MSI B150A Gaming PRO Motherboard Review: Mixing Business with Pleasure
Test System and Testing Procedures
| Processor | Intel Core i7-6700K (ES) |
| CPU Cooler |
Noctua NH-D15S with NT-H1 Thermal Compound |
| Power Supply |
Corsair HX850W 80 Plus Gold PSU |
| Memory | Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4 2x8GB @ 2133MHz 11-11-11-28 2T (B150 only), 2666MHz 15-17-17-35 2T (Z170 mainboards only) |
| Storage | Silicon Power S80 240GB SSD (OS) |
| Graphics | Integrated CPU Graphics, Gigabyte GTx 960 Windforce 3x OC |
| Drivers | Intel 10.1.1.7 (Z170), Intel 10.0.2.1 (Z97), NVIDIA 353.62 WHQL (Discrete) |
| Router | Cisco E3200 stock firmware with 2x 6ft Cat5E cables for network testing |
| Motherboard(s) | MSI B150A Gaming, (E7978IMS.142), EVGA Z170 FTW (BIOS v1.03), Gigabyte Z170-Gaming 7 (BIOS F2) |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Enterprise* |
Latest working BIOS, updates and drivers were used at the time of the review. Each test was conducted at least three times for accuracy with the exception of PCMark 8 which already does three sets per benchmark run.
*All performance benchmarks in this review and all reviews going forward will be using the Windows 10 operating system. For the EVGA z170 FTW motherboard’s performance under Windows 8.1, check out my launch review of the Intel Core i7-6700K Processor using the EVGA Z170 FTW Motherboard (BIOS v1.01).
**Thanks to Kingston Memory for providing the HyperX Fury DDR4 memory kit and thanks to Corsair for providing the HX850W power supply used in this review.
System Benchmarks
- Aida64 Engineer 5.30
- SiSoft Sandra Lite 2015 SP2b
- CineBench R15
- PCMark 8 v2.4.304
- WinRAR 5.01
- x.264 FHD 1.0.1
- x.265 0.1.4
Subsystem Testing
- CrystalDiskMark 5.0.3 for Storage tests
- LatencyMon for DPC monitoring
- Rightmark Audio Analyzer 6.4.1
- Passmark Performance Test 8.0 – Network Speed Graph
Gaming Benchmarks
- 3DMark Firestrike (Default)
- Unigine Heaven 4.0 (Max Settings, 1920 x 1080)
- Bioshock Infinite (Lowest Settings @ 640 x 480, Max Settings @ 1920 x 1080)
Motherboard Specifications:
| Memory Support |
4 DIMM Dual-Channel up to 64GB DDR4 2133MHz |
| Storage | – 6x SATA 6G – 1x SATA Express |
| USB | 8x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0 |
| Ethernet | 1x Intel i219-V Gigabit NIC |
| Audio | Realtek ALC1150 |
| Displays | 1x DVI-D, 1x HDMI 1.4 |
| Fan Headers | 5 |
| Expansion Slots |
• 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots* • 2 x PCIe 3.0 x1 slots • 3 x PCI slot* The PCI_E4 slot will only run PCIe 3.0 x1 speed when the PCI_E1 or PCI_E3 slot is installed a device. |
| Dimensions | ATX 12 x 9.6 inches (304.8 x 243.8mm) |
For official specifications and promotional information, visit: http://www.msi.com/product/mb/B150A-GAMING-PRO.html#hero-specification
