Price and Availability
The MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon AM4 motherboard is now available. At the time this review was published, it comes with a retail price of $179.99 in the US or around £160 in UK. This motherboard is great for any Ryzen 7 or Ryzen 5 CPU (Ryzen 3 is not yet available at this time).
MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon Review: Conclusion
Based on our tests and benchmark results, the MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon is a very capable motherboard for the new Ryzen based system. Given the same components installed, it was able to perform just on par with the more expensive Asus Crosshair VI Hero motherboard. I bet it would even perform just on par with the MSI X370 XPOWER Titanium, the company’s current flagship. Our 1700X didn’t reach 4GHz even when installed on the XPower Titanium; 3.9GHz is pretty much the limit of the CPU.
Of course unlike the flagship or top of the line motherboards, there are some features not present on this motherboard. Features such as extreme tweaking options, LN2 support, and probably better quality VRMs and other components used on the motherboard. I think MSI designed the X370 Gaming Pro Carbon to offer the essential features that most users would need on a motherboard without costing too much.
Aesthetically speaking, it looks nice and would blend well in most system thanks to its all-black matte finish. And the controllable RGB LED lighting is a nice touch that would further enhance the user experience in terms of visuals and aesthetics. If RGB is not your thing, you can simply set it to one color only or just turn it off.
There’s also a decent number of connectivity options found on the X370 Gaming Pro Carbonm like: 6x SATA ports, two M.2 slots and a number of USB 3.1 connections (both type A and type C). The only thing missing here is a WiFi/BT connection, a component bundled on the X370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC variant. It’s also using an Intel NIC i211AT and the latest Realtek ALC1220 paired with a good solid state amplifier from Texas Instruments; there are users who prefer Intel NIC than Killer NIC.
I don’t find any major faults or cons on this motherboard. BIOS tweaking options could be better but I don’t think extreme overclockers would opt for this kind of motherboard either. The VRM could be better considering that this motherboard belongs to the higher-end segment already. And I think motherboards of this caliber should have an on-board power and reset buttons and debug code display as well. These are some features that I think are really useful and should be present on most (if not all) X370 motherboards.
Finally, I find the MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon to be a rock solid and good performing motherboard. It has most or all of the essential features that you may need for your Ryzen system and it simply works. I think MSI is also actively updating the BIOS version since it was released. I’m counting 5 BIOS updates already. If you like how it looks, the price fits your budget and it ticks the features that you need; I have no problems recommending this motherboard for your next build.
