Byrn -- In short, you CAN'T. The MSI boards (all of them) do not support BOTH M.2 slots running in PCI-E x4 mode. If you plug in two M.2 drives, the second slot drops to SATA mode. It says it right there on MSI's web site.
I don't know why this review (and many other reviews like it) don't point out that most of the boards with dual M.2 slots do NOT support dual PCI-E x4 mode. The second slot drops to SATA in almost all the boards.
The only board I have come across that supports dual PCI-E x4 modes on M.2 is the Gigabyte boards.
drtechno - Huh, thanks for the heads up. Totally missed that on the detailed spec. Only MSI board this doesn't seem to be the case for is the Z170A xpower gaming titanium edition, which doesn't have this excluded on the spec.
That said, all the more reason for an article or even a brief piece on the subject? I can't be the only one looking at multiple M.2 slots for PCI-E SSDs (RAID or not) and it would be good to at least have this pointed out...
Looks like I'm buying Gigabyte then (not that MSI was looking good with Nahimic and Killer even before this...)
What is it with MSI trying to sell products by paying to attach negatives to their products? First Killer, which is working its way up to debatable and now Nahimic, which is outright bad.
I'd argue that Killer has worked it's way down from debatable to useless and are trending downward. Before they were bought out Killer's nics were at least interesting with their hardware implementation of features that other brands do in software. Now they're 100% marketing.
The problem is that it takes a few years for stuff like killer going down the toilet to work it's way from we enthusiasts to the sheeple who pick their board based on the logos and pictures on the box.
They're actually worse than the Realtek or Intel NICs because you're forced to use Killer's awful drivers. Very disappointed to see MSI yet again buying into this gaming marketing dribble from Killer and making another don't-buy board.
Speaking of bad onboard sound, I may be having buyer's remorse at the moment. I went with the Asus Maximus VIII Gene on my build and have been having trouble diagnosing system hangs for about a week since I built it. I think it may be ASUS' onboard sound solution. I tried closing out their Sonic Suite and ROG EQ stuff and it breaks sound in many applications, so I'm starting to worry that I'm SOL
What kind of hangs are you having? I'm having my own issues with an Asus Deluxe. I've had everything from USB driver issues, to what appear to be CPU failures, to corrupted MBR's that magically uncorrupt. I haven't noticed any issues with the sound on mine.
I'll be playing a game, and with the GPU and processor well within reasonable loads and temps, I'll get a freeze with a ~half second sound loop, usually loud as hell. In about 5 seconds the comp will straight up crash. Because AI Suite doesn't install, and I'm unfamiliar with most monitoring software, I've had to resort to using the windows monitor for error messages to hopefully track down the issue. All of my errors point towards the sound drivers.
If your system is failing it a way that generates a memory dump before restarting, take a look at Who Crashed. It does basic analytics on the dump and can report the driver responsible, the error code, and possibly what the code means (not sure how extensive the latter is; in my case it only happened for errors that meant my OC was just barely too high for long term stability).
Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, I didn't have a memory dump so the last one I saw with this tool is over 6 months old. I'll keep fighting the good fight.
In your shoes, I'd uninstall the sound drivers and grab the reference drivers from the OEM site (RealTek, I would guess) - as an added bonus, you'll probably gain the ability to use loopback recording, which MS and OEMs tend to disable.
Thanks for the help, I'll give that a shot with the sound drivers. I see Realtek fortunately keeps it nice and narrow down to two codec selections, one for AC97 and one for HD. I'm guessing the one on this board is Realtek HD Audio, but I wonder if there's some way to find out for sure which module is being used. It has a little cover on it with ASUS's branding so you can't read the chip directly. The only thing I was able to find with a reference was a single Tom's forum post.
I doubt it's your audio. The audio loop is common on black screen crashes, which sounds like what you are having. The blue screen windows crashes are the only ones that will generate a minidump for whocrashed to analyze.
Are you overclocking at all? I've dropped mine down to stock frequencies (RAM still at XMP speeds) and my random crashes seem to have stopped. When I stress test either the OC CPU or OC GPU independent of one another, they both pass all tests. When they run together, they apparently fail. I'm beginning to think my 12V rail is not performing to spec.
I'm currently running at 100% stock, even using default memory timings, and just had a crash in those setting last night playing Dota 2 which is a fairly tame game. GPU fan speeds were around 70% with temps in the 70's when playing (980 ti).
Last night, after the crash, I made the move over to the default realtek drivers instead of the ASUS stuff. I'll play for a couple days and see if I get a crash again. Oddly, the crashes tend to almost always happen around 11 PM.
Well, just to update you a bit about my own. Stock settings didn't stop my crashes either. Temps are good, RAM is good. PSU retested good.... Took two steps back in video drivers and currently running good but not all that hopeful.
Check RAM and contact the shop you bought the MB from. You can ask for them to check the MB (and other components bought from them) and may be ask to swap the MB if you think it's the guilty component.
I love the motherboard but i cant get by with only that few usb ports on the back... Mouse, Keyboard, Printer, Xbox 360 wireless adapter, UPS and i'm full (and that's using every type a port on the back). Still need room for Wireless AC adapter, and a full time backup USB 3.0 External HDD. hate to use the front ports for any of the stuff i mentioned above.
I guess if you don't mind having a hub taking up space on your desk, and all the cable clutter that comes with it, then this board is for you.. My monitors even have usb 3.0 hubs but i am really hesitant to use them since they don't work when the monitor goes into standby.
With all that said, this is a amazing looking board.. I love the high quality PCI Express headers, and the Red Memory wire traces. that is sick. All other i/o options look ok as long as your not rolling DVI monitors.. to this day, display port still has tons of issues related to hotplugging. when you turn your monitor off, it thinks it's totally disconnected. DVI doesn't do that. Some power saving profiles and standby settings can really screw up display port driver, causing you to have to swap ports to get the monitor back on.
You're telling me... I have a UPS, keyboard (x2 ports), backup HDD, and a display hub connected directly...
Then I've got the mouse connected to that keyboard and off the one display hub I've got two other display hubs; THEN on those two there's some non essentials like desk lighting strips, webcam, Bluetooth dongle, and wireless mouse dongle.
Leaves me with one free Type C port on the back, one on the displays, and then the front ports.
Luckily the ASUS Z170 board I chose has a decent number of front headers (2x 3.0 & 1x 2.0 IIRC) despite only having 6x on the back, so I have those free for a card reader, game pads, thumb drives, etc.
Would've been nice to have at least 8 on the back in case I ever switch my DAC from optical to USB and whatnot tho.
Left of the onboard power buttons, i see two usb2 headers and you could use a backplate usb adapter. If you want usb3 on the back, between the atx header and the sata connectors i see two usb3 hearders.
LE i forgot to mention that boards have come with connectors such as this for at least a dozen years. Sure, some have had weird/exotic layouts, but most have had a standard set.
yeah but those usb brackets demolish any hope of having a window case build with a clean look. They to short 100% of the time to route behind the motherboard.
LOL. I like a clean look as anyone else. However, I'm all about function over form. I have no window in my case and it sits under my desk and out of the way. Whatever the case, you do know that you can buy an extension cable or a USB card that fits in an PCIe expansion slot?
yeah i could buy add in cards, or i could just buy a different motherboard... my point was, they should have added another x2 stack of usb ports on top of that lone HDMI connector (huge amount of wasted space)
it effectively has 2 USB 3.0 ports and 1 USB 3.1 port (The type c port cant even be used for a year or two, nothing exist that you would plug in the back, and still use type c)
I suspect the problem is that they ran out of high speed IO lanes for USB3 ports, didn't want to put 2.0 ports on (if they did someone else would be flaming them for doing so), and since this is a mid price board decided against using an onboard USB3 hub to add more ports. Having two x4 m.2 slots are probably to blame. The 1xx series chipset has a lot more IO than the 9x series that it replaced; but without using USB3 hubs or PLX chips it doesn't have enough to max out a full ATX board.
HDMI is still not native to the Intel integrated graphics yet without a LS-PCon or Alpine Ridge (extra cost), but chances are with this motherboard that people will be using a discrete card. Pick a modern HDMI 2.0 capable one and you're set.
Such as... the latest AMD Fury series? Still not supported. I think only Maxwell supports it so far. We need better support from the industry as a whole.
The PC industry is trying to move that way (in addition to a few minor technical advantages, to avoid paying HDMI royalties; a few cents/port adds up when you're making millions of something); consumer electronics and home theater are very HDMI oriented though, so we're probably stuck with it indefinitely too.
eSata - is someone realy using this? External sata HDD connection woub be nice, but what about power for HDD, some USB to sata cable? Where is added value in comparision with usual Sata bracket connected to internal Sata port?
Few years ago seems, that this problem would solve eSataP - with included power but this standard died and we are still using USB3 to Sata bulky converters.
I thought the number of lanes has not changed from what Haswell offers (?16 PCI-E 3.0)? Then excuse the noob question with regard to the 20 PCI lanes: If you have CF running and an M.2 x4 PCI-E 3.0 SSD; can you be run 8x/8x for the CF and full x4 for the M.2 SSD?
The reason I ask is that I have an Extreme6 Z97 with a R9 295x2 on the first PCI-E 3.0 and an XP941 M.2 SSD in their UltraM.2 slot (also PCI-E 3.0). According to the AsRock manual (and CPU-Z confirms), the 295x2 is running @ x8, and the M.2 at x4. If I attempt to install another 295x2 (not that it is a good idea) I'm informed the second card would have to drop to x4 (8+4+4). Given that the 295x2 is dual GPU and linking through PCI-E, latency with x4 will probably not be ideal (I recall reading somewhere that up to x8 link speed won't hurt the 295x2 CF but anything lower might). I may be confusing quite few concepts here so your patience and detailed explaination would be much appreciated!!
The chipset has been upgraded to pci express 3.0 with 20 lanes. the cpu still has it's own dedicated 16x link separate from the 20 lanes to the chipset. the cpu's latency is greatly reduced vs chipset, so that's why graphics cards use it.
all the new M.2 drives use the chipset bandwidth now at x4 PCI E 3.0, leaving 16X for more M.2's, Sata, USB, Etc..
You have 16 3.0 lanes on the CPU and up to 20 3.0 lanes on the south bridge. Up to is a very important qualifier; most boards will have significantly fewer available. What the SB has is 26 high speed IO ports that can be used for a sata 3 port, a USB3 port, a PCIe 3.0 lane, or be bundled together for an sata express or m.2 SSD controller. Take all 6 sata ports, all 10 USB3 ports from the chipset and you've only got 10 lanes left for SSD connections or PCIe slots. The maximum configuration for SB lanes is PCIe x4; because the SB itself only has a 4 lane equivalent uplink to the CPU.
Thanks @Morawka and @DanNeely, Am I right in thinking that in this case, if Cross Fire is consuming the 16x lanes from the CPU, then the SSD can get it's x4 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the PCH (assuming sufficent free lanes which this should have)?
Latency isn't the issue, it's bandwidth. In theory you can use the extra lanes as you describe, but only if the motherboard wires up the lanes correctly. Check the motherboard manual for supported configurations.
Great timing! I just ordered this board two days ago (and lucked out getting a i7 6700k). I can't wait now to start my build and try it out.
I wonder why MSI removed Sound Blaster Cinema and went with this Nahimic audio software? Also I found the Killer Network worked fine if you removed the Qualcomm Suite (that automatically installs with Killer), and installed the plain Killer NIC drivers. I've been using it over a year now that way with not a single prob. Always had good luck with MSI products, so here's hoping that streak continues. It's a good looking board too.
Ian, slightly off topic. According to MSI's website the H170-M3 supports unbuffered ECC memory. Is this an error on MSI's part? Any indication if:
* This board supports ECC / certain Z170A boards could support ECC with a Xeon (or whatever other CPUs in ARK are listed as having ECC support)? * H170-M3 just has some extra traces that the Z170-M7 does not? Is there any dependence on chipset for ECC support with an on die "northbridge"?
people still buy this expensive crap? overclocking? what a huge was of time and money. this article is for the 1% . no one cares anymore about high end "gaming" crap. No one cares about 4k. It's all hype for the industry. you want to stare at tiny icons, text you cant read, and horrible fps so badly ?! and you want to PAY other people money to do this. blows my mind
"door hanger (which seems aimed at a particular age bracket still in education)"
Hahaha, this. Whenever I see another incredibly garish computer product designed for gaming I always think of producer gleefuly rubbing in the percieved immaturity of the user. In most cases it`s true.
Seems no one is talking about the 800 pound (htpc) gorilla in the room .... Why, with all the skylake motherboards introduced in the last 2 months, not to mention the thorough article on htpc future-proofing by Ganesh back in the Spring, is there no mATX size or smaller hdmi 2.0 capable board? Yeah I know gaming rules, but isn't there a healthy htpc market (read htpc's aren't built with atx) and wouldn't a hdmi 2.0 (alpine ridge) motherboard be a big hit for those wanting to build a 4K capable rig?
Seems no one is talking about the 800 pound (htpc) gorilla in the room .... Why, with all the skylake motherboards introduced in the last 2 months, not to mention the thorough article on htpc future-proofing by Ganesh back in the Spring, is there no mATX size or smaller hdmi 2.0 capable board? Yeah I know gaming rules, but isn't there a healthy htpc market (read htpc's aren't built with atx) and wouldn't a hdmi 2.0 (alpine ridge) motherboard be a big hit for those wanting to build a 4K capable rig?
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56 Comments
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Byrn - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
Thanks for the review! Any chance of an article looking at using two PCI-E 3.0 x4 M.2 SSDs in raid using Intel RST? SM951s for preference ;)drtechno - Thursday, October 1, 2015 - link
Byrn -- In short, you CAN'T. The MSI boards (all of them) do not support BOTH M.2 slots running in PCI-E x4 mode. If you plug in two M.2 drives, the second slot drops to SATA mode. It says it right there on MSI's web site.I don't know why this review (and many other reviews like it) don't point out that most of the boards with dual M.2 slots do NOT support dual PCI-E x4 mode. The second slot drops to SATA in almost all the boards.
The only board I have come across that supports dual PCI-E x4 modes on M.2 is the Gigabyte boards.
Byrn - Friday, October 2, 2015 - link
drtechno - Huh, thanks for the heads up. Totally missed that on the detailed spec. Only MSI board this doesn't seem to be the case for is the Z170A xpower gaming titanium edition, which doesn't have this excluded on the spec.That said, all the more reason for an article or even a brief piece on the subject? I can't be the only one looking at multiple M.2 slots for PCI-E SSDs (RAID or not) and it would be good to at least have this pointed out...
Looks like I'm buying Gigabyte then (not that MSI was looking good with Nahimic and Killer even before this...)
LoganPowell - Friday, November 27, 2015 - link
Too bad that the MSI z170a gaming M7 is not very popular if you look at consumer based reviews (such as http://www.consumerrunner.com/top-10-best-desktops... which is my favorite).xthetenth - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
What is it with MSI trying to sell products by paying to attach negatives to their products? First Killer, which is working its way up to debatable and now Nahimic, which is outright bad.Flunk - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
I'd argue that Killer has worked it's way down from debatable to useless and are trending downward. Before they were bought out Killer's nics were at least interesting with their hardware implementation of features that other brands do in software. Now they're 100% marketing.Nahimic is at least optional.
Impulses - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
Little to no value + extra potential hassles galore, definitely a downside in my book.DanNeely - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
The problem is that it takes a few years for stuff like killer going down the toilet to work it's way from we enthusiasts to the sheeple who pick their board based on the logos and pictures on the box.notR1CH - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
They're actually worse than the Realtek or Intel NICs because you're forced to use Killer's awful drivers. Very disappointed to see MSI yet again buying into this gaming marketing dribble from Killer and making another don't-buy board.PPalmgren - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
Speaking of bad onboard sound, I may be having buyer's remorse at the moment. I went with the Asus Maximus VIII Gene on my build and have been having trouble diagnosing system hangs for about a week since I built it. I think it may be ASUS' onboard sound solution. I tried closing out their Sonic Suite and ROG EQ stuff and it breaks sound in many applications, so I'm starting to worry that I'm SOLreininop - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
What kind of hangs are you having? I'm having my own issues with an Asus Deluxe. I've had everything from USB driver issues, to what appear to be CPU failures, to corrupted MBR's that magically uncorrupt. I haven't noticed any issues with the sound on mine.PPalmgren - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
I'll be playing a game, and with the GPU and processor well within reasonable loads and temps, I'll get a freeze with a ~half second sound loop, usually loud as hell. In about 5 seconds the comp will straight up crash. Because AI Suite doesn't install, and I'm unfamiliar with most monitoring software, I've had to resort to using the windows monitor for error messages to hopefully track down the issue. All of my errors point towards the sound drivers.DanNeely - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
If your system is failing it a way that generates a memory dump before restarting, take a look at Who Crashed. It does basic analytics on the dump and can report the driver responsible, the error code, and possibly what the code means (not sure how extensive the latter is; in my case it only happened for errors that meant my OC was just barely too high for long term stability).http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed
PPalmgren - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, I didn't have a memory dump so the last one I saw with this tool is over 6 months old. I'll keep fighting the good fight.fluxtatic - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
In your shoes, I'd uninstall the sound drivers and grab the reference drivers from the OEM site (RealTek, I would guess) - as an added bonus, you'll probably gain the ability to use loopback recording, which MS and OEMs tend to disable.fluxtatic - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
And check for BIOS updates - I had some strange issues with my Asus M5A97 Evo a while back and the latest BIOS got everything back to right.PPalmgren - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Thanks for the help, I'll give that a shot with the sound drivers. I see Realtek fortunately keeps it nice and narrow down to two codec selections, one for AC97 and one for HD. I'm guessing the one on this board is Realtek HD Audio, but I wonder if there's some way to find out for sure which module is being used. It has a little cover on it with ASUS's branding so you can't read the chip directly. The only thing I was able to find with a reference was a single Tom's forum post.reininop - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
I doubt it's your audio. The audio loop is common on black screen crashes, which sounds like what you are having. The blue screen windows crashes are the only ones that will generate a minidump for whocrashed to analyze.Are you overclocking at all? I've dropped mine down to stock frequencies (RAM still at XMP speeds) and my random crashes seem to have stopped. When I stress test either the OC CPU or OC GPU independent of one another, they both pass all tests. When they run together, they apparently fail. I'm beginning to think my 12V rail is not performing to spec.
PPalmgren - Friday, September 25, 2015 - link
I'm currently running at 100% stock, even using default memory timings, and just had a crash in those setting last night playing Dota 2 which is a fairly tame game. GPU fan speeds were around 70% with temps in the 70's when playing (980 ti).Last night, after the crash, I made the move over to the default realtek drivers instead of the ASUS stuff. I'll play for a couple days and see if I get a crash again. Oddly, the crashes tend to almost always happen around 11 PM.
reininop - Saturday, September 26, 2015 - link
Well, just to update you a bit about my own. Stock settings didn't stop my crashes either. Temps are good, RAM is good. PSU retested good.... Took two steps back in video drivers and currently running good but not all that hopeful.tygrus - Tuesday, September 29, 2015 - link
Check RAM and contact the shop you bought the MB from. You can ask for them to check the MB (and other components bought from them) and may be ask to swap the MB if you think it's the guilty component.Morawka - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
I love the motherboard but i cant get by with only that few usb ports on the back... Mouse, Keyboard, Printer, Xbox 360 wireless adapter, UPS and i'm full (and that's using every type a port on the back). Still need room for Wireless AC adapter, and a full time backup USB 3.0 External HDD. hate to use the front ports for any of the stuff i mentioned above.I guess if you don't mind having a hub taking up space on your desk, and all the cable clutter that comes with it, then this board is for you.. My monitors even have usb 3.0 hubs but i am really hesitant to use them since they don't work when the monitor goes into standby.
With all that said, this is a amazing looking board.. I love the high quality PCI Express headers, and the Red Memory wire traces. that is sick. All other i/o options look ok as long as your not rolling DVI monitors.. to this day, display port still has tons of issues related to hotplugging. when you turn your monitor off, it thinks it's totally disconnected. DVI doesn't do that. Some power saving profiles and standby settings can really screw up display port driver, causing you to have to swap ports to get the monitor back on.
Captmorgan09 - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
You could always use a front panel USB adapter like this to give you more USB options on the back. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9S...Impulses - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
You're telling me... I have a UPS, keyboard (x2 ports), backup HDD, and a display hub connected directly...Then I've got the mouse connected to that keyboard and off the one display hub I've got two other display hubs; THEN on those two there's some non essentials like desk lighting strips, webcam, Bluetooth dongle, and wireless mouse dongle.
Leaves me with one free Type C port on the back, one on the displays, and then the front ports.
Luckily the ASUS Z170 board I chose has a decent number of front headers (2x 3.0 & 1x 2.0 IIRC) despite only having 6x on the back, so I have those free for a card reader, game pads, thumb drives, etc.
Would've been nice to have at least 8 on the back in case I ever switch my DAC from optical to USB and whatnot tho.
Michael Bay - Sunday, September 27, 2015 - link
>desk lighting strips, webcam, Bluetooth dongleREMOVE
LauRoman - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
Left of the onboard power buttons, i see two usb2 headers and you could use a backplate usb adapter. If you want usb3 on the back, between the atx header and the sata connectors i see two usb3 hearders.LauRoman - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
LE i forgot to mention that boards have come with connectors such as this for at least a dozen years. Sure, some have had weird/exotic layouts, but most have had a standard set.Morawka - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
yeah but those usb brackets demolish any hope of having a window case build with a clean look. They to short 100% of the time to route behind the motherboard.bigboxes - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
LOL. I like a clean look as anyone else. However, I'm all about function over form. I have no window in my case and it sits under my desk and out of the way. Whatever the case, you do know that you can buy an extension cable or a USB card that fits in an PCIe expansion slot?Morawka - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
yeah i could buy add in cards, or i could just buy a different motherboard... my point was, they should have added another x2 stack of usb ports on top of that lone HDMI connector (huge amount of wasted space)it effectively has 2 USB 3.0 ports and 1 USB 3.1 port (The type c port cant even be used for a year or two, nothing exist that you would plug in the back, and still use type c)
DanNeely - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
I suspect the problem is that they ran out of high speed IO lanes for USB3 ports, didn't want to put 2.0 ports on (if they did someone else would be flaming them for doing so), and since this is a mid price board decided against using an onboard USB3 hub to add more ports. Having two x4 m.2 slots are probably to blame. The 1xx series chipset has a lot more IO than the 9x series that it replaced; but without using USB3 hubs or PLX chips it doesn't have enough to max out a full ATX board.prime2515103 - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
This whole lack of HDMI 2.0 in PC's needed to end like a year ago.Ian Cutress - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
HDMI is still not native to the Intel integrated graphics yet without a LS-PCon or Alpine Ridge (extra cost), but chances are with this motherboard that people will be using a discrete card. Pick a modern HDMI 2.0 capable one and you're set.Gigaplex - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
Such as... the latest AMD Fury series? Still not supported. I think only Maxwell supports it so far. We need better support from the industry as a whole.artifex - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
I thought the industry was moving to DisplayPort?DanNeely - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
The PC industry is trying to move that way (in addition to a few minor technical advantages, to avoid paying HDMI royalties; a few cents/port adds up when you're making millions of something); consumer electronics and home theater are very HDMI oriented though, so we're probably stuck with it indefinitely too.ruthan - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
eSata - is someone realy using this? External sata HDD connection woub be nice, but what about power for HDD, some USB to sata cable?Where is added value in comparision with usual Sata bracket connected to internal Sata port?
Few years ago seems, that this problem would solve eSataP - with included power but this standard died and we are still using USB3 to Sata bulky converters.
Gigaplex - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
I use eSATA. My 3.5" enclosure is mains powered, and eSATA is much faster than USB 2.0.ppi - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
Since I was considering this mobo, is it possible to:a) Disable Killer NIC prioritization; and
b) Disable Nahimic effects (no equallizer)?
Thanks.
K_Space - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
I thought the number of lanes has not changed from what Haswell offers (?16 PCI-E 3.0)?Then excuse the noob question with regard to the 20 PCI lanes:
If you have CF running and an M.2 x4 PCI-E 3.0 SSD; can you be run 8x/8x for the CF and full x4 for the M.2 SSD?
The reason I ask is that I have an Extreme6 Z97 with a R9 295x2 on the first PCI-E 3.0 and an XP941 M.2 SSD in their UltraM.2 slot (also PCI-E 3.0). According to the AsRock manual (and CPU-Z confirms), the 295x2 is running @ x8, and the M.2 at x4. If I attempt to install another 295x2 (not that it is a good idea) I'm informed the second card would have to drop to x4 (8+4+4). Given that the 295x2 is dual GPU and linking through PCI-E, latency with x4 will probably not be ideal (I recall reading somewhere that up to x8 link speed won't hurt the 295x2 CF but anything lower might).
I may be confusing quite few concepts here so your patience and detailed explaination would be much appreciated!!
Morawka - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
The chipset has been upgraded to pci express 3.0 with 20 lanes. the cpu still has it's own dedicated 16x link separate from the 20 lanes to the chipset. the cpu's latency is greatly reduced vs chipset, so that's why graphics cards use it.all the new M.2 drives use the chipset bandwidth now at x4 PCI E 3.0, leaving 16X for more M.2's, Sata, USB, Etc..
DanNeely - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
You have 16 3.0 lanes on the CPU and up to 20 3.0 lanes on the south bridge. Up to is a very important qualifier; most boards will have significantly fewer available. What the SB has is 26 high speed IO ports that can be used for a sata 3 port, a USB3 port, a PCIe 3.0 lane, or be bundled together for an sata express or m.2 SSD controller. Take all 6 sata ports, all 10 USB3 ports from the chipset and you've only got 10 lanes left for SSD connections or PCIe slots. The maximum configuration for SB lanes is PCIe x4; because the SB itself only has a 4 lane equivalent uplink to the CPU.K_Space - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Thanks @Morawka and @DanNeely,Am I right in thinking that in this case, if Cross Fire is consuming the 16x lanes from the CPU, then the SSD can get it's x4 PCI-E 3.0 lanes from the PCH (assuming sufficent free lanes which this should have)?
DanNeely - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
yes.K_Space - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Much obliged.Gigaplex - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Latency isn't the issue, it's bandwidth. In theory you can use the extra lanes as you describe, but only if the motherboard wires up the lanes correctly. Check the motherboard manual for supported configurations.paulhaswood - Monday, September 21, 2015 - link
Awesome review! Im excited to see more lga1151 motherboard reviews and please please please do a lag 1151 mini itx motherboard review!krbrownin - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Great timing! I just ordered this board two days ago (and lucked out getting a i7 6700k). I can't wait now to start my build and try it out.I wonder why MSI removed Sound Blaster Cinema and went with this Nahimic audio software? Also I found the Killer Network worked fine if you removed the Qualcomm Suite (that automatically installs with Killer), and installed the plain Killer NIC drivers. I've been using it over a year now that way with not a single prob. Always had good luck with MSI products, so here's hoping that streak continues. It's a good looking board too.
JinzoBlazer - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Ian, slightly off topic. According to MSI's website the H170-M3 supports unbuffered ECC memory. Is this an error on MSI's part? Any indication if:* This board supports ECC / certain Z170A boards could support ECC with a Xeon (or whatever other CPUs in ARK are listed as having ECC support)?
* H170-M3 just has some extra traces that the Z170-M7 does not? Is there any dependence on chipset for ECC support with an on die "northbridge"?
http://www.msi.com/product/mb/H170-GAMING-M3.html#...
PitneFor - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
people still buy this expensive crap? overclocking? what a huge was of time and money. this article is for the 1% . no one cares anymore about high end "gaming" crap. No one cares about 4k. It's all hype for the industry. you want to stare at tiny icons, text you cant read, and horrible fps so badly ?! and you want to PAY other people money to do this. blows my mindppi - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Yes, they do. And perhaps to your surprise, this market is growing, unlike rest of PC.etamin - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Thanks for the review. MSI is officially dead to me as a board maker.xoham - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Can you guys do a Skylake mobo roundup? I need to make a buying decision.Michael Bay - Sunday, September 27, 2015 - link
"door hanger (which seems aimed at a particular age bracket still in education)"Hahaha, this. Whenever I see another incredibly garish computer product designed for gaming I always think of producer gleefuly rubbing in the percieved immaturity of the user.
In most cases it`s true.
rknox - Friday, October 9, 2015 - link
Seems no one is talking about the 800 pound (htpc) gorilla in the room .... Why, with all the skylake motherboards introduced in the last 2 months, not to mention the thorough article on htpc future-proofing by Ganesh back in the Spring, is there no mATX size or smaller hdmi 2.0 capable board? Yeah I know gaming rules, but isn't there a healthy htpc market (read htpc's aren't built with atx) and wouldn't a hdmi 2.0 (alpine ridge) motherboard be a big hit for those wanting to build a 4K capable rig?rknox - Friday, October 9, 2015 - link
Seems no one is talking about the 800 pound (htpc) gorilla in the room .... Why, with all the skylake motherboards introduced in the last 2 months, not to mention the thorough article on htpc future-proofing by Ganesh back in the Spring, is there no mATX size or smaller hdmi 2.0 capable board? Yeah I know gaming rules, but isn't there a healthy htpc market (read htpc's aren't built with atx) and wouldn't a hdmi 2.0 (alpine ridge) motherboard be a big hit for those wanting to build a 4K capable rig?