Reviewed: Z170I GAMING PRO AC

Pricing

The pricing is competitive at $279 and in line with other Z170 boards of the same size. Going Skylake isn’t cheap as the ‘K’ series CPUs start at $355 and the platform requires newer DDR4 RAM. My advice is not to skimp on the motherboard because a good one will give you features that you will appreciate for the life of the system. When you break down the MSI Z170I Gaming PRO AC, you get a lot for the price in terms of features but you also get a board that’s easy to build with and highly compatible with cases and CPU coolers.

Conclusion

With the festive season approaching, I’d love to receive one of these on Christmas Day. It’s got everything you need with a few bonuses that you probably don’t. This is MSI’s best ITX board to date and gaming with it was a dream. The physical installation process was made easy thanks to the layout and the driver/software installation was almost fully automated. The hardware and software are both of a high standard and complement each other well.

The Z170 Gaming PRO AC delivers great audio, stable overclocking, extensive connectivity and a wide array of data storage options with SATA, M.2 and SATA Express. The attention to detail is something that most system builders will appreciate.

For small form factors, regardless of your case or cooler, this is a safe bet that should keep you gaming for years to come. 

MSI Z170 Gaming PRO AC Motherboard
PROS	Highly practical board layout to suit larger footprint coolers Feature rich with a stable software offering An obvious focus on audio quality that has been well implemented Very easy to work with when building in tight spaces M.2 SSD slot AC WIFI, Bluetooth LAN surge protection and traffic prioritisation software
CONS	none found