MSI Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC Review

Performance Analysis

You can see our full analysis of MSI's EFI and software in our previous review of this board's big brother - the Z270 Gaming Pro Carbon. The Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC lacked nothing when it came to overclocking compared to its larger siblings, managing 5GHz with our Core i7-7700K.

To get stable here, this required a vcore of 1.36V, which is a little higher than Asus's boards we've looked at so far, but with just 1.25V needed to get to 4.8GHz, there's still plenty of scope for building a heavily overclocked system with little need for large or expensive cooling - great news if you're looking to build a dinky gaming system.


Performance-wise, there weren't any issues to report, as the Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC was in line with all the other boards we've tested recently. Speed was right on the money in content creation, rendering, and 3D performance, while the slightly high power draw (considering we're dealing with a mini-ITX board here), is down to the higher vcore required to get to 5GHz.


It also had no problems pushing our Samsung 960 Evo to the max with a nippy read speed of 3,336MB/sec and write speed of 1,757MB/sec, while the audio performance was better than the best of the Z170 crop we've seen, although not quite as potent as some of the other Z270 boards we've tested - we doubt you'd notice the difference though.

Conclusion

The MSI Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC appears to slot in nicely into the current crop of Z270 mini-ITX boards. We know Gigabyte has plans to offer a high-end board, while its Z270N-WiFi undercuts the Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC by around £30 but appears to be less equipped for overclocking with just a 4-pin EPS12V connector and no power circuitry heatsinks. ASRock also has a couple of boards, while Asus only offers its £200 ROG Strix Z270i Gaming.

As a result, focussing purely on Z270 boards, the Z270I Gaming Pro Carbon AC offers a good balance between premium features and a reasonable price tag. Unlike many offerings this time round, though, it's undoubtedly a better choice than its predecessor, with more features, better audio, and the ability to house a super-fast PCI-E M.2 SSD.