MSI Z77 MPOWER shows off a lot of
advantages. Some are typical of the Micro-Star’s mainboard in general, for
instance, the hi-quality electronic components. Some belong to this specific
mainboard model, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support. However, these upsides become
the secondary once you face challenges which are available for you. Yes, everything
could happen: the product can turn out unbalanced, or we are simply unlucky with
this specific test model. Nevertheless, unfortunately, there’s no reason above,
as we pointed out the same problem many times in our reviews.
MSI
Z77 MPOWER shows off a lot of advantages.
You may see a slogan on the mainboard’s
package and the start screen would say that “Change The Game Of Overclocking”.
Right, we understand that idea. Checking the product before selling it should
the standard status when random overclocking is successful and unpredictable. The
“OC Certified” seal should guarantee the board’s ability to overclock, but in fact
nothing changed. The mainboard still doesn’t support V-core adjustment in
Offset mode, which drives us to accept the lower overclocking results, in order
to have an optimized and balanced overclocked system with all power-saving
technologies which are stable and operational. The additional quality control
step didn’t save us from any challenges with MSI mainboards.
The
additional quality control step didn’t save us from any challenges with MSI
mainboards.
Personally, the companies chose the wrong
approach to improving their mainboards. Only Micro-Star knows how many MSI Z77
MPOWER mainboards failed the pressure test, yet I am certain that this number
is small. In fact, we have never found problems with the way they built their
mainboards. On the contrary, MSI mainboards were often where we saw new
technologies, features and chips. We also complain nothing about the current
quality control system: all mainboards are always made very neatly and carefully.
Thus, adding another quality control check before the mainboard is delivered to
the consumers may theoretically reduce the already low number of defective
units by a fraction of a percent, but rarely more than that. The root of the
problem is completely different. The boards have excellent quality, but they do
not work well. Any perfect mainboard is just a well-balanced and organized mixture
of silicon, plastic and metal; and only software support from the BIOS could
turn it into a quality product, which is exactly the point where MSI need to focus
their attempts on. Maybe what it needs is a MSI Click BIOS III or even IV,
where they can deal with all concerns and issues that have reoccurred…
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Technical specs
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CPU: 3rd Gen Intel® Core™ i7 / Core™ i5 /
Core™ i3 / Pentium® / Celeron® support for LGA 1155 power slot
·
Chipset: Intel® Z77
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Primary memory: 4x DDR3 DIMMs
1066/1333/1600/1866*/2000*/2133*(OC), 2200*/2400*/2600*/2667*/2800*/3000*(OC,
CPU 22nm required) support, DRAM (32GB Max); Dual-Channel support
·
Card slot: 3x PCIe 3.0 x16; 4 x PCIe 2.0 x1
·
On-Board SATA : SATAIII (max. 6Gb/s, 2x SATA
(SATA1~2) by Z77); SATAII (max. 3Gb/s, 4x SATA (SATA3~6)); RAID ( SATA1~ 6x for
Intel Rapid Storage Technology enterprise (AHCI / RAID 0/1/5/10) by Intel
Z77)
·
USB 3.0: 6 USB 3.0 port I/O tail (2x Intel®
Z77 , 4x Renesas® uDP72020);1 USB 3.0 on-board by Intel® Z77
·
Audio: Chipset Realtek® ALC898; Flexbile
8-channel audio with touch-sensitive contact; 1.0 Spec compatibility
·
LAN: PCI Express LAN 10/100/1000 Fast
Ethernet bởi Realtek® 8111E
·
WiFi: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
·
Bluetooth: Bluetooth 3.0+HS
·
Multi-GPU: ATI® CrossFire™ Technology; NVIDIA®
SLI™ Technology; Lucid® Virtu Universal MVP
·
Internal I/O connectors: 3x USB 2.0; 1x USB
3.0; 1x Multi BIOS Switch; 1TPM Module; 1 Front Panel; 1 Front Panel Audio; 1
Chassis Intrusion; 1 Voice Genie (custom); 1 MultiConnect Panel (custom),1
Debug LED panel; 1 V-Check Points Set; Power button; OC Genie button; Reset
Button; Clear CMOS Jumper; GO2BIOS button; 1 CPU / 4 System Fan connection;
ATX 24-pin Power Connector; ATX 8-pin Power Connector; ATX 6-pin Power
Connector
·
Back-panel I/O port: 1x PS/2 keyboard/mouse; 1x
Clear CMOS, 1x Optical S/PDIF-out; 2x USB 2.0; 6x USB 3.0; 1x RJ45 LAN jack;
1x 6-in-1 audio; 1x HDMI® (max. 1920x1200p resolution @60Hz; 1xDisplayPort with
max. 2560x1600p resolution @60Hz).
·
BIOS: "Plug & Play" BIOS,
Desktop Management Interface (DMI).
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Dimension: 30.5cm(L) x 24.5cm(W) ATX Form Factor
·
Installation: 9 mounting holes
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