A motherboard tested
MSI Z270 XPOWER GAMING Titanium
A motherboard at the next level ?
As we plow through our many Z270 motherboards reviews we have looked at budget, mainstream but also we need to look at high-end the enthusiast class. That's where we meet the MSI Z270 XPOWER GAMING Titanium. A breathtaking motherboard with metal colored coating, extra overclock features, DDR4 boost functions not one, not two but three M.2. slots and just so much more. Titanium edition - it probably is the most interesting looking motherboard released ever thanks to a new PCB coating. Combined with a few extra's and an overall high class build MSI might have a true winner here. A motherboard that promises to deliver a high amount of features and provide that Sky- or Kaby Lake processor the full infrastructure is needs for a kick-ass gaming PC.
So with the 7000 series processor (Kaby Lake) released, it's time for a peek at the motherboards based on Z270. We review the motherboard with a Core i5 7600K processor. That puppy is developed on the 14nm node the Core i5 series processors are intended to be the more budget friendly offering from Intel, for a more mainstream consumer. For this review we look at the performance of this processor and motherboard in a wide variety of benchmarks and situations. Kaby Lake processors for the desktop platform have been released. Though you'd think it is an all new chip, however it is merely a respin seen from Skylake, meaning both series processors are Socket 1151. This also means that IF you are in the market for a new series 7000 processor, your H170 or Z170 motherboard can be compatible with Kaby Lake after a motherboard BIOS upgrade. The new series Kaby Lake processors are fairly energy efficient, still as powerful as they have been for years. If you are interested in new technologies like Intel Optane, you will however need to upgrade to a Z270 and H270 range motherboard. This new Z270 platform offers supports for Optane SSDs and offers supports for slightly faster DDR4 memory.
MSI is outing the Z270 XPOWER GAMING Titanium, this is the top of the line (and bill) product in the Z270 series. Honestly, the Z270 XPOWER GAMING Titanium is a bit of a gem, all styled and tailored to the home overclocked that needs to gain the most out of his or her motherboard with Kaby lake processor. This motherboard comes well equipped, triple M.2. slots, dual Gigabit Ethernet jacks and a board that is based on 16 power phases. The MSI Z270 XPOWER Gaming Titanium edition motherboard is a mouth full of words for the name alone, but when you see it for the very first time, trust me you will be pleasantly surprized as it is a very feature rich product that will look terrific in any DIY PC build thanks to the new Titanium color PCB coating.
No RGB LED galore - Just simply one color LED system, on /off and a few animations. Just the way the enthusiast crowd likes it.
PCB coating is a fairly new technology and a trend which you will see in the upcoming years on many products. The Titanium styled PCB comes with shielding and light accents. Features wise you may expect quadruple PCI-Express 3.0 ports, an 8-channel audio solution, the usual quality components and USB 3.1 and also, included is an OC featured PCB you can mount on or outside your motherboard / chassis, this is called the MSI OC Dashboard. Anyway, we'll show it all in detail of course. Have a peek at what we review today and then head on-wards into the review.
