There are no native U.2 connectors but U.2 drives can be connected to the M.2 slots by using appropriate adapters. It has two M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 slots, with one of them supporting M.2 devices up to 110 mm long, and a total of six SATA 6Gb/s connectors. The MSI Z270 SLI Plus is a motherboard trying to implement as many practical features as possible while keeping the price tag below $140. To read specifically about the Z170 chip/platform and the specifications therein, our deep dive into what it is can be found at this link. Individual motherboard manufacturers will be sprinkling on new features onto their Z270 products to aid the transition and provide other tangible benefits over the old platform. The Intel Optane Memory (SSD) Preview: 32GB of Kaby Lake Caching Also, note that Intel Optane drives should still function on other chipsets as drives the Z270 only allows them to enable their “smart caching” technology. Although four extra PCIe lanes does sound like a huge difference, it is an important upgrade for the implementation of native M.2 slots (on Z170-based motherboards, this usually meant disabling some other device/port on the motherboard). The Z270 ones have four extra PCIe lanes configurable on the chipset, potentially new audio and new networking controllers, and Intel Optane Technology Support. In comparison to the older Z170 boards, the new Z270 board on the base specifications are hardly any different. The Intel Core i3-7350K (60W) Review - CPU Review The Intel Core i5-7600K (91W) Review - CPU Review The Intel Core i7-7700K (91W) Review - CPU Review Other AnandTech Reviews for Intel’s 7 th Generation CPUs and 200-Series Motherboards We will examine their features, differences and performance in the following pages of this review. As their names suggest, these two motherboards mainly place their marketing focus on the SLI support, and both have a retail price of under $140. In this review, we are having a look at two cost-effective Z270 motherboards that have been designed with gamers in mind - the MSI Z270 SLI Plus and the ASRock Z270 Killer SLI. Myriads of motherboards based on these two chipsets have been released during these past couple of months, covering virtually all of the consumer market demand. Earlier this year, Intel released their latest Kaby Lake processors and the new Z270/H270 chipsets to accompany them.

Msi z270 sli plus m 2 slots