MSI Z170A XPower Gaming Titanium Edition Review

Published by Marc Büchel on 14.10.15
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Conclusion

General   + -
A closer look at the motherboard lineup from MSI reveals that the Z170 XPower Titanium Edition is their flagship model, regarding their gaming branded products. Of course it comes with some really neat features, like for example dual M.2 x4 Gen 3, OC Dashboard, Game Boost and the new updated UEFI BIOS. The MSI Z170 XPower Titanium Edition motherboard is powered by a 16-phase CPU VRM which is enough for an overclocked system even if you wanted to do extreme benching using liquid nitrogen as coolant. MSI also equipped this board with features specific to gamers including a beefed-up audio solution.   - Design
- Layout
- Features
- 2 x M.2 x4 Gen 3.0 Slots
 
       
Layout   + -
Overall, the MSI Z170 XPower Titanium Edition's layout has been well thought. Once more practical are the angled SATA connectors that you can find on almost all motherboards nowadays. Other than that there is an internal USB3.1 header. We always love it when we find practical power- and reset-buttons alongside a clear CMOS button. Furthermore there is even a debug display. This one is always useful in case there is an issue with a component in your system or the board itself. It also features four full-sized PCI Express slots, which have been very well positioned. Apart from that there are three PCIe Gen3 x1 slots onboard, and they can be found in between the PCIe Slot. Furthermore the XPower Gaming Titanium Edition has also been equipped with two M.2 x4 Gen 3 slots. Furthermore you get six USB3.0, three USB2.0, eight SATA3 ports and one internal USB3.1 headers for two additional USB3.1 ports as well as two USB2 connectors for four more USB2.0 ports.   - Angled SATA connectors - Power/Reset-Button onboard
- Debug display
- Space around the CPU socket - Audio Solution
 
       
Performance   + -
Calculating the average of all 3D benchmarks we ran, we see that this is the second fastest board regarding 3D performance. When taking the average of all 2D results this board scores 6th out of then places. In general this board performs very consistent regarding 3D performance. On another note, we had a look at power consumption and since this is a board with many features, energy efficiency is average, whereas idle power consumption is the highest we've measured so far.   - 3DMark
- Metro Last Light
- Sleeping Dogs
- 3DMark Vantage
- Idle Power Consuption
       
Overclocking / BIOS   + -
MSI has put a lot of time and effort into making their BIOS look nicer and more user friendly. Especially when we compare this version of MSI BIOS to the first UEFI BIOS from MSI, it simply cannot be compared, since the two are worlds apart. What's almost self-explanatory is that you get a lot of tuning and tweaking options in order to optimize the system towards your needs. We also like the entry screen which displays a lot of useful information. Apart from that overclocking our test CPU to 5.0 GHz was straight forward and there were no issues whatsoever.   - Sheer amount of options
- Design
 
       
Recommendation   + -
The MSI Z170 XPower Titanium Edition is a very well equipped Z170 motherboard, which features solid perfomance. Currently this board costs 283 Euro, which is rather steep. Should you like the design and should you have the funds at your disposal, this is a great board.   - Price - Gaming
- Enthusiast
- Overclocking
 
       
Rating
We give the MSI Z170 XPower Titanium Edition good 4 out of 5 stars.





Page 1 - Introduction Page 14 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery Page 15 - UC Bench
Page 3 - Features Page 16 - Super Pi 1M / 32M
Page 4 - Layout Page 17 - wPrime 1024M Multi Core
Page 5 - Connectors and I/O Page 18 - Cinebench
Page 6 - BIOS Page 19 - Tomb Raider
Page 7 - Test setup Page 20 - Metro Last Light
Page 8 - Preview / Gallery Page 21 - Sleeping Dogs
Page 9 - 3D Mark Page 22 - Power Consumption
Page 10 - 3D Mark 11 Page 23 - Performance Rating
Page 11 - 3D Mark Vantage  Page 24 - Price Comparison
Page 12 - PC Mark 8 Page 25 - Conclusion
Page 13 - SiSoft Sandra 1  




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MSI Z170A XPower Gaming Titanium Edition Review - Motherboards > Intel > Z170 - Reviews - ocaholic