MSI Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC Review

Written by Antony Leather

February 7, 2017 | 10:21

Tags: #best-kaby-lake-motherboard #best-z270-motherboard #cheapest-kaby-lake-motherboard #kaby-lake #lga1151 #skylake #z270

Companies: #msi

Power Consumption

Website: Prime95


For the power consumption tests, we measure via a power meter at the wall, so the numbers below are of total system power draw from the mains, not the power consumption of a CPU itself. Measuring the power draw of any individual component in a PC is tricky to impossible to achieve. We use Prime95's small FFTs test to put the CPU under 100 percent load, while idle power results are taken with the PC sitting at a Windows Aero-enabled desktop.

Power Consumption (Idle)

Windows 10 desktop

  • Asus ROG Strix Z270G Gaming (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • Gigabyte Z270-Gaming K3 (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • MSI Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • Asus ROG Strix Z270F Gaming (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • Gigabyte Aorus Z270X-Gaming 7 (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • MSI Z270 XPower Gaming Titanium (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • Asus Maximus IX Hero (4.2GHz/5GHz)
    • 43
    • 50
    • 46
    • 54
    • 46
    • 55
    • 49
    • 54
    • 50
    • 54
    • 50
    • 64
    • 52
    • 78
    • 54
    • 60
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Watts (lower is better)
  • Stock
  • Overclocked

Power Consumption (Load)

Prime95 small FFTs test

  • Asus ROG Strix Z270F Gaming (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • Asus Maximus IX Hero (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • MSI Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • Asus ROG Strix Z270G Gaming (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • MSI Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • Gigabyte Z270-Gaming K3 (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • Gigabyte Aorus Z270X-Gaming 7 (4.2GHz/5GHz)
  • MSI Z270 XPower Gaming Titanium (4.2GHz/5GHz)
    • 124
    • 167
    • 126
    • 165
    • 126
    • 174
    • 128
    • 160
    • 129
    • 176
    • 145
    • 165
    • 150
    • 173
    • 163
    • 180
0
50
100
150
200
Watts (lower is better)
  • Stock
  • Overclocked

Discuss this in the forums

Posted by bawjaws - Tue Feb 07 2017 10:56

Oh, this is timely as I'm in the market for an mITX board. That said, it's a bit expensive for my tastes. I'm a bit surprised that Asus don't have an equivalent to their Z170i Pro Gaming, as that was the best Z170 mITX board imo, and I don't want to pay £200 for the equivalent the Maximus VIII impact.

Any chance you guys might be reviewing some of the Z270 mITX alternatives soon? :)

Posted by Omnislip - Tue Feb 07 2017 11:33

I just hope that bit-tech jump on the earliest Ryzen ITX boards that get released - most sites are bound to focus on the crazy expensive ATX ones.

Posted by bawjaws - Tue Feb 07 2017 11:42

Yeah, I'm particularly interested in what AMD can bring to the ITX scene.

Posted by Combatus - Tue Feb 07 2017 12:31

bawjaws
Oh, this is timely as I'm in the market for an mITX board. That said, it's a bit expensive for my tastes. I'm a bit surprised that Asus don't have an equivalent to their Z170i Pro Gaming, as that was the best Z170 mITX board imo, and I don't want to pay £200 for the equivalent the Maximus VIII impact.

Any chance you guys might be reviewing some of the Z270 mITX alternatives soon? :)
Asus didn't rule out an Impact appearing at some point so whether or not the ROG Strix Z270I Gaming is its replacement is still open to debate, especially as Gigabyte will be releasing a more high end ITX board soon a while after the Kaby Lake NDA last month... However, yes we will be looking at more ITX boards :)
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