MSI Z270 Krait Gaming
With the release of Intel’s latest Kaby Lake processor, they have also introduced a new family of chipset, the 200 series chipset, aka Union Point. This means that there are also new motherboards by manufacturers that features these chipsets. MSI has sent us one of their new motherboard equipped with the Z270 chipset, the MSI Z270 Krait Gaming.
Soldier On
The MSI Krait Gaming is a full sized ATX motherboard. It comes in a normal sized box featuring some cool looking snake scales on the front, which make sense since a Krait is a type of snake. What does not make sense is the claw mark, since, well, snakes don’t have appendages. While the Z270 chipset might be the top of the line there is no fancy packaging here as the board is wrapped in an anti static bag.
We love the MSI Krait Gaming motherboard colour scheme. While most gaming motherboard is mostly black, the MSI Krait Gaming is a nice balance of black and white. This means that it should nicely fit either black or white casing. It accepts any socket 1151 processor, which means the new Kaby Lake as well as the previous gen Skylake can be used.
Black or White
As with the previous 100 series, the motherboard features dual channel DDR4 support. What’s cool is that all of the four DDR4 slots are aluminium encased, dubbed steel armor by MSI. With Intel Xtreme Memory Profile (XMP) you can overclock your RAM up to 3800Mhz.
The motherboard if fitted with some awesome white LEDs on the rear of the board, which gives it a rather cool looking glow, especially once you have fitted it into a casing. Also fitted on this board is the realtek ALC 1220 based Audio Boost 4 solution which gives gamers the outmost best in audio quality
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The BIOS was easy to navigate and as expected from the Z270 chipset features a plethora of overclocking options. You can overclock just about everything, from BCLK to single core speed of your processor. But if you are not that overclocking savvy, MSI has include two large button in the bios. One is Game Boost, which will optimally overclock your processor depending on which processor you use, and XMP, which overclock your RAM depending on the built in memory profile.
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With this being a gaming motherboard, the MSI Krait Gaming is fitted with three full sized PCIe x16 slots in x16/x0/x4 or x8/x8/x4 modes. For those that prefers multi-GPU solution, the motherboard supports both NVIDIA’s SLI and AMD Crossfire. The slots are also reinforced by MSI’s steel armour to protect it from being damaged by sagging GPUs.
The MSI Z270 Krait Gaming is one one great Z270 based motherboard. The ease to overclock as well as the great design makes this a winner in our eyes.
Specs
Socket: Intel Socket 1151
Chipset: Intel Z270
Memory: Dual Channel DDR4 2133Mhz
DIMM Slots: 4
Max Memory: 64GB
Pci-E x16 slots: 2
USB: Six USB 3.0 + Four USB 2.0
Form Factor: Full Sized ATX
Price: RM849
Benchmark
PCMark Home: 3714
PCMark Creative: 3834
PCMark Work: 3816
Rating
Value: 8
Features: 9
Performance: 9
Design: 9
Usability: 8
Verdict: The MSI Z270 Krait Gaming is one great Z270 based motherboard. The ease to overclock as well as the great design maes this a winner in our eyes. Krait On.
Total Score: 8.6
Reviewer: Din
