MSI ATX DDR3 2600 LGA 1150 Motherboards Z97 GAMING 7

Hi guys I normally don't write too many reviews for lack of time, but felt compelled to share about this hardware and the system my son and I built after seeing the result! This review was written on 02/21/2015...We bought the MSI Z 97 gaming motherboard to be the foundation of a new gaming platform for my son using an older Antec full tower case to house it all in. Anyone thinking of building a new system should consider the components listed below. After building the computer and turning on the hardware overclocking feature on the motherboard (OC Genie), loading all the drivers and updating using the MSI updating software, the system is stable, hasn't crashed once, and runs games at blazing speeds. My son says he is getting 100 fps plus from every game he has, while running them at max graphics settings, including a popular new title called "Evolve", where the graphics are just stunning. Some games he is getting over 200fps, wow. I went in and looked at Windows performance module, the 3.5 GHZ CPU we put on the motherboard is overclocked by the hardware to 3.95 GHZ with no stability issues. I have watched him play some of his newer games and the system just makes them look gorgeous, amazing processing power!Be sure to hook up dedicated 4-pin power from your power supply to the corresponding audio power jumper on the motherboard, lights up red when you start the system and looks really cool, supplies dedicated power to the rear audio jacks. One thing to note in the motherboard installation book it does not tell you which position to set the DIP switch to enable powered audio rear jacks until four pages later than where it tells/shows you which jumper to plug in dedicated power, that info should be on same page in manual.Remember the graphics card listed below recommends a minimum 750 watt power supply due to the high wattage of the card. I replace my older 500W power supply just to be safe. This is a huge graphics card so make sure you have a full size case to start your build. Another thing make sure you don't have any power cables in the way of the graphics card fans at startup, double check, the fans most be running. At initial startup we had a power cable that that got in the way of one of the fans, but we caught it right away and re-routed it so the fan would spin.Please note this motherboard does not have any IDE bus ports to support legacy drives, so all your drives must be SATA bus (the modern current bus) to run.On the motherboard there is a handy jumper connector for the front case wires that comes with the motherboard, you just plug the wires into the connector where labeled and then plug the connector into the jumper set on the motherboard, thank you MSI. Also this was the first computer I have built with a Solid State Drive and the data read/write speeds are indeed impressive. We splurged and bought the keyboard listed below, what can I say I never seen such a cool looking and well built keyboard, the colors and feel of the keys is impressive. This was a great project for me and my son, and the result was a screaming fast new computer which he loves, and was allot cheaper than buying complete from a regular vendor! Total cost was around 1400.00 if I remember right. [email protected] MSI ATX DDR3 2600 LGA 1150 Motherboards Z97- Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-7TE500BW)- Intel Core i5-4690K Processor 3.5 GHz LGA 1150 BX80646I54690K (Core multiplier is UNLOCKED for overclocking!) includes nice fan that seems to be cooling the CPU fine looking at the operating temps in the BIOS- MSI Computer Corp. AMD Radeon R9 290 Gaming OC 4GB GDDR5 2DVI/HDMI/Display Port PCI-Express Video Card R9 290 GAMING 4G- AMD Radeon Memory R9 Gamer Series Memory 8GB (2x4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 2400 (PC3 19200) R938G2401U1K- new Corsair 750 Watt Power Supply (new modular style - came with all the power cords needed for the new system and graphics card)- new HP 16x DVD/CD RW Drive (I had to get a new one with new style power connector and SATA bus (all my old optical drives were IDE bus)- Razer Black Widow Chroma click Mechanical Gaming Keyboard- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound 3.5 Grams for mounting the fan on the CPU

Awesome MB! Beautiful to see inside a windowed case, now if i can just get it to boot into windows while having a external flash drive or hdd plugged into a usb port! No matter whats plugged into usb it will not boot into windows! If i take all drives out of usb it starts fine!

The MSI gaming series has become a new standard for me in all gaming and especially overclocking builds. These boards are not only extremely attractive cosmetically, but they're rock-solid and reliable. To keep this sweet, short, and to the point, I'll let you know about the build I'm currently using with it, as well as pros and cons.Currently in the tower (as far as what matters)i7 4790k, ASUS STRIX Gtx 970, 16 GB Crucial Sport 1600mhz, Evo 850 250 x2 in Raid 0, WD Green 4TBWhat I like:-RAID was extremely easy to setup-The BIOS in general is laid out in a very efficient manner, with a great Interface - I prefer it to any other current-gen BIOS-The general build quality is superb - This board is eye candy but does not appear cheap-Efficient heatsinks and layout - Adding large aftermarket air coolers, additional video cards, etc. is very easy-Plug-n-play: If you want, simply plug everything in and boot up! There's no need to load into the BIOS to configure up your RAM speeds, cpu clock modifier, etc.-MSI Reliability: I've previously used ASUS and Gigabyte boards (Both of which I still like and have nothing against), but I've heard great things about MSI and have now used 5 MSI boards never with a single issue. Their consistent BIOS interface even amongst many different chipsets is very nice.-Comes with an excellent (albeit generic) instructions that make setup a breeze even for those whom haven't built systems before. Most notable is the tiny pin standoffs/pass-throughs that control things like HDD LED, POWER SW, RESET SW, etc. These are often the hardest things to plug in, and being able to plug them into the passthrough out of the board, then plug this as one unit into the board is a godsend. The instructions DO tell you what goes where, and I never had to second guess or move anything around after the first boot.What I didn't like:-Overclocking can be a little counter intuitive. The easy OC setting is good for beginners in that it allows you to one-click a lot of settings, but it also never teaches you how anything works, and could result in a poor setting choice.-I feel I may be paying a bit for the flashy cosmetics and advertising thrown into this board and not just functionality, however, I'm still happy to buy again just due to previous experiences.Overall, I can't think of much negative to say about this board. It's priced high, but it's probably worth it if you're looking for a top end board. Everything runs cool and quiet, it's highly configurable (I didn't even touch the surface on what you can do with Z97), and best of all - Reliable and durable. You may not need all the features that this board/chipset offers, but it's far better to have a good base motherboard to upgrade later than cheap out to save costs and not leave any room for improvement. It's also worth mentioning that this board is BROADWELL READY when it comes out - Yes that's right, it will support the next (5th) generation of Intel Processors.

perfect. well recommended.