MSI Z97I Gaming AC

The Z97i Gaming AC is the smallest motherboard that I will be taking a look at today. Even so that didn’t stop MSI from packing their gaming features into the Mini ITX sized motherboard. Before we can take a look at the board itself, we do need to dig into the packaging though. Even though the box is smaller, It has the same red and black theme that all MSI gaming products have. Across the front you have the gaming dragon logo. The rest of the front doesn’t have to much going on though. On the back they used the little space available to pack in information on the boards Audio Boost 2, Killer NIC, and USB Audio Power. They also slipped in a small specification listing and a drawing of the rear I/O panel as well.

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Inside the board is wrapped up in a static protective bag as usual with all of the documentation and accessories up under the motherboard. You get a quick installation guide and a full user guide for documentation. They also include a door hanger that says sorry I’m gaming. Then of course you get a software/driver disc for the motherboard and then a second one for the LAN/Wi-Fi/Bluetooth drivers/software. For accessories you get tao SATA cables, Wireless antennas, a black rear I/O cover, and an MSI G series badge. Z97i3

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There is also a wireless adapter that installs onto the board. They include small baggie with the single screw needed to install it as well as instructions. The wireless adapter is an Intel WiDi adapter that covers a/b/g/n/ac bands as well as Bluetooth 4.0. It has a small connection on the bottom that hooks up to the board on the rear I/O. I’m not really sure why they don’t just include it installed ahead of time though.

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Before taking a closer look at the Z97i’s features, the overall board design is a little unique for a Mini ITX motherboard. Typically Mini-ITX boards share the same general layout as larger boards. With that I mean RAM slots on the right side of the CPU as well as the 24 pin and SATA ports. The CPU power connection is normally up on the top left corner, ect. Much like with the Z87 board, the entire board is spun 90 degree’s other than the RAM and PCIe slot. That means the connections normally found on the side are up top. As most case manufactures design around the “standard” layout this could cause a few challenges when you go to install the Z98i in your case. To go along with this, even the Gaming Series badge on the heatsink is facing sideways. I will get more into the location of everything as I go around the board. As for the overall look, I do like the red and black theme on the black PCB. I think the only thing they could do to add to the look would be to black out the rear I/O as well.

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Starting up in the top left corner we have a miniature Audio Boost with its gold Nichicon caps. That also puts the front panel audio up here as well. You also have a USB 2.0 header and a JSPI1 connection (that they use to program the BIOS). Tucked up near the middle of the board next to the heatsink is the 8 pin CPU power as well as the front panel connections. Front panel connections are hard enough to hook up when they are on the edge of a motherboard, imagine how much fun they will be in this location! It a shame they didn’t at least color code them, especially considering the board didn’t come with the small helper plugs to make it easier.

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Up in the top right corner we have the 24 pin power connection, four SATA ports, and the USB 3.0 header.  This is also where the four pin CPU fan header is, just above the CPU socket.  Down along the side the only thing going on are the two DDR 3 DIMM slots. MSI did make sure to put a little more space between the CPU socket and the memory than other Mini-ITX motherboards but if you plan on running any tower coolers you will need to run low profile RAM. I would recommend going with lower profile ram for any small form factor build really just to save space.

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Down on the bottom edge there is the PCI Express x16 slot. To the left of the PCIe slot is another 4 pin PWM fan header making for a total of two. This is fairly standard for Min-ITX boards, but I would love to have a third header for builds that use three fans, like our In Win 901 build. In this photo we can also see the small plug and the outline for the Wireless AC card that you have to install.

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For cooling, everything is contained up in the top left area of the Z98i behind the rear I/O. There is a red and black heatsink connected to a thin “heatsink” near the SATA ports to cool the chipset.

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The rear I/O panel has the same red and black theme as the rest of the board. The 6 plug has five black plugs and a single red plug. The red plug is your dedicated amplified output and the rest of the plugs can do whatever you need them to do, when you plug a device in the software asks you what you just plugged in.

For USB you get four blue USB 3.0 ports, and four USB 2.0 ports. Two of the USB 2.0 ports are marked in red as well as the PS2 port because they are the gaming optimized ports for your mouse and keyboard.  Digging into the documentation I found that what sets these ports apart is 3x more gold used in the connection over regular connections. They say this extends the life 10x when you are plugging and un-plugging often and the gold itself prevents oxidation. While you most likely won’t see a direct benefit by using them for your mouse and keyboard, if you unplug your hardware often you will see longer life. A lot of e-sports players unplug and take their gear to all tournaments so this could benefit them specifically.

The red network connection is for the e2200 Killer NIC. In the past I have been critical of Killer NICs because both Killer NICs I used in the past died (one card and one built into a motherboard). I will say that I have been using the Killer NIC in a LAN rig for a while now and things have been going well so far. I’m still a little worried about its durability, but from what I have seen they have improved things over the past few years.

For display connections you get a full sized DisplayPort and two HDMI ports. There is also an Optical S/PDIF-out. They dropped the standard DVI and added the second HDMI to save a little space for everything else. So what did that extra space get us? Well all the way on the right there is a small clear CMOS button for one. You also get room for the Intel Wireless/Bluetooth adapter that handles the AC in the Z97i Gaming AC’s name.   

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On the back side of the Z97i we can see the all black PCB even better. They also slipped a few of the required logos on the bottom as well. Even on the bottom of the PCB you can see how dense everything is to pack this many features into such a small form factor.

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garfi3ld replied the topic: #35311 13 Aug 2014 17:31
Things have been a little quiet around here but that is because I have been busy with both the upcoming LAN and working on reviews like this that take a little more time than normal to put together. Check out this four motherboard review of most of MSI's current socket 1550 gaming boards!

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