Stefan Mileschin

On its 30th anniversary as a motherboard maker, MSI unveiled a new premium socket LGA1151 board, the Z170A Krait Gaming 3X. This board features the white and black color-scheme distinctive of the Krait family of motherboards by the company, with bright white on the heatsinks and ports, contrasting the black PCB, and hints of red, reminding you of the "Gaming" family origins. Those aside, the Z170A Krait Gaming 3X is a performance-segment offering, built in the ATX form-factor. The board draws power from 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS power connectors, and uses a 7-phase VRM to condition it for the CPU. It uses high-capacity "Titanium" chokes.

The LGA1151 socket is wired to four DDR4 DIMM slots, supporting dual-channel DDR4-3600 memory, and two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots. Other expansion slots include a third PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (electrical gen 3.0 x4), wired to the Z170 PCH, besides four other PCIe 3.0 x1 slots. Storage connectivity includes a 32 Gb/s M.2 slot, a 16 Gb/s SATA-Express port, and six SATA 6 Gb/s ports. The onboard AudioBoost 3 solution features dual headphones amplifiers, audio-grade capacitors, ground-layer isolation, Nahmic Audio Enhancer, and a 115 dBA SNR CODEC. Networking is care of an Intel I219-V GbE controller. Modern connectivity includes two USB 3.1 ports (one each of type-A and type-C on the rear panel), and six USB 3.0 ports. MSI didn't reveal pricing.

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