MSI Z170A SLI Plus Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts
MSI’s Z170A SLI Plus is not really a motherboard that stands out from other Z170 motherboards on the market in terms of looks or features, but the thing that does stand out is the price. At $139.99 it gives the user a very low cost to get on the Skylake platform. And I don’t feel like the board is crippled like many of the low-cost Z170 motherboards that we have seen. MSI uses their Military Class 4 components on the board too, so you know it is going to last a long while.

One thing I really like about this motherboard is that it has everything you need and not much of what you don’t need. Almost all of the Z170 motherboards that we’ve reviewed so far have SATA Express ports, but I really don’t know a single person who uses SATA Express. So not having any SATA Express ports is not a big deal here at all. More people are using M.2 and MSI was able to get a 32 Gb/s M.2 slot on this board. You have dual-GPU compatibility with both SLI and Crossfire being supported. The board also features USB 3.1, one of the features most people who are moving to Skylake are looking to make use of. The audio solution and networking on the board are nothing to write home about, but then again these are minor things that many people are not really concerned about.

As far as overclocking goes we were able to bring our i7-6700K all the way up from 4.0 GHz to 4.7 GHz. This has been our max overclock with our testing hardware on all of the Z170 boards we have tested. This is going to be a solid board whether you are overclocking, gaming, or just doing basic PC tasks.

MSI’s Click BIOS 5 works quite well and makes it very easy to make changes and fine tune your system. For those who do not want to go into the BIOS they have their Command Center software, but I am not a big fan of it. MSI also includes free RAMDisk software, which is a nice value add-on.

Besides the Command Center software the only other thing I can say bad about this board is the weird placement of the two SATA ports that face straight up. Graphics cards could potentially block these.

At the end of the day this is a great Z170 motherboard and you cannot argue with the price of $139.99 at all! Overall ThinkComputers gives the MSI Z170A SLI Plus motherboard a 9 out of 10 score and our Good Value Award!

rating9 10 small TC award goodValue small

Pros:
– Price
– Solid performance
– Click BIOS 5 is easy to navigate
– 32 Gb/s M.2 slot and USB 3.1
– All black design looks good

Cons:
– Command Center software needs some work
– Two of the SATA ports face straight up

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