performance
- Board aesthetics
- CPU socket layout and spacing
- UEFI design and usability
- CMOS battery placement
- Quality of integrated Nihimic audio tools and audio subsystem design
- Inclusion and performance of Intel GigE NIC
- Dual PCIe x4 M.2 ports
- OC Dashboard device
- Overclocking-friendly controls
- Steel reinforced slot overlays for primary and secondary PICe x16 slots
Weaknesses
- Price
- CMOS battery placement with three primary PCIe x16 slots populated
- Lack of second wired GigE NIC
Great looking board, but for
Great looking board, but for $300 I think it needs more USB 3.0 slots, and duel x16 Xfire/SLI.
Why dual x16 slots? There’s
Why dual x16 slots? There’s no performance benefit when talking about pci-e 3.0. The bandwidth available even with x8 is more than any current video card can use.
Do you even know the
Do you even know the difference between slots and ports ?
Not to mention the obvious difference between duel and dual.
The education system sucks so bad.
I blame spell checkers! They
I blame spell checkers! They do not have proper contextual spell checking and Duel, and Dual are easy to overlook when proof reading! Once proper contextual spell checking becomes available via HSA and GPU accelerated Spell Checking, then mistakes like this will occur less often. Contextual spell checking requires a great amount of processing and automated definition checking/phrase matching algorithms, so GPGPU will be reguired.
P.S. some people have Dyslexia and can not spell to save their lives!
Edit: reguired
To:
Edit: reguired
To: required.
See what I’m saying, Dyslexia is a pain!
Do you suck in real life,
Do you suck in real life, that you took the time to insult someone spelling to make you feel better?
Damn, lighten up man. Who
Damn, lighten up man. Who cares if he doesn’t know duel/dual. Seems like disparaging the entire educational system (of where?) is a bit much, don’t you think?
That aside this is still
That aside this is still LGA1151. so i think it is useless to have two x16 slot wired for x16 config.
By default, that’s right.
By default, that's right. But some manufacturers include a PLX chip so that both the primary and secondary PCIe slots get the full x16 bandwidth…
The PCB color reminds me of
The PCB color reminds me of the old Soyo Dragon Ultra.
Oh yeah, I had those
Oh yeah, I had those crash-prone pieces of crap. The via 133 AGP chipset was the worst thing ever. I went through 4 of those boards before I figured out it would just not work right. It was a great looking board though. It is nice to see the color scheme again, on a much better MSI board this time!
Sorry, I meant KT333 chipset.
Sorry, I meant KT333 chipset.
Does anyone know if I can
Does anyone know if I can RAID 0 two M.2 drives with a z170 board and be able to boot/install Windows on the RAID? I really want to pickup two of the new 512MB Samsung 950 Pros and create a 1TB system drive.
Yes you can create a NVME
Yes you can create a NVME raid 0 . You do lose 2 sata for that though
windows 7 — good luck, it’s
windows 7 — good luck, it’s nearly impossible, even though it supposedly supports it. Windows 10, no problem, just have to feed it the storage drivers from the included msi disk during the install process.
I’d buy it for just the
I’d buy it for just the audio…and the looks !
No USB-C ? No dice !
No USB-C ? No dice !
I have try installed
I have try installed Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combine card on PCI-E(2or4), the windows 10 can’t found the hardware and BIO’s showed PCI-E slot is “EMPTY”. Does anyone know why?
I had a simillar issue. Ended
I had a simillar issue. Ended up getting a cheap usb adapter and plugging it into the case. Works great.