Stefan Mileschin

MSI's third-generation "GAMING" series motherboards are almost ready, and the company displayed two of them at Computex. The first is a mid-range socket LGA1151 motherboard, the MSI Z170A-G45 Gaming, and the X99A-GODLIKE Gaming (we kid you not). It looks like MSI is doing away with the "Gaming 3/5/7/9" nomenclature in the wake of GIGABYTE copying it. The Z170A-G41 Gaming offers a decent feature-set for gaming PC builds with up to two graphics cards. This includes an 10-phase CPU VRM, four DDR4 DIMM slots (dual-channel DDR4), three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, two M.2 slots (32 Gb/s and 10 Gb/s); SATA-Express 16 Gb/s, six SATA 6 Gb/s, Killer E2205 networking, and 8-channel HD audio with ground-layer isolation and audio-grade capacitors.

The X99A-GODLIKE Gaming is a different beast. Topping off the company's LGA2011v3 lineup, this board offers top of the line components. It begins with a 12-phase VRM that draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS, and 4-pin ATX power connectors; five PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots with support for 4-way SLI/CrossFire, 32 Gb/s M.2 slot, and an EMI shield that covers a large part of the front PCB area (a la ASUS TUF), and gaming-centric connectivity that includes two gigabit interfaces, 8-channel audio with onboard 600Ω headphones amp, 802.11 ac Killer ACK Double-Shot WLAN, and USB 3.1 type-C ports.

http://www.techpowerup.com/213038/ms...-pictured.html