MSI Z77A-GD80 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS and Thunderbolt

Pros: No idea, never opened it. I guess it looks good on paper.

Cons: The 3000 character limit here may not be enough for me to verbalize how much Newegg did me over me with this motherboard. I received this board, did NOT OPEN IT from its bag, and realized that in my last-minute decision to upgrade my processor, I neglected to check the socket again. Honest mistake, I submitted a trouble ticket to have it RMAd, expecting and willing to pay the restocking fee: "I have not used the motherboard at all - the box itself is not open. Is it possible to get a refund? I am willing to pay shipping and restocking fee." -trouble ticket submitted 1/05/13
Newegg offerred to waive the fee since the box wasn't opened. I wish just charged me the stupid 15% or whatever, because of what happened next:

Newegg received the board, states that the pins in the motherboard have been bent, and can therefore not issue a refund. A $220 board which I did not take from the box cannot be returned now. I have tried reasoning with them, cited the $5k+ that I have spent with this company, and pleaded them to do it the easy way, without a credit card dispute. To this day, I have this motherboard with bent pins and I don't know what to do with it.

Now before you go and say this isn't MSIs fault and the board is not faulty, I will have you know that MSI has been unresponsive to the multiple emails that I have sent them, offering to PAY THEM to repair the board, not even accept it for a refund.

Overall horrible service from Newegg - I will not buying from them again. You read these horror stories and think "oh, that's probably inept.. won't happen to me." I thought the same, it really happens.. companies screw people.

And after stating that I will file a credit card dispute, they reply: "Please kindly note that we will not be able to serve this account anymore if there is a chargeback or dispute." Well guess what? I don't care - your website has marginally better prices than Tdirect and dealing with this nonsense made up my mind very quickly about which site is more reliable.

I've been telling this story to many of my tech friends.. hopefully the more it gets out there, the more cautious people will be to work with Newegg.

Other Thoughts: Never even opened the board =\

Manufacturer Response:

Dear bklynleon,

We apologize for the issues you experienced with this board.

We can replace the board for you. However, there will be a $45 fee since Newegg verified there were bent socket pins. Please contact us at usreview@msi.com so we can assist you further.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team
usreview@msi.com

Pros: The overclock options are simple to use and the BIOS options are very stunning, also the mouse enables BIOS makes everything easier, tons of space for my Huge Zalman CNPS9900MAX heat sink, nice blue color, just a heads up the LEDs on the board are blue so if you have a different color scheme it might be a little bothersome. Always been a fan of MSI and this just strengthened it. the setup is easy, so no matter the case you can plug the buttons and USB port real easy in it. Plenty of expansion options. Great sound on the board no need for extra sound card, great driver options for the audio as well, also the thunderbolt port is great when that goes into mass production.

Cons: just wish the SATA ports pointed out so i can add hard drives on the fly. But they point toward the fron of the case making a mid tower kind of difficult to add new hard drive without taking out the board itself.

Other Thoughts: so far everything is going great will update with more in time if anything goes wrong.

Pros: Board has way more features than I will probably use and expanding isn't going to be a problem. It seems to be very stable except for CON (see below)

Cons: LAN port is being difficult.

Other Thoughts: I start the machine and cannot get a LAN connection then I reboot the machine and everything works fine. I sent an email to MSI and will update to once they respond.

Pros: Liked all the cable hook-ups, good for high end machine.

Cons: I was playing my computer for about six hours, I shut it down for the night. Went to play the next day and no visual signal to my monitor, odd because I had not touched it since the night before. Tried hooking it up to two different tv's via HDMI on both the motherboard and the graphics card, nothing. Then tried a regular monitor hookup from motherboard to both tv's and a monitor, nothing. Saw an adapter DVI/VGA that I received with my graphics card and decided to try that as a last resort, hooking that up to my graphics card i used it on both tv's and monitor and it worked. The problem must be with the motherboard since i never got a signal directly from it. I am RMAing the motherboard, overall I like the product, hence why I am not getting a refund and taking my money elsewhere.

Pros: Booted first time around with zero issues. Board has tons of features and plenty of room for expansion.

Cons: Blue LEDs on the top of the board are a bit much. Looks weird in my DF-85 with all the red.

Pros: Works stable for now although its only been a few weeks. Easy to set up and is working fine.

Cons: I waited to write this review until all the rebates went through when I built this computer and sure enough one failed to honor their rebates. Although this MB works fine I will NOT do business with a company who lies and cheats thier customers!!! I don't blame Newegg it's all on MSI! I have all the receipts and it was in the timeframe for the rebates, i'm just not going to waste any more if my time!

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with the rebate.
If you were declined for the rebate, then you must have either missed a required document, or the deadline.

You can contact our rebate center at 1-800-286-9146 for assistance and they will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Boots up super fast, easy to overclock, user friendly bios. Easy to setup.

Cons: Thunderbolt just doesn't work. I tried it with my Thunderbolt Display - didn't work. Then tried with Promise Pegasus R6, same result and finally tried with the Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter, same issue, anything connected to the thunderbolt port just doesn't get detected.

The user manual is poorly written as well making it almost impossible to troubleshoot anything.

Other Thoughts: MSI Z77A-GD80
32 GB RAM (2133)
Samsung 256GB 830 SSD in RAID 0
Intel Core i7 3770K processor

Pros: Great Layout
Nice color scheme

Cons: Packaging for this was nasty, NOT newegg.com but MSI themselves, the board is placed in cardboard with no type of packing cushion witch most likely lead the RMA of this board,
The board didn't post on fresh boot, Got "error code 55" right off the bat, Something to do with the NO memory being installed. Read on there forums alot of people are having this issue, The Entire (GD) series... I finally got It to boot, but with only 1 Dimm in, I installed it in every socket, but I could never get more than 1 Dimm to boot.

Be careful when you get this board, do a Prep-build first.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with this product.
Error code 55 indicates a problem with memory.

Were there any physical damages on the board? Are there any bent pins on the processor socket?
Can you try updating the BIOS for your board first?

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the product, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at usreview@msi.com and we will be more than happy to assist you, thank you.

Best Regards,
MSI Review Team | usreview@msi.com

Pros: Very high quality, had a quick question to ask MSI, got right through to someone very knowledgeable.

Cons: None.

Pros: • Thunderbolt
• Quick Boot
• Features. Things like overclocking, Thunderbolt, and fancy CPU options.
• Bluetooth keyboard support in BIOS
• Easily hackintoshed

Cons: • Cheap build quality
• USB 3.0 add on connector needed some plastic scrapped off of it before it plugged in. Odd.
• Using DSL3310 for Thunderbolt. Horrid.

Other Thoughts: For the price it's not worth it. I'll be picking up the Z77X-UP5 TH, or the Z77X-UP4 TH from Gigabyte instead. I was very disappointed.

• Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge
• Asus GTX670 Top
• Noctua NH-D14
• CORSAIR Vengeance LP 16GB
• 120 GB OWC Mercury Electra 3G SSD
• Seasonic SeaSonic X760
• SilverStone RAVEN Series RV03