Recommended Award
MSI Z77 MPower
RRP: $199.99 | Website: www.msi.com
Test Machine
Intel Core i7 3770K
Corsair Dominator Platinum
2666 C10
Kingston HyperX 3K SSD
GIGABYTE GV-N680OC-4GD
Cooler Master M2 Silent Pro
1500W PSU
Windows XP SP3/Windows 7
64-Bit SP1
W
e’ll not beat about
with the MSI Z77
MPower and tell it to
you straight. This board is
good.
Is it the best Z77
motherboard on the market,
no it’s not. Consider however
that this is a $200 board,
and then take a look at the
features on it. Its overclocking
capabilities and then take
14 The OverClocker Issue 21 | 2012
re-evaluate whatever position
you may have taken prior to
reading this review.
The thing is with MSI, the
vendor has traditionally
made better graphics cards
than it has motherboards.
This remains true today
and because MSI makes the
best graphics cards right
now for overclockers, the
motherboards are always
going to have a mountain
to climb as far in changing
people’s perceptions.
We have first-hand
experience of this; because
prior to receiving our review
sample we had heard several
enthusiasts make passing
jokes about the inadequacies
of this board. Since we had
not had a chance to test this
board first hand, we had no
choice but to at least head
some of the warnings levelled
at us about the MPower.
Well, after many hours
spent with this board, we will
tell you that our findings are
contrary to what we were
told. Keep in mind that, no
information about the Z77
MPower had come to us from
the vendor prior to the review
sample, and after that nothing
else came. So our opinion if
anything had a negative bias
courtesy of several very brief
conversations we had had
with overclockers about it.
It’s odd that this may
actually be MSI’s best
motherboard to date, at least
where the BIOS is concerned.
No other vendor, save for
ASUS possibly, has a BIOS
that is this smooth to use.
Just on sheer presentation
alone it won us over. See, it’s
easy enough to bludgeon a
user with an infinite number