MSI’s High-End Z270 Gaming M7 and Z270 Tomahawk Motherboard Unveiled – Top Tier Designs For 6th and 7th Gen Core Processors
The latest leak comes from Expreview where pictures of the Z270 Gaming M7 motherboard have been posted. MSI will have several products in the Z270 family but this one is aiming the enthusiast gaming market. Gaming 7 comes with a very aggressive design with a black and red color scheme. There is a 12 phase PWM supply that features top-of-the-line components. The LGA 1151 socket is featured on this motherboard to support 6th and 7th generation Intel Core processors.
The entire PWM section along with the I/O port is shielded by a cover. VRMs are cooled off by heatsinks that are interconnected via heatpipe. MSI Z270 Gaming 7 houses four DDR4 DIMM slots that allow dual channel memory support with speeds rated beyond 4000 MHz in OC mode. All DIMM slots are shielded by a metallic plate which is something to be seen on a wide range of Z270 boards.
Expansion slots include three PCI-e 3.0 x16 slots which are shielded by the same metallic cover, three PCI-e 3.0 x1 slots and three M.2 slots. The expansion slots have covers which mark their positioning on the board. This is an interesting design which we haven’t seen before. The PCH is covered by a large heatsink. Bear in mind that all heatsinks and covers will feature RGB LEDs. Storage ports include 6 SATA III and a U.2 port for NVMe SSDs. There’s also a right angled USB 3.0 connector, a diagnostic panel and couple of other goodies packed at the I/O panel.
MSI’s Z270 Tomahawk Motherboard With Lightning USB
The second motherboard from MSI using the Z270 chipset is the Z270 Tomahawk. This motherboard has a 10 phase PWM supply that is powered by a single 8-Pin connector. The four DDR4 DIMM slots can support dual channel memory with capacities up to 64 GB. The VRMs are situated beneath aluminum heatsinks while the IO section is shielded by the design cover.
Expansion slots include three PCI-e 3.0 x16, three PCI-e 3.0 x1 and two M.2 slots (1 x Turbo M.2). Storage includes six SATA III ports. There’s also a right angled USB 3.0 connector. This motherboard is more towards the budget side and we can expect a decent price on this product. MSI has used the Asmedia 2142 controller that provides double the USB 3.1 bandwidth. There’s also a new feature called MSI Lightning USB X-Boost that allows 1 GB/s transfer speed over USB 3.1 compared to Intel’s Thunderbolt connection.
MSI also teased their Z270 Pro series motherboards a few days ago which feature a cool black and white color scheme. You can check them out here. We can expect even more high-end products in MSI’s Z270 lineup but we will have to wait for their unveiling on 5th January 2017.
Source: wccftech
