MSI Z270 GAMING M7 Review – The Flagship Intel Kaby Lake Z270 Motherboard?
It has to be said, the MSI Z270 GAMING M7 motherboard is one of the most complete motherboards currently on the market, but why is that? Well aside from a large array of PCIe x16 (3 in total) and 3 x PCIe x 1 lanes, the Z270 GAMING M7 also features a whopping 3 x M.2 Turbo slots for the highest performing storage possible. In addition to this is 6 x SATA3 ports and a single U.2 Turbo port for the latest U.2 SSDs.
The board itself looks magnificent and features MSI Mystic Light RGB customisability with a wide array of options and colours available; perfect for those looking to change the overall aesthetic and look of their system, but without spending extra on RGB strips or LED fans. The MSI Z270 GAMING M7 is one of the best non-armoured motherboards and the sleek, but subtle black/grey and silver aesthetics give the M7 the perfect sleeper look; it doesn’t even need RGB lighting to look good! On top of this, MSI have a new patent pending RAM armour made from metal too which looks absolutely amazing, seriously…it’s the mutts nuts!
Performance wise, the Z270 GAMING M7 packs one hell of a punch all-around and given that it’s MSI’s flagship gaming Z270 motherboard, it comes as no surprise that this virtually has it all. From support for Intel’s Optane non-volatile memory performance technology, all the way to the 8 & 4 pin 12V power inputs for maximum overclocking power, the GAMING M7 literally comes across as one of the most complete motherboards to ever come from MSI; certainly in terms of support, compatibility, connections and looks. The new Intel Kaby Lake 7th generation processors and the Intel Skylake 6th generation processors are supported, but the board performs best with the Intel Core i7 range; notably the new Intel Core i7-7700K processor which we tested the GAMING M7 motherboard with.
With an expected launch price of between £200 and £250, it makes it one of the most desirable motherboards on the new Intel Kaby Lake Z270 chipset in my opinion and if I was to purchase a Z270 motherboard for whatever reason, this would probably be near the top of the list, if not right at the top! MSI’s attention to the finer details has prevailed with the Z270 GAMING M7 motherboard and with onboard buttons featured for overclocking conveniently placed at the bottom of the board, it’s one for the overclockers too; it even features an 8+2 digitally designed power phase array and even now has LLC (load line calibration).
I think overall, the MSI Z270 GAMING M7 has the best price to feature/performance ratio of any Z270 motherboard at launch and I am pleased to give it our Platinum award. It ticks every possible box and any enthusiast would be pleased with such a motherboard; if it helps sway your purchase, MSI even include an XSplit license worth around $50-60 in with the M7 too to sweeten the deal!
Huge thanks to MSI for sending the Z270 GAMING M7 motherboard in for review.
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Performance
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Design
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Value
Summary
Pros:
– 3 x M.2 ports with support for Intel’s new Optane non-volatile memory technology
– All 3 x PCIe x 16 lanes feature MSI metal armour metal shielding
– New MSI metal RAM armour looks absolutely stunning
– Fantastic performance all round
– Lots of overclocking friendly features including onboard OC buttons
– MSI RGB Mystic light offers tonnes of customisation options for aesthetics
Cons:
– None
Please do a Gigabyte Aorus Z270X gaming 7 motherboard review. Very much appreciated
Hi there, we should have the board in soon hopefully 🙂