Product Showcase

The Z170 chipset will bring six Intel chipset based SATA 6 Gb/s storage ports to the motherboard. The board has a M.2. PCI Express slot using x4 lanes (PCI-Express Gen 3.0) as well, giving the port a proper 32 GB/sec performance. There are plenty USB 3.0 and 3.1 ports available though internal connectors motherboard connectors. BTW the industry calls USB 3.0 USB 3.1 Gen 1 these days, a little misleading TBH. USB 3.1 Gen 2 would be the new and proper 10 Gbps connectors.
 

You will get four DIMM slots offer support for dual-channel DDR4 memory up to even 3600 MHz (OC). if you activate the XMP 2.0 profile in the BIOS, your memory will be automatically configured for you at its maximum clock speed and recommended voltage.  You can install a maximum of 64 GB in total. Again, XMP 2.0 must be supported, we'll show you this setup running at 2133 and 3200 MHz later on in the article.
 

Overall a pretty decent and clean design really, aesthetically pleasing to the eyes as well. MSI applied their Military Class 4 components on the motherboard with updated DrMOS MosFETs and aluminum colored dark capacitors. MSI offers a Realtek ALC 1150 based multi-channel audio solution on this motherboard, it further enhances on that IC with improved component selection and a nifty software suite. 

MSI is applying metal shielding to their primary PCI-Express slots these days. They can handle more weight with heavy graphics cards, and it looks good with a black PCB as well.