Layout

Like we mentioned in the introduction the MSI Z97M Gaming motherboard comes with a Twin Frozr IV based design. Therefore, the PCB has a matte black finish with a few red touches on the heatsinks. The heatsinks themselves have been shaped with a lot of attention to detail and come with a matte black colour scheme. Combined, it makes the design unique and good looking. The layout itself has been well thought and there are plenty of useful features, like six USB 3.0 ports on the back, SATA 6Gbps ports, overclocking features and more.



MSI equipped the Z97M Gaming motherboard with an 8-phase digital power design with the uP1649Q from UPI taking care of the CPU VRM. The Z97M Gaming power design has one DRMOS for two phases rather than one DRMOS for one phase. All those solid capacitors are part of MSI's Military Class IV group of components so we are looking at one pretty strong power design.
The memory got a 2-phase digital power design here driven by the UPI uP01109, which is also one more phase than usual.


As far as the memory goes, you can find four DIMM-slots on the Z97M Gaming motherboard. Officially supported are the DDR3 3300 /3200 / 3100 / 3000 / 2800 / 2666 / 2600 / 2400 / 2200 / 2133 / 2000 / 1866 / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 MHz (O.C.). There is enough space between the DIMM-slots and the CPU socket which means that you will not run into any issues with large coolers, even if you choose to install memory with big heatspreaders. Also supported are the Xtreme Memory Profiles (XMP) in version 1.3. Overclocking the memory on this board with old ICs (PCS,BBSE), which are what all overlcockers are still using, is not really nice because of the BIOS issue. On the other hand, overclocking with the new Samsung ICs or the Hynix CFR,BFR,MFR is not bad for gaming and daily use PCs, but not for getting any serious high memory frequency results.


The PCH as well as the current converters are being held at adequate temperatures via passive heatsinks. The heatsink for current converters is made from a single aluminium block that uses one 8mm nickel-plated copper heatpipe. The PCH heatsink as not been been integrated into the heatpipe loop and is quite simple and flat. The cooling blocks have been very well made and also they are very well attached to the board to provide enough pressure on the components they have to cool down. They are entirely black colored with red stripes in order to go well with the rest of the MSI Gaming series components.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 14 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery	Page 15 - UC Bench
Page 3 - Features	Page 16 - Super Pi 1M / 32M
Page 4 - Layout	Page 17 - wPrime 1024M Multi Core
Page 5 - Connectors and I/O	Page 18 - Cinebench
Page 6 - BIOS	Page 19 - Bioshock: Infinite
Page 7 - Test setup	Page 20 - Metro Last Light
Page 8 - Preview / Gallery	Page 21 - Sleeping Dogs
Page 9 - 3D Mark	Page 22 - Power Consumption
Page 10 - 3D Mark 11	Page 23 - Performance Rating
Page 11 - 3D Mark Vantage	Page 24 - Price Comparison
Page 12 - PC Mark 7	Page 25 - Conclusion
Page 13 - SiSoft Sandra 1