MSI Z97M Gaming Motherboard Review

Conclusions & Final Thoughts

In the case of the MSI Z97M Gaming motherboard is a kin to the little engine that could, and why shouldn’t it be? We should not expect any less from any motherboard manufacturer, especially a top tier manufacture such as MSI. Performance of this motherboard is right on par with others that we tested against. Just because it is small doesn’t mean that it should not perform similarly to the others. Sure there will be performance differences there always is, no two benchmark runs yield the exact same results.

It seems with a few motherboard manufactures that audio quality is making a big push once again. MSI has two separate amplification circuits and the TI amps are some of the most expensive listed. MSI has also provided a way to power the audio circuit with external power. The claim is an external power source is more stable and results in better sound quality. However, during my testing I tested the rear audio power with both motherboard supplied power and using the direct audio power connector and RightMark showed an extremely minor improvement. Any improvement is good, right? But can we truly hear that improvement? I did test sound quality after added post processing effects using the included Sound Blaster Cinema 2 software. I could hear the difference the post processing made and it didn’t sound bad however, running it through RightMark the results went from Very Good over all to Good, with some of the individual tests indicating poor results.

The included software bundle with the MSI Z97M Gaming motherboard is complete and comes with a slew of MSI software. MSI’s software feels well polished and easily laid out, especially Command Center. The Command Center application allows the user to control most overclocking features of the motherboard using simple sliders. Live update 6 worked very well and let me know that newer drivers and a newer UEFI BIOS was available as soon as they were released. Another piece of included software is the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, which allows granular control of the overclocking features of the motherboard.

The current 1150 Intel platform is limited to 24 PCIe lanes and 16 lanes of that is PCIe 3.0 to the GPU from the CPU. In a dual GPU configuration the PCIe slot runs in a 8x/8x configuration, which is fine for most setups since even PCIe 2.0 16x is not fully saturated by current high-end cards.  I believe this truly is the perfect size motherboard for the 1150 platform.

Since the Killer network solution moved from a separate add-in card to built-in, I have not been a huge fan. Sure it works for connectivity, but I think their claims of eliminating lag, and increasing network performance in games is more of a marketing ploy than anything else. The add-in card actually unloaded the TCP/IP stack from windows and had a separate built in processor to help free up CPU cycles. However, as drivers improve so does the performance of the card. In the past when I’ve tested the onboard Killer solution I’ve seen a lot of peaks and valleys in the graphs, this test showed a nice smooth line. In my opinion, if it is an Intel platform, go with an Intel network card. Honestly, I would rather see two Intel network interfaces than one Killer network interface. Currently the driver only supports Windows 7 & Windows 8, linux support (from my understanding) is sketchy at best.

Overclocking the MSI Z97M Gaming motherboard was a breeze. I did use the OC Genie button and got a clock of 4.2GHz and that’s not too bad. However, manual overclock (on air) I was easily able to reach 4.5Ghz at 1.248 volts on the vCore. More so now than ever overclocking the Haswell is a crap shoot an depends more on the CPU than the motherboard. I have had retail i7 4770K’s that couldn’t hit 4.2 Ghz stable on water.

The price of the MSI Z97M Gaming runs between $150-170 USD based on a quick search of prices. This puts the MSI Z97M Gaming at the top of the pricing tier for mATX Z97 motherboards. I am a firm believer in the saying you get what you pay for. MSI didn’t cheap out on the components just because it is an mATX motherboard and, in my opinion, their quality control is constantly improving. The use of high quality amplifiers in the audio circuits as well as high quality capacitors, VRM, and drivers make the MSI Z97M Gaming motherboard a great buy. It overclocks like a dream no matter what method you choose to use.