UEFI Features
MSI includes the latest revision of their UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) with the Z170A-Xpower Gaming Ti motherboard, dubbed Click BIOS 5. The UEFI offers full keyboard and mouse support while using the interface's pages with enhanced mouse navigation supported by right clicking the mouse – goes back to previous view if inside a settings pop-up or on a sub-menu page. MSI also includes a screen capture utility, which generates a 1024×768 BMP image saved to an attached USB drive upon clicking the F12 function key.
MSI UEFI is largely unchanged from its previous revisions (as seen on the Z97 and X99 motherboards). The BIOS remains very responsive to both keyboard and mouse input with settings logically grouped by function under named sections. The biggest omission remains support for some type of enhanced visual mode for 1080P displays (dubbed HD Mode by many of the other manufacturers).
BIOS Notable Features
Most of the enhancements MSI made to the Click BIOS 5 UEFI are subtle, acting to refine the interface to better meet the user's needs. One of the largest editions was the inclusion of an EZ Mode interface, giving the user quick access to a host of settings and board information. MSI continues to include their Board Explorer interface, as well as real-time change logs for the OC Profiles section and for the Save Changes window. MSI also included the Favorites menu to the UEFI, allowing for quick access to up to five pages of customized Favorites pages.
EZ Mode Home page
The EZ Mode interface includes the ability to access information about the CPU, Memory, attached storage devices, and attached fans as well as real time device speed and temperature read-outs. Further, several On/Off settings are provided for configuring common user features, as well as easy access to the Game Boost and XMP functionality.
Advanced Mode Home page
The Home page layout gives easy access to common features for the end user. Game Boost and XMP buttons display in the upper left of the page so that a user can quickly enable the Game Boost overclocking engine or enact XMP memory settings without having to go into the OC section of the UEFI. Additionally, MSI provides a task bar to the upper right of the page containing quick links to the screen shot capture function, the My Favorites page, and the Language settings page.
Hardware Monitor interface
The Hardware Monitor interface displays information about monitored hardware speeds, temperatures, and voltages, as well as allowing for configuration of system fans based on temperature thresholds. The graphical interface provided is very intuitive and easy to use.
Board Explorer interface
The Board Explorer interface gives the user a graphical representation of the motherboard with zones showing in use ports and attached devices. The zones can be clicked on for an expanded view of integrated ports and devices with informational messaging provided where appropriate. This gives a bird's eye view of the board subsystems without having to crack the case.
My Favorites page
My Favorites page, Favorite 1 details page
Clicking the F3 key within the UEFI or clicking on the Heart icon in the top menu bar spawns the My Favorites page. There are a total of five Favorites pages in which the user can store UEFI settings from any page, giving the ability to access frequently used settings from a single page.
My Favorites page, Favorites setting page, Default Homepage popup
The Favorite setting page contains an option for configuring the Default Home Page for the UEFI. Notice that you can set the UEFI default home page to a multitude of sections including one of the pages in the My Favorites section. The home page is the page that displays when the BIOS initializes. Setting this value to None causes the UEFI to load to the default home screen.
Favorites Assistant popup
Clicking the F2 key within the UEFI spawns the Favorites Assistant window. From this popup, the user can add new settings and sub-menus to one of the five Favorites pages. Note that if the F2 key is pressed from within a Favorite details page, the selected setting will be removed from the Favorite details page.
Save configuration verification popup
MSI added the ability to track changes made during a UEFI session to the Save popup. This change log is a text-based interface detailing all proposed changes to be made if the UEFI is saved with both the original values and new values displayed.
Startup Guide mode, System Language page
EZ mode, Main page (non-English language)
Advanced Mode (non-English language)
Selecting the System Language button from the upper right corner of the UEFI title bar opens the Language page. From here, you can select one of eight languages with which to customize the UEFI text and labels.
UEFI Walkthrough – Advanced Mode
Overclocking Settings (OC) page
Overclocking Settings page, DRAM and Voltage settings
Overclocking Settings page, Voltage and Other settings
Overclocking Settings page, Clockgen Features page
Overclocking Settings page, Advanced DRAM Configuration page
Overclocking Settings page, Advanced DRAM Configuration page, Turn Around Timing Configuration settings
Overclocking Settings page, Advanced DRAM Configuration page, Advanced Timing Configuration settings
Overclocking Settings page, Advanced DRAM Configuration page, Latency Timing Configuration and Misc settings
Overclocking Settings page, Advanced DRAM Configuration page, Misc and On-Die Termination Configuration settings
Overclocking Settings page, DigitALL Power page
Overclocking Settings page, CPU Specifications page
Overclocking Settings page, CPU Specifications page, CPU Technology Support page
Overclocking Settings page, MEMORY-Z page
Overclocking Settings page, MEMORY-Z page, DIMM Memory SPD page
Overclocking Settings page, MEMORY-Z page, DIMM Memory SPD page, X.M.P. Support Information page
Overclocking Settings page, CPU Features page
M-Flash page
OC Profile page
OC Profile page, Profile details page
OC Profile page, Save to / Load From USB popup
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.