MSI Performance Gaming Intel Z270 DDR4 HDMI USB 3 mini-ITX Motherboard (Z270I GAMING PRO CARBON AC)

I'm very pleased with this motherboard. The computer I built with this as the foundation looks really cool and works great. The price was reasonable and the mystic lights are a fun, if gimmicky, feature. You can customize all kinds of lighting effects and colors. This board was appealing because it can hold a lot of ram, a couple GPUs, has a bunch of PCI slots, sheds heat well and interfaces with the latest intel CPU chips. The instructions were pretty good. I had never assembled a computer before, so I was a bit reticent, but I got everything connected and it all fired right up on the first try. Downloading drivers and Windows was a whole separate ordeal, and that required some assistance from a knowledgeable friend, but we got it all working and I'm thrilled with the performance and appearance of the resulting machine. I would buy another MSI board if I needed one.

This motherboard packs fantastic performance into a tiny footprint. Using this board with a Skylake i5 6600k and have an easy stable OC at 4.6ghz. I also like that this board has preset OC functions in the bios for those who want more performance but don't necessarily know how to go about it. Temps are nice and low and it has a great neutral black/silver design that will match any setup. Aside from wanting just one more USB 2.0/3.0, I can't be too upset because it does have a type c port unlike some other boards. I bought this board from the used section of Amazon for $107 shipped. It was described as "Used - Very Good" but when I received it, it was completely new, everything factory sealed! Thrilled with this purchase, not to mention shipping took only a day with two day shipping!

This motherboard is beautifullllll !!!!Not only a beautiful motherboard but at the same time rock SOLID, right out of the box it worked perfectly like it should not like others z270 motherboards that gave me problems after problems.Great for overclocking I would say. Got my i7 7700k up to 5.1 ghz wooow but I prefer running stock for better temps since the new 7 gen cpu's from Intel are not the best for temps.I been using MSI motherboards since 2005 and they NEVER fail on me once :) some had little tweaks here and there but this one worked amazing, I just took out of the box installed all my components (GPU,CPU,RAM) and turned the X.M.P profile for my ram and booooom it works perfect :DDEFENITELY RECOMEND BYING THIS BOARD!DONT WASTE YOUR TIME LOOKING FOR OTHERS BOARDS.BUY THID BABY you wont be disappointed ; )

Awesome board, this was my 2nd one, MSI did an amazing job with this board (Gaming Carbon Pro z270)! The z370 MSI Gaming Enthusiast M5 board is what i am currently using and for an 8th generation Intel build, I am just as impressed! MSI has not let me down with their boards!Pros: Almost Everything, very stable, reliable, incredible deal and performance for the price!Cons: NoneOther Thoughts: If you already have a CPU for this board, go with it, its great! If you are starting from scratch, go with the 8th generation with the same board BUT the z370 series, overall both are amazing!

I got this mobo to put in a m.2 and it works fantastic! I got it used but I couldn't tell other then it didn't come with an I/O shield, that's why I gave it a 4 star instead of 5. Other than that I highly recommend.

Pros: Great motherboard. Looks really cool and has all the ports for chassis fans unlike the gaming pro carbon. Supports SLI so future upgrades are not an issue. Allows easy overclocking of RAM and CPU ;) Driver has a fast boot option which disables bios at startup. you can access bios through the MSI app and restarting your computer. Fancy packaging and comes with the basic hdd wires and led extension cord.Cons: It doesn't have an M2 shield which is a shame. LEDs are not as fancy as the gaming pro carbon. They are kind of hidden. My cpu fan is bright so it takes away the look of the board. Audio ports at the back are ridiculous. You get 6 ports out of which I use 2 (USB headsets).

Edit 2: Dropped another star because this motherboard was the source of all my random crashes. I kept getting memory management errors and for the longest time I thought it was my RAM. Updating my memory only made my system crash more often. MSI released a BIOS update a few months ago that fixes this, but that's 3 years after I bought the motherboard. There were so many times I lost matches, got suspended from games, or lost important work because of how often it crashes. MSI should have fixed this sooner.Edit: Dropped one star because MSI has provided very little support software side for this motherboard. This does not affect performance, but does make things like controlling RGB lights in your case to be lackluster. If you bought a kit of memory thinking it would work on this mobo because it says "mystic compatible", you'd be wrong because it's only supported by newer MSI motherboard that uses Dragon Center instead of the classic MSI Gaming App.This motherboard has been working perfectly for the past 2 years. Easy to work with, good I/O, and no clearance issue even in my sub-20L case. Just put in an NVMe drive with no issue. Saw someone asking if this supports NVMe and the answer is yes, if your motherboard has an M.2 slot then it more than likely does (someone said you need an adapter in the Q&A, this is false).

Pros:-I looove the size.-Comes with antennas.-Fast.-Good quality feel and weight.Cons:-Be careful of ordering used/refurbished boards. The first one I received clearly was not treated nicely. It isn't a problem because of Prime, but it's still an annoying set-back. It is a more serious problem if you're new to building PCs but you should be fine as long as you inspect and test it.Comments:-Get it, you'll love it! Be careful of used/refurbished boards by remembering to do a visual and functional check.