[section_title title=”Overclocking”]

Overclocking

Overclocking on budget motherboards is generally not something we advise, but given the recent change to the way that overclocking works, more or less all Z170 motherboards are capable of applying at least a couple of hundred MHz to your overall core speed. The MSI Z170A GAMING PRO CARBON is no exception to our rule, and it actually managed to overclock the same as any other motherboard we’ve tried. Those fears of overclocking on under specced products is almost a thing of the past. You’ve got to stay within your limits, no doubt, but they are very different to previous generations. Most of the time, the overclocking is limited more so by the CPU rather than the motherboard, but not always.

If you remember the issue that I mentioned when I reviewed the KRAIT, you may be a little disappointed to learn that the same issue reoccurs on the CARBON. Allow me to refresh your memory a little. Basically, you can apply a clock speed which will set and it will run – but high loadings from programs such as the XTU benchmark will push the clocks back down to 42x or even as low as 37x on rare occasions. We’ve not yet figured out what causes these drops in frequencies, but they are only present on ultra-high loadings, and therefore they do not affect the performance in games or 99% of synthetic benchmarks.

My CPU isn’t the best in the world, but it can still maintain a 4.8 GHz overclock on any motherboard that I’ve tested thus far. The CARBON is no different, and it maintains a solid 4800 MHz CPU frequency without getting too warm or falling over when under prolonged loads.

When a failed overclock occurred, the motherboard was able to recover without any need to go fiddling with it. One failed boot, a reset and you’re back in the game. It really is a godsend, as with some other motherboards, they fail to recover without a hard reset or even going as far as removing the CMOS battery.

The lack of a LED debugger is a little frustrating when you’re trying to figure out what is causing your system to stop booting up, but it is ultimately not aimed at those wishing to push for maximum clock speeds, so it is understandable that it hasn’t got the same deployment of overclocking features such as the M7 or Titanium. It would have been nice to see it on the board, though. It is worth noting that there are some basic debugging features on the board, though. They are located just above the 24 pin power socket, which have three lights. They are for the CPU, RAM and VGA which can help you to pinpoint the issue to a slight degree of accuracy.