MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon, a board with RGB LED but actually looks better without using LED! Or at least, set it to single color. 😀
I like how the board looks with the monochrome look, the I/O cover has a carbon fiber type of texture to make it look sporty. Notice also that this board comes with a 10-Phase power design.
While the DIMM area is just as plain as it can be, I’d like to point out that MSI did a neat touch by adding the EZ Debug LED. it’s a 4-point indicator LED but that’s good enough for debugging purpose.
Towards the other corner, the board comes with forward facing USB 3.0 header and it even has a chassis fan connector there which I think is great as it helps in fan power placement.
SATA ports are few but they’re sufficient.
The Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon comes with 2x M.2 slots and it is bundled with one M.2 shield. There are 6x PCI-E slots of which they support x16/x0/x4 and x8/x8/x4 modes for Crossfire and SLI.
The I/O panel comes with
– PS/2 port for Keyboard / Mouse
– USB 3.1 Gen1
– Intel® Gigabit LAN
– Golden Audio Connectors
– USB 2.0
– DisplayPort
– USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A/C
– HDMI
– USB 3.1 Gen1
– Optical S/PDIF-Out
Here’s a closer look of the board with LED lit.
More details at the official product page.
User Experience
As always, MSI’s board works fine as it is out of the box. It comes with 6x PCI-E slots so if you’re out of luck sourcing for mining boards then you can consider a board like this.
Interface wise, MSI’s layout is far from being the best but I suppose it’s fine as long as it works.
One thing I find lacking is that it doesn’t seem to have a function in the UEFI for me to tweak the RGB LED.
The Verdict
Priced at around RM 900, the MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon is a beautiful board that is certainly worthy being in anyone’s shopping list for a Z370 board.
It’s not perfect though, I dislike the fact that I’ll have to install the software just to change RGB LED colors and I also wish that it has POWER / RESET button for the convenience of overclocking.