MSI Z77 MPOWER Motherboard Review And Benchmarks

Introduction

Motherboards are the backbone of your system and you always want one that will not only do what you want it to do, but you also want it to be as future proof as possible, have loads of features and run stable even if you overclock it a bit just for kicks.  MSI has been a player in the game since the very beginning and they have had their ups and downs in this industry as they have tried to expend and change the way they play, but one thing they have always done pretty well is make motherboards.

Although in recent years the entire industry has spiraled downward a bit MSI is still alive and kicking and releasing new products as the market dictates. By now most people have heard MSI’s twist on hardware as they have use the moniker Military Class Hardware introduced by Bruce Wang a previous product manager for the company and this has worked out pretty well for them as has the Big Bang naming theme. All of the Big bang motherboards I have used so far have been really sold boards that I can wholeheartedly recommend to enthusiasts and gamers who want the latest in features and solid performance. Today we are taking a look at the MSI Mpower Z77 Big Bang the next in the series of high-end boards from these folks. The box looks great, as do all the specs at a glace, but lets dig a bit deeper and really see what this motherboard is all about.

MSI Z77 MPOWER Basic Features

The MSI Z77 Mpower at its core supports the very same spec as any Z77 board with a little spice mixed in the recipe. The memory is four DIMMS running at up to dual channel operation for up to 32GB of system memory. The speeds supported are officially listed as up to 3000MHz on the memory which is one hell of a claim as many IMC’s simply cannot pull off such speeds but if you have a capable memory kit and CPU this board should be able to push it to the limit and past some to ensure you can bleed every possible drop of performance from it.

The CPU power is fed via a 8 pin power connector which is a major plus as some boards we have seen 4 pins put in place but with a 8 pin this chip should have more than ample supply no matter the clocking conditions.

The Chipset cooler for the Z77 MPOWER is solid aluminum design which adds to the overall rigid feel of the board. The main VRM heatsinks are interconnected via a heatpipe which allows cooler areas to sap away the heat from warmer components for an overall much cooler running system. Also worth noting is that in the days of cost cutting running rampant this cooling solution is screw mounted which allows for excellent seat pressure and also an overall much more sturdy mount of the cooler.

Some motherboards we have seen using plastic clip and spring style mounts which do work but are not optimal for proper contact or thermal transfer

Here we see the SATA Ports on the Z77 MPOWER board. This configuration is stock for the offering of any Z77 with no additional ports or controllers. This layout offers two SATA III/6G ports and four SATA II/3G ports. The omission of extra ports to some may seem like a bad cost reduction technique but I have seen in many cases where only a couple ports are used which means that the price added for the extra ports would be a complete waste. And lets face it since MSI is pushing this as a very cost friendly performance board decisions like this are needed and quite smart as it may allow for another more popular feature to be available.

The slot layout for the MPOWER is a triple slot setup with a dual card configuration having triple slot spacing which gives them plenty of breathing room. Once again this is what I would call cost reduction done right as most gamers and enthusiasts use one or two high end GPU’s in a build especially on the mainstream 1155 platform. This is one due to lack of scaling in games and also lack of available PCIe lanes for a larger GPU configuration.

Also down below you will see the 3^rd slot that is a 4x slot and with this slot you can use an-add in audio card, network or even raid controller card if needed. MSI does recommend installation of a 3^rd gen Core processor for the best PCIe allocation if trying to use the 4x slot.

The IO for the board is plentiful with many connectivity options. The standard PS2 combo keyboard/mouse port is in place along with dual USBH ports below it. These are no ordinary ports though as they are “Gaming optimized” ports as MSI states it with 30um thickness traces specially designed to meet the demand of professional gamers and overall providing a larger and thereby better signal path for the main peripherals.

Besides that top block there is so much more including six USB 3.0 ports which is more than enough for offerings now and even future as devices are just starting to roll out that can touch what the USB 3.0 interface can really do. Also on the back IO you will find a single Gigabit LAN port, audio jack and dual display outputs in the form of HDMI and Displayport. It is worth noting that the integrated Intel HD graphics will run dual display directly from these two onboard ports without the need for a discreet card but for heavy gaming use a discreet card is definitely recommended.

The last thing is of course the wireless connectivity options which are the WiFi and Bluetooth units which to our surprise was removable, I will dive a bit more into this shortly but these allow for almost complete wireless connectivity for a much cleaner and easier installation.

 

MSI Z77 MPOWER Advanced Features

Being a performance based board you know it would be nothing without some special features and also some overclocking magic thrown into the mix.

One thing MSI definitely wanted to hit on was the special testing that goes into every Z77 MPOWER board. Each and every board is tested under prime load for a minimum of 24 hours before being billed as ready to release and that may not seem like such a big deal but this testing is done with the CPU overclocked to 4.6GHz which within our own testing I can safely state that is a sweet spot for performance and voltage needed. This allows for absolutely optimum high performance without needing to crank voltage or thermals on the CPU.

To make such a bold move such as this kind of testing shows a real sense of assurance that this is a quality product to be put under such conditions before ever leaving the factory. As a byproduct of this you can be assured that your rig when you build it should run like a top at a nice steady overclock without issue as this baby has been burned in at the factory.

The upper right corner has a lot going on so I’m just gonna walk through some of it part by part to show some of the cool stuff going on here.

We have seen many implementations of supplemental PCIe power which always includes a 4 pin PATA connector, or on the more extreme boards, a PCI-E 6 pin connector all located below or above the PCI-E slot area. This has been kind of a problem for me as many of you have seen my systems and I like them to be reasonably tidy. A 6 pin PCIe cable or 4 pin PATA connector run across the board to meet a connector in those placements simply is not very convenient even if the cable is sleeved.

MSI did away with this kind of placement and instead opted for a PCI-E 6 pin connector very close to the 24 Pin area so that all of the cables can be routed the same way and it is quite close to the board edge for better cable management without having to resort to a large cable laying across the board.

Some may assume or propose that the connector bring closer to the slots is better but as this is merely supplemental power to the slots which by design is fed by the 24 Pin main ATX connector anyways, the routing of it from a similar location as the 24 pin but with dedicated large traces makes this a more than adequate solution.

If we were talking CPU power and 8 pin ATX connectors then we could agree as that voltage needs to be right on top of the VRM components to keep everything perfect and stable but in the case of the PCI-E power this is supplemental power to what the slots draw from the 24 pin anyways. Having the connector in this position would be of no consequence.

The onboard switches at the top right corner is a very nice addition but one we have seen before.   Either way in a test bench setup it really is a good thing to have, but there is one thing that really is nice when it comes to the buttons and that is the OC Genie button you see next to the power and reset. This button preloads a preset profile from the BIOS for an easy overclock at the press of a button. I know you’re gonna say “I’ve seen this before” but you really have not as this profile can be set within the BIOS to whatever you want it to be. This means that the OC Genie button is truly your one button overclock and not just a dummy OC or easy OC preset by the manufacturer.

At the lower right hand corner of the board there is a small toggle which allow physical selection of the active BIOS. This is once again a very cool feature to allow users to choose which active physical BIOS is being used which can allow for multiple profile storage or even testing of a new BIOS without losing what you have already.

The USB 3.0 header actually caught my attention a bit as it is right angled which we have only seen as of recent on some select EVGA branded boards on 24 pin headers. Seeing this used on a USB 3.0 header is really good as most header plugs for USB 3.0 are very large and therefore quite unsightly as well. This implementation allows for less of the dual style cable most USB 3.0 front panel solutions use. Also another oddity is that it is recessed back a bit on the board which I must admit I found rather odd. After thinking about it some I realized that all it takes is a hit to that connector to bend the tiny pins and break the connector so by recessing it on the board allows it to be hit laterally and avoid damage from the impact.  This is a winning design in my book as I am just as clumsy as the rest and I have been known to break a part here and there just by a dumb mistake, so any time the engineering team takes the kind of oops moments into consideration and addresses them in the design they receive instant respect in my book.

The VRM on the MSI Z77 MPOWER is a stout 12 Phase design for the CPU power. The components once again are exceeding military spec much like MSI has done for many generations now which means this thing will stay rock solid under pretty much any circumstance. The VRM is cooled by large Aluminum heatsinks which are expanded outwards to give better cooling while avoiding high vertical dimensions which can cause cooler fitment issues. I like this design as it gives more than adequate cooling for the VRM components while still allowing fitment for even some of the most bulky tower style coolers.

The WiFi and Bluetooth antennae we looked at earlier are shown here missing, as we mentioned before these are able to be removed to reduce system load or extra unnecessary components when not needed. This is interesting by design because from the pin layout it looks like it simply uses a USB style design which means it may be able to even be hot plugged although I will not be testing if this is true for obvious reasons. This I imagine will be a hot feature for extreme overclockers who like to disable onboard features to reduce board load down to the bare minimum. Well if the item is simply not there then there is not even a need to worry about having to disable it.

 

MSI Z77 MPOWER Overclocking

As with any board running Ivy Bridge the amount of overclocking is for the most part strictly dependent on your cooling.  Due to the thermal properties of the Ivy Bridge CPU’s  we have to limit ourselves to some point where most coolers of mid/high level can accomplish so for this task we keep things simple and dial it up to 4.6GHz and let the benches run.

One thing to keep in mind is that with recent generations of platforms we have found ourselves at kind of an overclocking stalemate here with the CPU being the limiting factor in many cases as to how far you can overclock and therefore the boards are more importantly judged on what niche items are offered which can make it more worth your hard earned cash.

Just for reference we have tested Ivy Bridge under cold with a much older Single stage unit and hit 5.5GHz quite easily and across multiple boards which tells us that if you are part of the small group who is willing to go to the extreme methods of cooling for some more speed it is there for the taking, but for most gamers and users they stick with air/water cooling which has inherent limits.

The MSI Z77 MPOWER board was able to easily pull 5GHz on simple non extravagant liquid cooling with only minor tweaking which definitely speaks volumes to its overclockability and what you can expect from this platform as it simply is limited by CPU form these current generations but if you have a capable CPU I think this board would be a very good choice to push the limits.

 

MSI Z77 MPOWER BIOS Features

The BIOS is a very clean and even dare I say nice looking layout from MSI with easy mouse function and many features built in. the overclocking is pretty well laid out and overall the GUI is very clean on par or close to the ASUS boards we had tested which is saying something as we have praised ASUS multiple times on their ability to really build a BIOS right.

One very unique feature of the MSI bios is the ability to boot to the Winki 3 which is a Linux based OS core which can be used for internet surfing browsing images and multiple other functions all form the quick booting you expect from a Linux based OS. I’ve never been a big Linux fan but overall this is a really cool tool if you just want to grab some information from the web and don’t want to wait for windows loading. It’s just some really cool stuff to fiddle around with in case you are looking for something to tweak around with.

MSI Z77 MPOWER Test Setup

We try and maintain the same test station for as long as possible to get the most balanced and easily compared scores as this makes things easier for us and also provides a solid comparison table to show the boards. All tests are run a minimum of 3 times and balanced as all test results vary in one form or another making multiple test runs a necessary evil.

MSI Z77 MPOWER Performance Results

MSI Z77 MPOWER Final Thoughts

Price, performance and cost are all well within reason for the MSI Z77 Mpower Big Bang as you really get what you pay for here. The motherboard has plenty of room for installing after market heatsinks that when it comes to overclocking is an irreplaceable feature that when overlooked leads to a very limited amount of coolers you can use. Luckily this board has zero problems in that area. Everything you need to get up and going is in the box as far as drivers SATA cables and instructions go and MSI did not skimp and try and cut corners on content just to save a few bucks.

The boards color scheme is neutral enough to be used in many builds without clashing due to some weird colors such as orange and green, as those colors are harder to match up.  Being black on black leaves your system wide open for modding or matching the color for a build, which for some may be a very important aspect of their purchase. With features that will attract many a-would be gamer or overclocker, solid software options and a very good support team MSI have a winning combination in the Z77 Mpower (Big Bang) Motherboard. Available on the web or in many stores the Z77 Mpower is a Editors Choice in the affordable LGA 1155 product lineup. Good job MSI, not much to complain about here.