MSI Z87M MATX Gaming Motherboard Review
Introduction
The MSI Gaming range, to a certain degree, appeared out of nowhere and wowed us with a combination of great looks, extremely competitive pricing and high performance. It wasn’t only the motherboard range that made us smile either, as the GTX780 Gaming is still the best price/performance graphics card on the market.
There are usually at least two models in the range, the G45 and GD65, but with the mATX Z87 model there is only the one. Considering that even the G45 was fantastic, this simplification isn’t problematic. We’ve tested both the Z87 GD65, and the MPOWER MAX, so we’ve got both of the high-end MSI motherboards available to compare this little pocket-sized offering to.
So without further ado, let’s find out if the reduction in size has led to a reduction in performance, or if the Z87M Gaming is small but perfectly formed.
Technical Specifications
Despite the smaller form factor the Z87M Gaming isn’t lacking for features, with plenty of USB ports and SATA connectors, to go alongside the fast DDR3 speeds and multiple video outputs we’ve come to expect from the Z87 chipset.
- Socket : LGA1150
- CPU (Max Support) : i7
- FSB/BCLK/Hyper Transport Bus : 100MHz
- Chipset : Intel® Z87 Express Chipset
- DDR3 Memory : DDR3 1066/1333/1600/1866*/2000*/2133*/2200*/2400*/2600*/2666*/2800*/3000*(*OC) MHz
- Memory Channel : Dual
- DIMM Slots : 4
- Max Memory (GB) : 32
- PCI-Ex16 : 2
- PCI-E Gen : Gen3 (16,0), (8,8)
- PCI-Ex1 : 2
- SATAIII : 6
- RAID : 0/1/5/10
- LAN : 10/100/1000*1
- TPM (header) : 1
- USB 3.0 ports (Front) : 2
- USB 3.0 ports (Rear) : 6
- USB 2.0 ports (Front) : 4
- USB 2.0 ports (Rear) : 2
- Audio ports (Rear) : 6+Optical SPDIF
- eSATA : 2
- Display Port : 1
- HDMI : 2
- VGA Max Share Memory (MB) : 1760
- Form Factor : Micro-ATX
- SLI/Crossfire Support : Y
