MSI has announced 13 Z370-based motherboards that support the Coffee Lake platform. The company revealed a handful of motherboards in each of four segments, including the Enthusiast Gaming, Performance Gaming, Arsenal Gaming, and a new Pro Series lineup.
MSI’s new flagship motherboard is the Enthusiast Gaming series Z370 Godlike Gaming, and it’s packed with features. m with goodies. It packs an 18-phase DrMOS PWM design and military-class components, as well as multiple heavy heatsinks to keep the components cool.
The Z370 Godlike Gaming motherboard includes “dual dedicated ALC1220 Hi-Fi audio processors, an ESS AUDIO DAC with dedicated ESS amplifier, and WIMA audio capacitors,” which are isolated from the rest of the motherboard components. There’s also 3x Killer E2500 LAN connectors and a Killer 1535 Wi-Fi AC adapter so you can use a Wi-Fi extender for your other devices.
Here is a killer feature, MSI’s Z370 is the fact that it supports up to five NVME SSD drives. You’ll find three slots on the surface of the motherboard, and MSI includes a PCI-E M.2 Xpander-Z add-in card with the board that features two additional M.2 slots. Each slot features MSI’s M.2 Shield V.2 to help dissipate heat and protect your SSD from physical damage. The MSI Z370 Gaming M5 occupies the Enthusiast Gaming lineup alongside MSI Z370 Godlike Gaming, but we don’t know the details about that board yet.
MSI’s Performance Gaming lineup features six boards, including the ATX Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon and Carbon AC, the mITX Z370i Gaming Pro Carbon AC, and the m-ATX Z370M Gaming Pro AC. The performance series also includes Z370 Krait Gaming and Z370 Gaming Plus boards.
MSI didn’t dish out many details about most of the Performance Gaming lineup, but we know that the top-of-the-line Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC board offers MSI Mystic Light RGB lighting with 17 customizable LED effects. The board features lighting zones on the heatsink, IO shroud, on the surface of the board, and on the rear. It also includes headers that support RGB and Rainbow pattern light strips so you can expand the lighting in your case. MSI Mystic Light is also compatible with a variety of third-party components so you can synchronize the lights inside your computer with the lights in your peripherals.
MSI’s Arsenal Gaming Lineup offers two motherboards, the full-size Z370 Tomahawk and the m-ATX Z370M Mortar. We don’t yet know the details about the Z370M Mortar, but MSI’s Z370 Tomahawk is a gaming motherboard for those who want a robust, customizable board that doesn’t break the bank. The Tomahawk board features a military-themed design and military-grade components. It also packs two M.2 slots that support MSI Twin Turbo M.2 (32Gb/s, Gen3 x4), one of which includes MSI’s M.2 Shield V.2, and one of which supports Intel’s Optane memory.
MSI didn’t announce pricing or availability for any of the Z370-based motherboards.
We some of them will be available on October 5 when Intel ships the Coffee Lake CPUs.
