MSI Z390-A PRO

The main difference between the MSI Z390-A PRO and the rest of MSI's Z390 product stack is that this board isn't specifically targeted towards gamers. The aesthetics are simple with a coffee colored PCB which does include silver patterning across it; primarily around the edges of the board and around the silver and black heatsinks. The main selling point of the MSI Z390-A PRO is in its value with a good selection of controllers including an Intel I219V Gigabit Ethernet controller and a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec handling the onboard audio.

On the board are two full-length PCIe 3.0 slots with the top MSI Steel Slot coated slot running at x16 and the second full-length slot operating at x4. Also present is plenty of PCIe 3.0 x1 ports as the Z390-A PRO has four in total. The storage options are pretty basic on the Z390-A PRO with this being the only Z390 MSI board to feature only one PCIe/SATA M.2 slot; this is complemented by a total of six SATA ports with support for RAID 0. 1. 5 and 10 arrays. In terms of memory, the board is packing four RAM slots with support for DDR4--4400 with a maximum capacity of up to 64 GB. 

Rear panel connections wise the MSI Z390-A PRO has a USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A and Type-C port and four USB 2.0 ports; up to two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports can be made available through the use of internal headers. A total of six 3.5 mm audio jacks are powered by a Realtek ALC892 HD audio codec and a single LAN port controlled by an Intel I219V Gigabit networking chip. The Z390-A PRO is the only MSI board to include a D-Sub video output which seemingly replaces the HDMI and also included is a DisplayPort and DVI-D output.

The MSI Z390-A PRO is the cheapest Z390 motherboard from MSI at launch with a suggested retail price of $140 which all things considered is still quite expensive for chipsets entry-level model. The board makes use of a decent set of controllers which further hikes the price up and it seemingly means users are going to have to look at adding a little more cash to their budget in order to jump onto MSI's Z390 platform; especially compared with the equivalent models when the Z370 chipset debuted.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7orrAp5utnZOde6S7zGiqoaenZH50gI9wZqKmpJq5bsaScmdmpZ%2Bptaa%2BwaiYq5xdpMOmvtWinLBllauys8WMpqatoJWnr7Ct0Z1kmqaRoca7scNobGo%3D