ASUS STRIX Z270G GAMING
http://www.asus.com £180
MSI Z270 GAMING PRO CARBON
http://www.msi.com £160
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You get plastic IO shrouding, chunky colour
coordinated heatsinks, a matt black PCB and some
RGB lighting. The CPU mount is plain metal, there
are no heatpipes to assist cooling, no cover for the
audio section and you miss out on a power button.
But back to that carbon. MSI has managed to
take the edge off what would’ve been quite a nice
simple, sedate design by plastering all the plastic
sections with faux carbon fibre. It’s not our thing.
Otherwise there’s a lot to like. You’ve got plenty
of connectivity on the backplate, a neat metal cover
for your M.2 drives and quality audio. All told, it’s a
well balanced selection.
What’s more, this board had no issues with
installation or configuration. Nearly every other one
had a moment where a reset was needed or a
setting-change failed. Here, it just worked.
The same was true when it came to
overclocking. We dialed in 5GHz and
1.34V and off it went, and the resulting
performance was class-leading.The single RGB Republic of Gamers light on the
chipset adds just the right touch of customisation,
while there are two headers for further lighting
strips so you can fully illuminate your case without
the need for any extra wiring.
Talking of headers, there are masses of these for
further USB connections, fans and more, and
they’re all conveniently arranged around the edges
of the board and clearly labelled.
It’s more good news when it comes to
connectivity. You get seven USB Type-A ports as
well as a Type-C, plus gigabit Ethernet, ac-Wi-Fi,
DisplayPort and HDMI, PS/2 and decent quality
audio. The Strix Z270G Gaming doesn’t let up when
it comes to performance either. It easily keeps up
with the larger boards, and you’ve even got space
for a couple of graphics cards.
Overclocking worked well too. We had no
problem reaching 5GHz, though had to
run the memory at a slightly slower
3000MHz to get the system to boot.Amusingly, the eponymous carbon fibre flourishes are the
least appealing thing about this board’s design. Otherwise it’s a
decent mid-range option with great performance. As the price
indicates, some of the more premium touches are missing.This is only a micro-ATX motherboard but it wants for little
compared to the big boys. RGB lighting, two M.2 SSD slots (one
is on the back), quality audio, plenty of connectivity, it’s all here.
This is a great-looking board, too.90 % 88 %
Z27O Motherboards
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