MSI Z77A-G45 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS MSI Z77A-G45 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Pros: It's working fine!

Cons: The board is a little crooked looking, but works.

Other Thoughts: Took me forever to try to get the CD driver working. Eventually, somehow I got the network to work (the network driver was not working so I could not update anything) and after that, just downloaded LiveUpdate5 from MSI website and it installed everything for me.

Pros: It works

Cons: None

Pros: Everything seems to work OK. Board is larger than most bargain boards which I like.

Cons: I still have two bangs on the device manager (not surprising, read "Other Thoughts") and who put the USB3 socket in sideways? I had to take the board out again to connect the cable. This isn't a SATA connection, there's a lot of pins in these sockets.

Other Thoughts: Sorry, I can't be more informative at this stage. I put the board in to replace an Intel Z77 board which refused to acknowledge a new 7750 video card. Fortunately, Windows 7 booted up and loaded the drivers for the new board. I was truly shocked.

Pros: Color Skim
Quality
PCI-E 3.0
Price is great for a motherboard that has USB 3.0 and PCI-E 3.0 with SLI/ Crossfire Compatible for only $124 is a steal.

Over all I am very happy with my buy. Also MSI motherboards are good for overclockers like me.

Cons: I can not complain at all about this motherboard at this point. It's a great motherboard for the price you get.

Other Thoughts: This is a great motherboard from the last (MSI-P55-SD60 ) motherboard I had a few months ago.

Also you can turn off the LED lights that are above the RAM slots (if they bother you) with MSI's Control Center program on there website.

Also when installing drivers and updates I recommend taking the time and doing it from MSI's website because I tried MSI's "Live Update 5" program and it took twice as long as it did when I just downloaded them and installed them from MSI's website manually.

Pros: Easy install (if you know how to install), adapter for your speaker and HDD LED front I/O, the OC Genie is amazingly easy to use for basic OCing, supports my 2133 RAM perfectly fine with no issues, and has enough PCIex16 to upgrade to multi GPUs for expandability and is crosscompatable with SB and IB processors

Cons: The I/O adapter for the plugs is a bit of a pain still, but at least it's not as bad. I wish it had an LED Number based POST reader.

Other Thoughts: Overall, I'd say this is an amazing board, especially for the price! I recommend it to anyone who's not looking to do anything stupid crazy but wants to be able to out perform a lot of others.

Pros: Same as before

Cons: See other thoughts below

Other Thoughts: The issue regarding my GPU running at 8x instead of 16x has been fixed by reseating the CPU. Somehow there was a small dot of TIM blocking 4 pins from contacting the CPU slot. Honestly I'm not sure how this happened, as I was having this problem before I re-TIM'd my CPU. May have been an issue at the Intel factory, because it was the color of the Intel TIM (light grey), not my new TIM (dark grey).

This may also be the cause of con #2 and #3.

Therefore disregard con #1, #2 and #3 in my previous review. Everything else remains the same.

Pros: * Blazing fast, especially my SSD via the SATA3 Port

* Easy overclocking utilities, for both the experienced and inexperienced.

* Mostly stable (see con #2)

* Gigabit ethernet (and Network Genie isn't bad)

* Decent on-board audio (not going to satisfy audiophiles, but pretty good for the rest of us)

* PCI-Express 3.0

Cons: * GPU (Gigabyte nVidia 660ti 3GB) is only running at PCI-E 8x 3.0 instead of 16x, despite being in the proper slot, and no other PCI-E cards installed.

* I had the infamous "Infinite Loop" boot issue, where I thought the board was dead. It only happened once, and after being disconnected from power for 30 minutes, it seemed to have fixed itself. I have no explanation for this.

* BIOS can be a bit flaky at times, especially if you try to OC too far, it makes it difficult to revert the changes without a reset.

* Speaking of reset, the reset button does NOT do a full CMOS reset, as it retains the time/date. You have to remove the battery, bridge JBAT1 with a jumper they do not provide, AND use the button for a PROPER CMOS reset.

* No Virtu Lucid MVP license

* The plug for SYSFAN1 is on the front side of the board, meaning you have to extend your rear fan cable across the whole case

* As stated in another review, the forward facing SATA slots are a pain.

Other Thoughts: Looking back, I'd rather have spent the little extra for the MSI Z77A-GD65, as it offers dual bios, debug codes on the board (rather than on-screen), and Virtu Lucid MVP.

This board is basically just a slimmed down version of the Z77A-GD65.

Also, the fact that I experienced the "Infinite Loop" once, coupled with the fact that the board will not run my GPU at full speed, makes me worried it is a ticking time bomb before completely dying.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues that you are having with this product.
Have you tried updating the BIOS to the latest version? If not, then turn off the OC first and then perform BIOS update.
Finally, you can use GPUZ to stress GPU to verify if the PCIE bandwidth can actually increases to x16.

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with our tech support team directly at 626.271.1004 for assistance during regular business hours from M to F, 9am to 6pm Pacific Time.
Or you can email us at usreview@msi.com, thank you.

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

Pros: Nice board, solid board. Easy tune overclocking. I've failed some overclock, it reset without any interaction to let you the chance to remake a new overclock.

Cons: OC Genie 2 is not a Genie. with GSkill memory, it fails the overclock with 1.65v Memory and put them back to 1.5v and push them to crash the system in hard works.

Pros: Everything worked right out of the box. No problems.

Cons: Only has 2 SATA 6 GB/sec ports...
CHECK THE SPECS...

Pros: Good features for its price point. Idiot proof bios, and driver install.

Cons: Front fan connector is mid board right next to the 24 pin power, made for a long, crowded, reach to hook up. Varies by case so not a knock for the board.

Other Thoughts: 4th Msi board used in a build and not one issue. Hard to beat features for the pricing they have with the quality they bring.