- Intel Z97
- Core i7 / i5 / i3 / Pentium / Celeron (LGA1150)
- DDR3 3300(OC)/3200(OC)/3100(OC)
Decent Board
01/08/2016
This review is from: MSI Z97S SLI Plus LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Pros:
- PCI-e x1 in front of x16, so I still get use out of one PCI-e in multi-GPU setups.
- USBs-a-plenty.
- Great on-board soundcard and audio inputs.
- MSI tech support is fantastic (didn't realize at the time that I couldn't install the OS on a chassis USB port connected to an on-board USB header and had to use the motherboard USB instead - stayed on the phone with the manager for an hour past their closing times, and he provided images through e-mail and everything. What a fantastic company.)
- Right-angle SATA and USB 3.0 header is genius.
- Nice aesthetics.
Cons:
- M.2 is only x2 and underneath my giant CPU cooler - shame.
- Bought myself a board with an M.2 x4 and donated this board to my brother thinking that the Z97 chipset could OC his G3258 past 4.6Ghz 1.38v both cores on his previous Gigabyte B85 chipset board; was wholly disappointed when I discovered that the maximum OC I could perform was 4.5Ghz 1.375v both cores with an unstable 4.2Ghz cache. Boosting the voltage to 1.4v still couldn't handle either 4.6Ghz core or 4.3Ghz cache - double shame.
Overall Review:
- If you're not utilizing the M.2 port or planning on doing any crazy OCs but still need the Z97 chipset on a standard-ATX board this is a great motherboard.
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- Anonymous
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Verified Owner
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Owned For:
1 month to 1 year
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