MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC Review
Published by Hiwa Pouri on 03.03.15Page:
Conclusion
| Allgemein | + | - | |
| A closer look at the motherboard lineup from MSI reveals that the Z97 Gaming 9 AC is the highest end model, regarding their gaming branded products. Of course it comes with some really neat features, like for example a Guard-Pro, OC Genie 4 and the new UEFI Click Bios 4. The MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC motherboard is powered by an 12-phase CPU VRM which is enough for an overclocked system even if you wanted to do extreme benching using liquid nitrogen as coolant. MSI also equipped this board with features specific to gamers including a beefed-up audio solution as well as the latest Killer E2205 Ethernet chip. The Killer LAN chip always comes bundled with a good software, which for example allows traffic shaping. Apart from that there is an adequate bundle, containing everything necessary to start building a new rig. |
- Design - Features |
- SATA Express Connector | |
| Layout | + | - | |
| Overall, the MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC'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. We always love it when we find practical power- and reset-buttons along with
a clr_CMOS buttons, which is
located on the I/O panel. Furthermore there is even a debug display.
This one is always higly useful in case you should have issues with a component in your
system or the board itself. It also features three PCI Express Gen3 x16
slots, which have been very well positioned. You have three PCIe Gen2 x1 connectors onboard, and
they can be found in between the PCIe Slot. Furthermore the Gaming 9 has
also been equipped with an M.2 slot which is between the second and the third PCIe slot.
Apart from that you get eight USB3.0, two USB2.0, eight SATA3 ports and two internal
USB3 headers for four additional USB3 ports as well as two USB2 connectors for
four more USB2.0 ports. As this is a high-end MSI motherboard you also find an OC Genie button. |
- Angled SATA and 1x USB3 connectors
- Power/Reset-Button onboard - Debug display / CLR_CMOS - 8x USB 3.0 - M.2 slot |
||
| Performance | + | - | |
| Calculating the average of all 3D benchmarks we ran, we see that this board ranks in the top quarter of 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 center of our chart lists. The performance of this board is ok, but we would still like to see MSI's BIOS team release a performance optimized BIOS version. On another note we had a look at power consumption and in this case we clearly see that we have a board here that has been equipped with an armada of additional chips. In the end this means, that power consumption is high. In fact, it was the third highest value in idle and under load. | -
SiSoft Sandra Arithmetik - Metro Last Light Low preset |
- 3DMark Vantage - Memory Latency - SuperPi 1M/32M - wPrime - Power Consumption Idle/Load |
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| BIOS | + | - | |
| MSI on Gaming Series mother using a different color scheme which is red and black and give the BIOS a new interface and its looking much nicer in our opinion. 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 user needs. We also like the entry screen which displays a lot of useful information and options to have small Overclocking. | - Sheer amount of
options
- Red/Black Color scheme - Design |
||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| These days you can get the MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC for 250 Euro and for that price you get a motherboard with an excellent feature mix. There is really everything you'd expect a SATA-Express connector. On top you get great looking design. Overall this is a premium motherboard, which also explains the price, although the Gaming 9 AC costs quite a bit. | - Gaming - Modding |
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| Rating | |||
| We give the MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC very good 4 out of 5 stars. | |||
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