titleThis weekend the first motherboard we took a look at was the MSI Z87-G45 Gaming, MSI’s lower priced gaming model. Along with the gaming product line they also have a line they are calling MPower that is focused more on the overclocking community and general enthusiasts. There are two models the Z87 M Power and the Z87 MPower Max, today I am going to dive in and take a look at the Z87 M Power. I’m excited to see what sets it apart from MSI’s gaming boards.

Product Name: MSI Z87 MPower

Review Sample Provided by: MSI

Written By: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

 

Specifications

CPU Support

4th Gen Intel® Core™ / Pentium® / Celeron® processors

CPU Socket

LGA1150

Chipset

Intel® Z87 Express Chipset

Graphics Interface

3 * PCI-E  3.0 x16 slots with 4th Gen Intel® Core™ processors,  AMD CrossFire / NVIDIA SLI Support

Display Interface

1* DisplayPort, 2 * HDMI - Requires CPU Graphics

Memory Support

4 DIMMs, Dual Channel DDR3-3000(OC)

Expansion slots

4 * PCI-E x1 slots

SATA / mSATA

8 * SATA 6Gb/s, 1 * mSATA

SATA RAID

RAID 0,1,5,10 - Available at ports SATA1-SATA6

USB / IEEE 1394

8 * USB 3.0, 8 * USB 2.0

LAN

Killer™ E2205 Gigabit Ethernet

Wireless

Wi-Fi IEEE 802.1 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, Intel® WiDi

Audio

8-channel HD Audio with Sound Blaster Cinema


Log in to comment

garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #31321 05 Jun 2013 19:00
Today we take a look at MSI's MPower motherboard as we continue out Haswell launch.
Satansoul's Avatar
Satansoul replied the topic: #31325 06 Jun 2013 02:58
Nice looking board. Also like how you colored the specs table, looks nice!
garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #31326 06 Jun 2013 03:06
Thanks I really appreciate the feedback.
lonkny replied the topic: #31387 08 Jun 2013 22:52
Thanks for the informative review! One page that confuses me is the USB3/SATA3 page ... the chart states SATA Read speeds of 268MB/sec as compared to the other MSI & Asus boards around 430+... In your description, you state that this is due to Asus' USB 3 Turboboost technology, but we are talking about SATA here... In other reviews, the SATA Read speed for the MPower is in line with other boards:

www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/zardon/ms...990-2933mhz-ddr3/21/

I think it may be that the headings are backwards - are the first sets of numbers for USB and the 2nd set for SATA? Please clarify, thanks!
garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #31389 08 Jun 2013 23:43
yeah that was a mixup in the inputting. The results from USB 3.0 and SATA were flipped. I corrected it on my copy but missed it on the site. Thank you for pointing it out, its all fixed now
lonkny replied the topic: #31393 09 Jun 2013 07:27
Thanks, makes much more sense now... I think I may pull the trigger on this board... especially liking the mSATA, bluetooth and other gimmicky features LOL - seems like the other Z87 boards in this price range all perform about the same with very similar feature sets, so it really comes down to incidentals...
garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #31395 09 Jun 2013 10:02
If you get it, come back and let us know how you like it and toss up a few pictures. Its a great board. I really hope I can find a good reason to use it in a build this year.

We have 1543 guests and one member online

supportus