MSI Z87 MPower Max Review
Published by Marc Büchel on 15.01.14Page:
Conclusion
| General | + | - | |
| A closer look at the motherboard lineup from MSI reveals that the Z87 MPower Max is the second best equipped model. Therefore it comes with some really neat features, like for example a highly powerful powerdesign regarding CPU and memory. 20 phases are going to be more than enough for any overclocker out there in the wild, no matter what record wants to be broken. MSI also equipped this board with features for gamers. There is a Killer LAN chip, a beefed-up audio solution as well as WiFi and Bluetooh. Apart from the features for gamers, the delivery is rich and there is more than you'll ever need with this board. |
- Features
- Bundle |
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| Layout | + | - | |
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Overall the
MSI Z87 MPower Max'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 an angled USB3 connector.
There are also practical power- and reset-buttons along with a clr_CMOS
which one is located at the I/O panel.
Furthermore there's even a debug display which is very useful in case you should
have issues with a component in your system or the board itself. Totally
you find three 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. Otherwise you have four PCIe Gen2 x1
connectors. MSI also provided their board with an unpluggable PCIe Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module. The rest is almost standard (six USB3, eight SATA3, one internal USB3 connector (for two USB3 ports). As MSI's overclocking motherboard you get voltage reading points, OC Genie buttons and two physical BIOS with a DIP switch to select the one you want. |
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Angled SATA and USB3
connectors
- Power/Reset-Button onboard - Debug display / CLR_CMOS - 6x USB 3.0 - Bluetooth/Wi-Fi - 2x BIOS |
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| Performance | + | - | |
| A closer look at the performance averages of this motherboard reveals the following. In case of 3D performance this board comes in 3rd to bottom and regarding 2D performance the result is average. When we consider powerconsumption it becomes clearly visible, that this a board, that comes with quite a few features and therefore, especially under idle, draws a lot of power, which is why there is a last spot for this board when it comes to idle power consumption. When looking at load power consumption, the picture looks a bit better but the Z87 MPower Max still ranks 5th to bottom. Overall performance as well as power consumption could definitely be improved. | - Metro Last Light Low | - SiSoft Sandra
Arithmetik Dhrystone - SiSoft Sandra Multimedia Floating Point - SiSoft Sandra Cryptography SHA 256 - wPrime 1024M - Bioshock: Inifinite Low |
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| Overclocking / BIOS | + | - | |
| Finally the overclocking part
but first let's talk about the BIOS. The BIOS is excellent, MSI did a
great job. It is not perfect but it is a very huge jump compared to the
BIOS the manufacturer used to have. The overclocking on this motherboard is easy and pleasant. The BIOS is very easy to configure and the motherboard worked well and did what we expected. Also memory overclocking was easy and good. |
- Best BIOS from MSI ever | - Room for improvement | |
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| Should you be thinking about buying a rock solid motherboard, that is also well suitable for overclocking, then the Z87 MPower Max from MSI is a good choice. This board features a unique and great looking color scheme and even the price attractive. On the other hand MSI should really improve performance of this motherboard. | -
Overclocking
- Enthusiast - Gaming |
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| Rating | |||
| We give the MSI Z87 MPower Max 4 out of 5 stars. | |||
Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch
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