Product Showcase

Product Showcase

The MSI Z170A Gaming M9 ACK follows a standard form factor (12 in. x 9.6 in. / 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm). The motherboard is located in the Gaming range and is a high-end to enthusiast class product series for the new Skylake desktop processor range. 

• CPU support: Skylake-S class Intel Core processors
• Chipset: Intel Z170 Chipset
• 1x Gigabit Ethernet (Killer E2400)
• Storage: 
  • 6x SATA 6Gb/s Intel
  • 2x M.2, PCIe 32 Gb/s and shared SATA Express ports x2
  • 2x Sata Express also called SATAe
• Connectivity: 
  • 3x PCI-E 3.0 x16  (support x16/x4/x0 or x8/x4/x8 or x8/x1/x8 modes)
  • 4x PCI-E 3.0 x1
• USB 3.0 / 3.1 
• 8-channel Audio Cmedia CM6632 with optical S/PDIF output

Included with the motherboard are the regulars including; manuals, driver CDs, SLI bridges, SATA cables, WIFI antennas and a rear IO plate. It also has a couple of new features which we'll talk about in-depth in this review.
 

The I/O back panel reveals:

• 1 x Clear CMOS button
• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse port
• 3 x USB 2.0 ports
• (1 x HOTKEY port)
• (1 x BIOS FLASHBACK+ port)
• 1 x DisplayPort
• 1 x HDMI™ port
• 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 port
• 1 x USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C port
• 1 x LAN (RJ45) port
• 2 x USB 3.1 Gen1 ports
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT connector
• 5 x OFC audio jacks

Most motherboards weirdly enough do not come with a WIFI solution, the ACK in the naming already revealed it, AC Killer NIC Wireless ethernet has been embedded. An up-to 866 Mbps link can be established with the Killer Wireless 1535 module which offers support for 2x2 802.11a/b/g/n/ac with advanced features - it supports 20/ 40MHz at 2.4GHz and 20/40/80MHz at 5GHz. We'll test this later on in the article.

The board has 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots which can be arranged in these slot configurations with graphics cards:

• 1-way mode - x16 / x4 / x0 
• 2-way mode - x8 / x4 / x8
• 3-way mode - x8 / x1 / x4

As you can see, these are PCI Express Gen 3.0 configurations, that's plenty for regular graphics card setups up-to 2-way SLI/Crossfire. The board also has three x1 slots (PCI-Express gen 3.0).

The motherboard comes with an 8-pin power connector. You'll get four DIMM slots that can be used for up-to 64GB of dual-channel memory. We received the new 3200 MHz Vengeance kit from Corsair which we'll feature in detail in this review.