The Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon from MSI is a mid-range motherboard that comes with a few interesting features. Compared to the previous model, which goes by the name Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon, we see a similar color scheme - as the name suggests - but a reworked layout and a new design for all the heatsinks. Although the design has been improved, we still see cheap plastic covers all over the motherboard.


Like the same model from the previous generation, the Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon is based on an ATX form factor, yet this time MSI is using all the area available on the PCB. The Gaming Pro Carbon also comes with RGB backlight underneath the PCH cooler and there are steel reinforcements on the PCIe slots. In general the layout is quite similar to the previous model and therefore it has also been equipped with three full-sized PCIe slots.

There are six SATA-III ports but only four of them have been angled. Apart from that you get two M.2 slots allowing the installation of differently sized SSDs. The first M.2 slot is placed in the middle of the motherboard and it’s compatible with 22110 units, while the second one is in the bottom area and it supports 2280 SSDs. The first one also features MSI’s M.2 Shield which improves your M.2 SSD's temperatures.

Like with the more expensive Gaming M5 there is also a plastic I/O cover, which received carbon-like looking stickers and RGB backlight. Since this motherboard isn't specifically designed for overclockers, you won't find any debug LED or onboard buttons for that particular purpose. Although this board is placed somewhere between MSI’s entry-level and mid-range offerings in the case of Intel’s Z370 chipset based motherboards, we think it could be an interesting choice, since the price is most certainly going to be very competitive.

During the upcoming days we are going to test this motherboard with both Intel Core i7-8700K and Core i5-8600K processors and update our CPU charts.