THE MPG Z390 GAMING PRO CARBON

The MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon follows the typical ATX form factor.

MSI has placed two rather impressive carbon/black/silver heatsinks over the VRM and over the Z390 chipset (however they are not linked via heat pipes).

By using a total of 4 DIMM slots the MPG Z390 Gaming Pro Carbon supports up to 64GB at speeds all the way up to 4400MHZ.

In the above picture you can see all 6 PCIe slots (3x16/3x1) and the two M.2 slots (since the bottom slot is located underneath the 2nd PCIe x16 slot and thus can receive higher temperatures MSI has covered it with an high-performance heatsink they call FROZR).

The top M.2 slot may not feature a heat spreader like the bottom one but it's a lot easier to access (on the lower right you can also see the JBAT1 BIOS reset jumper).

On the lower right of the mainboard we find the Audio Boost 4 capacitors (up to 600Ohm boost) powered by Nahimic.

Here you can see the 6 native 6Gbps ports and the USB 3.1 front port connector.

Moving at the rear of the motherboard (the I/O shield is pre-mounted) we find two USB 2.0 ports, PS/2 connector, DisplayPort output, HDMI output, USB 3.1 Gen2 ports (1xType-A/1xType-C), two USB 3.1 Gen1 ports, Gigabit Ethernet port and the 7.1 analog/digital audio outputs.

Taking a look at the other side of the PCB we see 12 RGB LEDs located on the far right side.

As with every other Z390 Motherboard we'll be using an Intel Core I9-9900k for our tests.