MSI Z370 Godlike Gaming and Z370 Overview Preview

Up Close – Godlike

We’ve got two choices here, we can either spend an hour of our time explaining every feature, connector, clever design touch and you’ll get to read this on Monday, or we can combine the elements you’ve read on the previous page, your own ability to recognise a fan header and our desire to get you the content as fast as possible and just say that we think the Godlike is fantastic to look at. Just enough covers to stop it being a sea of capacitors and PCB, but not so much that it is infringing on the Sabertooth Armor aesthetic.

If you think it looks good now then wait until you see it all lit up. In the meantime scroll down for an overview of the key bits and bobs.

We’ve been doing this since before the first appearance of, what was then, the MSI OC Genie. It has come a long way from the times when it was just a button on the bottom of the board, but the ethos and capabilities haven’t changed. It’s far and away the simplest method of overclocking your CPU without having to spend any time on it. Perhaps most beneficially is how MSI algorithms really work. It would be easy to just pump your CPU full of volts and have a very cautious, thermally inefficient, overclock but instead the MSI method gets surprisingly close to a manual overclock. Of course those willing to do it themselves will get better results, but for the no-fuss brigade this is fantastic.

All the slots on the Godlike are reinforced with the ‘steel armor’ which has rapidly found a home on all but the most affordable motherboards on the market. As well as providing some longevity we think they also look the part. Speaking of aesthetic pleasures just take a look at the heatsink on around the CPU socket. It’s a work of art.

If you were in any doubt about how rapidly the M.2 socket has taken over as the default weapon of choice when it comes to storage you only need look at the three M.2 sockets nestled between the PCI Express slots on the Godlike. Perfect for those of you flush with cash wanting to be flush with cache.

Wherever you look on the Godlike you’ll find enough headers, connectors and extenders to handle everything you want to throw at it. The SATA Express idea has definitely been consigned to the bin because of the impact of M.2 drives, but everything else is present from front panel USB 3.1 C-type all the way via fans and pumps to the MSI Mystic Light RGB strip controls. You just need to glance at the backplate connections to see that the Godlike nomenclature hasn’t been lightly given. Everything you can think of – and a few things you didn’t – are present and correct.