MSI is in full force at CES 2017 this year and in addition to external GPU docks, laptops, and a wall of Z270 motherboards, the company is using the event to show off its AM4 motherboards for the first time. At the top of the pack is the flagship X370 XPower Gaming Titanium clad in shimmering white and black and ready to support AMD’s upcoming “Ryzen” processors based on the Zen architecture.
Image Source: eTeknix (video)
Armed with AMD’s highest end X370 chipset, the flagship motherboard supports Ryzen CPUs as well as 7th generation APUs. There are four DDR4 memory slots on the board that MSI claims can operate in dual channel mode at up to 2667 MHz when overclocked. The board is rather powerful as well in that there are a lot of power connections. The usual 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS are joined by a 4-pin ATX up top and a 6-pin PCI-E connector on the bottom to stabilize overclocks. Further, a 10-phase VRM drives the AM4 socket and memory.
The motherboard further features three PCI-E x16 slots, three PCI-E x1 slots, two M.2 (32 Gb/s), one U.2 (32 Gb/s), and six SATA 6 Gbps ports. On the PCI-E front, the first two slots are connected to the processor and run at x8 when both slots are populated while the third slot is connected to the chipset and is electrically x4. As far as the SATA ports, two are directly connected to the processor and four come from the chipset.
MSI is including their own onboard audio solution called Audio Boost 4 as well as Gigabit Ethernet though the Steel Armor is covering the chips so it is hard to say exactly what they are using there. Also, Multi GPU setups are officially supported up to two way SLI HB or three way CrossFireX.
There is a plethora of USB support here with the X370 XPower Gaming Titanium supporting up to four USB 3.1 (one Type-C, three Type-A), eight USB 3.0, and seven USB 2.0 ports. If that is not enough, then you may have an addition to PC accessories (or just really like those USB missle batteries hehe).
Naturally, MSI is staying silent on pricing and availability of the motherboard(s) but I hope to see them out within the first half of the year! The design is certainly polarizing, but the features are there. I look forward to reading our review of this and other AM4 motherboards and how they fare at overclocking!
PC Perspective's CES 2017 coverage is sponsored by NVIDIA.
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I may upgrade to Zen, but I
I may upgrade to Zen, but I don’t know if I want board revision 1.0 with a completely new chipset. I may have to wait a little while. With Intel, most of the chipsets/boards have been almost the same for quite a few years now, so you are getting mature chipsets and board revisions.
Yeah right. True titanium…
Yeah right. True titanium… It would make the board 10 times more expensive as a non-titanium counterpart. Wouldn’t that be false advertising too?
No, Nvidia still uses Ti
No, Nvidia still uses Ti (Titanium) for their series of cards?
Oh dear, I’m afraid I have
Oh dear, I’m afraid I have some disappointing news about your “gold” power supply. Turns out it isn’t actually made out of gold.
Can somebody enlighten me
Can somebody enlighten me about the number of PCI-e lanes there are between the chipset and the cpu? and how many lanes are given by the cpu directly?
I do not know about X370 off
I do not know about X370 off hand (has AMD officially said yet?) but B350 and A320 PCI-E is listed in this article: https://www.pcper.com/news/Motherboards/AMD-Officially-Launches-Bristol-Ridge-Processors-And-Zen-Ready-AM4-Platform
This photo may
This photo may help:
http://media.gamersnexus.net/images/media/2017/CES/msi/msi-x370-backside.jpg
2 of the x16 slots are only soldered for x8 lanes.
Hi Jann5s, Josh’s AM4
Hi Jann5s, Josh's AM4 platform breakdown confirms that Ryzen has 16 PCI-E lanes (that can be split into two x8) while Bristol Ridge has 8.
https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Motherboards/AMD-Details-AM4-Chipsets-and-Upcoming-Motherboards/Ryzen-and-AM4-Continued
Thx Tim,
It was this part
Thx Tim,
It was this part that I was looking for: “Ryzen is a slightly different beast when it comes to its I/O functionality. It features a full x16 PCI-E implementation that can be split into 2 x8 for SLI and CrossFire. There are four more PCI-E lanes that connect this CPU to the chipset.”
Cannot wait, hoping to dump
Cannot wait, hoping to dump my 4790k.
Hi, I have purchased the MSI
Hi, I have purchased the MSI X370 XPOWER Gaming Titanium motherboard with Sapphire Nitro Radeon RX 480OC Graphics Card and Vengeance RAM with 3000 FSB DDR4 Ram.
There is display problem and RAM Speed Shows only 2666 FSB.
Display problem and system performance so upsetting.
Can anyone help me please??
Thanx
imranmidas