MSI Z97M Gaming Review
Published by Hiwa Pouri on 22.07.14Page:
Conclusion
| Allgemein | + | - | |
| A closer look at the motherboard lineup from MSI reveals that the Z97M Gaming is the only micro-ATX form factor motherboard. It comes with some really neat features, like for example a Guard-Pro, OC Genie 4 and the new UEFI Click Bios 4. Despite its smaller size and micro-ATX form-factor, the MSI Z97M Gaming motherboard is powered by an 8-phase CPU VRM which is good enough for a small overclocked system. MSI also equipped this board with some neat features for gamers including a beefed-up audio solution as well as the newest Killer E2205 Ethernet chip. Apart from the features for gamers, the bundle is not that rich but there are enough cables and everything to install an easy gaming PC. |
- Design - Features |
- SATA Express Connector | |
| Layout | + | - | |
| Overall, the MSI Z97M Gaming's layout
has been well thought. Once more practical are the angled SATA
connectors that you can find on almost all motherboards nowadays. Other
than that there is also a USB3 connector. There are also
practical power- and reset-buttons along with the clr_CMOS which is
located on the I/O panel. Furthermore there is even a debug display which
is very useful in case you should have issues with a component in your
system or the board itself. It also features two PCI Express Gen3 x16
slots, which have been very well positioned. Between the two main PCIe
x16 you will find two slot space to provide good airflow for a dual
graphics card setup. You have two PCIe Gen2 x1 connectors onboard, and one
of them is between the two PCI Express x16, as well as the M.2 slot,
while the rest of the ports and slots is pretty much standard (six USB3,
six SATA3 ports and one internal
USB3 connector for two USB3 ports.) As this is an MSI overclocking motherboard you also get the OC Genie button. |
-Angled SATA and USB3 connectors
- Power/Reset-Button onboard - Debug display / CLR_CMOS - 6x USB 3.0 - M.2 Support |
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| Performance | + | - | |
| Calculating the average of all 3D benchmarks we ran, we see that this board ranks fifth from bottom in our comparison tables, which include values from all Z87 motherboards we've tested too. When taking the average of all 2D results, this board is achieving a position in the bottom third. The performance of this board could really be a little bit better and we're hoping MSI BIOS team will have another look at the BIOS putting a focus on performance improvements. On another note, we had a look at power consumption and noticed that this is one of the most efficient motherboards we've had for testing so far when it comes to idle as well as load power consumption. In both cases this board scores a top position. | -
SiSoft Sandra Arithmetik - Power Consumption Idle/Load |
- 3DMark Vantage - Memory Latency - SuperPi 1M/32M - wPrime - Metro Last Light |
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| BIOS | + | - | |
| MSI has put a lot of time and effort into making their BIOS look nicer and more user friendly. Especially when we compare this version of MSI BIOS to the first UEFI BIOS from MSI there ever was, it simply cannot be compared, since the two are worlds apart. What's almost self-explanatory is that you get lot of tuning and tweaking options in order to optimize the system towards your needs. We also like the entry screen which displays a lot of useful information. | - Sheer amount of
options - Design |
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| Recommendation | + | - | |
| These days you can get the MSI Z97M Gaming for 120 Euro and for that price you get a motherboard with an excellent feature mix. There is really everything you'd expect and the fact that there is no SATA-Express connector on a mATX motherboard is justifiable. On top you get a design which makes the board look great. | - Gaming - Modding |
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| Rating | |||
| We give the MSI Z97M Gaming very good 4.5 out of 5 stars. | |||
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