MSI Z97 Gaming 9 Motherboard Review
Test Setup
MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC
Intel Core i7-4770K
nVidia GTX780Ti
Corsair Vengeance Pro 2400 & 2933
Corsair AX760i
Corsair Neutron GTX
Corsair H105
Custom Corsair 540 Air
Windows 7 x64Â
Overclocking
Overclocking on the MSI Gaming 9 was both as easy, and somewhat frustrating, as you’d expect it to be. Easy because MSI have absolutely nailed the BIOS, and the many overclocking features and high-end power circuitry onboard the Gaming 9 ensure that you can very quickly reach the heights on your chosen CPU. Frustrating because we could never quite get it stable at 5GHz. Now we know our i7-4770K is never happy at 5GHz for every test, but it will usually run most of them. With the Gaming 9 it just never happened, despite 4.9GHz being rock solid at relatively low voltages. Still, 4.9GHz is hardly chopped liver.
 Â
