MSI Z87M GAMING Intel LGA 1150 Motherboard Review @ [H]

MSI Z87M GAMING Intel LGA 1150 Motherboard Review - We take a look at another offering in MSI’s "GAMING" series. This time the M-ATX form factor Z87M GAMING caught our eye. Is this a case of good things come in small packages? Based on our experiences with the rest of the series, this is one you won’t want to miss if you’re looking for an M-ATX based motherboard.

Not sure what to make of this motherboard, and why two people would have such drastic experiences with it.

Darksword said:

Not sure what to make of this motherboard, and why two people would have such drastic experiences with it.

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Hardware compatibility issues likely because of BIOS immaturity. Keep in mind that Dan and I use totally 100% different hardware, and do two "separate" review processes. It is not odd to see differing experiences, and this is exactly why we do it the way we do.

Someone explain to me why we want KILLER nic's versus good old intel PHY adapters?

DarkStryke said:

Someone explain to me why we want KILLER nic's versus good old intel PHY adapters?

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Dunno, but I miss enthusiast boards that had dual nics. Very useful.

I've got nothing but good things to say about the ITX GAMING AC, I was uneasy about the Killer NIC but I used the drivers only .inf package from the MSI forums.

I'm sorry to hear about the mixed experience as I've become pretty pro MSI over the past couple years after some bad experiences with Gigabyte.

Indeed using the drivers only for the Killer NIC is the best way to go as the app just gets in the way and is pointless for me. I have had nothing but good experiences with the GAMING line, though I have different hardware that the next person. I do know that there are many happy users out there with this line, definitely a good buy with the price to performance/features being very good.

DarkStryke said:

Someone explain to me why we want KILLER nic's versus good old intel PHY adapters?

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We don't want them. While the Killer NIC's hardware is actually good, I've never seen anything pointing to them being better than Intel's. And once you add the drivers and software into the mix the Killer NIC looks even worse.

That's why I have an Intel EXPI9300PT N.I.C. installed in my 'puter. Both NICs on my MSI 790FX-GD70 are disabled due to high CPU utilization and I have never had an issue with my Intel NIC. This is the third machine it has been in.

GP40X said:

That's why I have an Intel EXPI9300PT N.I.C. installed in my 'puter. Both NICs on my MSI 790FX-GD70 are disabled due to high CPU utilization and I have never had an issue with my Intel NIC. This is the third machine it has been in.

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Yeah, but that's one of the better ones. Onboard intel NICs and those cheap 20-40 buck ones aren't very good or flat out suck. There's a halo around intel because of their upper end NICs, but those can often cost more than the board.

[/quote] I've never seen anything pointing to them being better than Intel's.[/quote]

The catch with the Killer is in order for it to actually perform perfectly you need to be on LAN, and it's benefits are game specific. Just as to get the full benefits from the better intel NICs you need to be streaming video or other items.

Neither the killer or a 200 buck high end intel are going to do anything for if you're playing games over the internet, you'll have slightly better management options, but you aren't going to get anything out of it. I wouldn't advise buying a killer NIC as a stand alone product, but they don't seem to really be driving the price of the various ASrock, Gigabyte, and MSI products that use them.

I view it like physX. It's a cool product and it actually does what it should. However it was nuts as a stand alone product for close to 200 bucks that ate an expansion slot with support from a small company. Now that it's built into other products from much bigger companies with vastly better support and doesn't ad over a hundred bucks to the bill I won't turn my nose up at it.

The Intel onboard NIC's, even the worst ones are still usually better driver wise than say your Realtek or Marvell alternatives. But your point is accurate.

Would this killer nic with just the drivers no software perform on par with the standard integrated intel nics you see on other models?

Dan_D said:

The Intel onboard NIC's, even the worst ones are still usually better driver wise than say your Realtek or Marvell alternatives. But your point is accurate.

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Drivers were an issue with Win XP and prior, they haven't been since Windows 7.

The only argument right now for an intel NIC over Realtek is standalone cards that cost a lot, in many cases more than a ROG board. Simply put, the NICs that are used in onboard aren't fully supported (or just won't work at all) in some applications and even operating systems. Thus if you actually need the intel driver, you aren't using intel onboard at all. Now some OEMs actually use halfway decent ones, but unless you're in the realm of multi-socket systems from HP or say Supermicro, you aren't getting those built into your board.

[/quote]Would this killer nic with just the drivers no software perform on par with the standard integrated intel nics you see on other models? [/quote]

The Killer NIC will beat the intel NIC on LAN gaming, but come in slightly behind it on large ass file transfers over a gigabit LAN.

Of course there is a huge caveat about this, what sort of LAN are you on? Because your switch and your NAS are probably going to bottleneck both the Killer and the intel option before the NIC itself has a problem. Is everything GBE with a properly managed switch, does your NAS have a 300 buck quadport intel NIC? Unless your network is up to snuff, you won't see any difference between Killer, intel, Marvel, Realtek, no matter how much money you throw at it.

Once you leave a LAN environment, you won't be able to tell the difference at all.

That's always been the downfall of expensive networking solutions. They're fine and dandy, but odds are your LAN or internet connection is going to bottleneck your ass.

Not to necro an "old" thread, but it needs to be said that the socket placement on this board relative to the first PCI-e x16 lane is terrible. I have this board, plus the Noctua NH-D14, and had to remove the fan clips on the "bottom" of both D14 fans to get a 780 Ti to even barely fit into the slot and even that was a snug fit. What's worse is if you have a x1 PCI device in the first x16 slot and your GPU in the second x16 slot, your GPU will be running at x8 frequency. It is IMPOSSIBLE to remove a GPU from the top slot with the NH-D14 installed, without snapping or breaking off the release lever on the end of the PCI slot. What's amusing is that MSI must have known this would have been an issue, lol, because the little release locks snap onto the lane and are a separate piece. I have to tug the GPU out and then replace the lock by just snapping it back in.

Yes, I'm aware that modern GPUs cannot push the bandwidth capabilities of x16 yet, however, enthusiasts should not have to settle for engineering short sights when they pay top dollar for components. I'm even more worried now since I returned my 780 Ti, which was the MSI Twin Frozr gaming one with no back plate, for the ASUS DirectCU II R9 290X which has a back plate that I won't be able to use it in the top slot. For this reason I'm considering selling the MSI board and probably going with the ASUS Maximus VI Gene or something.

Sad because I really like the I/O and dragon theming with the illuminated MSI logo on the chipset.

Dajinn said:

Not to necro an "old" thread, but it needs to be said that the socket placement on this board relative to the first PCI-e x16 lane is terrible. I have this board, plus the Noctua NH-D14, and had to remove the fan clips on the "bottom" of both D14 fans to get a 780 Ti to even barely fit into the slot and even that was a snug fit. What's worse is if you have a x1 PCI device in the first x16 slot and your GPU in the second x16 slot, your GPU will be running at x8 frequency. It is IMPOSSIBLE to remove a GPU from the top slot with the NH-D14 installed, without snapping or breaking off the release lever on the end of the PCI slot. What's amusing is that MSI must have known this would have been an issue, lol, because the little release locks snap onto the lane and are a separate piece. I have to tug the GPU out and then replace the lock by just snapping it back in.

Yes, I'm aware that modern GPUs cannot push the bandwidth capabilities of x16 yet, however, enthusiasts should not have to settle for engineering short sights when they pay top dollar for components. I'm even more worried now since I returned my 780 Ti, which was the MSI Twin Frozr gaming one with no back plate, for the ASUS DirectCU II R9 290X which has a back plate that I won't be able to use it in the top slot. For this reason I'm considering selling the MSI board and probably going with the ASUS Maximus VI Gene or something.

Sad because I really like the I/O and dragon theming with the illuminated MSI logo on the chipset.

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Have you considered using another cooling option? I am considering this board for a LAN box build using an AIO liquid cooling solution with a MSI N760 ITX video card stuffed in a Prodigy M case. You might think about selling your NH-D14 and getting an AIO cooler. Cheaper than replacing the board especially if you like the features.

Yeah I considered some AIO coolers, but, I'm skeptical since most of them are more expensive than the NH-D14 and offer the same or less performance at the expense of more noise. Also I'd hate to have to deal with a failed pump or a leaking pump on my components.

acerbic said:

Yeah, but that's one of the better ones. Onboard intel NICs and those cheap 20-40 buck ones aren't very good or flat out suck. There's a halo around intel because of their upper end NICs, but those can often cost more than the board.

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I've never seen anything pointing to them being better than Intel's.[/quote]

The catch with the Killer is in order for it to actually perform perfectly you need to be on LAN, and it's benefits are game specific. Just as to get the full benefits from the better intel NICs you need to be streaming video or other items.

Neither the killer or a 200 buck high end intel are going to do anything for if you're playing games over the internet, you'll have slightly better management options, but you aren't going to get anything out of it. I wouldn't advise buying a killer NIC as a stand alone product, but they don't seem to really be driving the price of the various ASrock, Gigabyte, and MSI products that use them.

I view it like physX. It's a cool product and it actually does what it should. However it was nuts as a stand alone product for close to 200 bucks that ate an expansion slot with support from a small company. Now that it's built into other products from much bigger companies with vastly better support and doesn't ad over a hundred bucks to the bill I won't turn my nose up at it.[/QUOTE]

That more depends on the onboard Intel NIC.

Look at the onboard Intel PHYs of the AGP era - they were largely identical to their discrete NICs, and even used the same drivers. (A rather interesting story is that no less than six different NICs and PHYs used the SAME driver family and software set, despite different speeds and packaging - that was the last PCI-only spin of Intel PROset.)

The Intel PRO1000CT was a typical Intel onboard PHY of that period, and shared drivers with the discrete PRO1000T/MT (and later no-lead PRO1000GT) - it was, in fact, my first onboard PHY from any company. Intel is one of the last of Ethernet's original Old Men to remain independent - in fact, the only other one is Hewlett-Packard. (3Com was acquired by Huawei - DCA was acquired by Attachmate.)

The other issue in the fixed-PHY space is that Realtek has indeed repaired their previously awful reputation - I wonder exactly how much nVidia's investment in Realtek Semiconductor helped in that regard. (What a lot of us forget is that Realtek supplied PHYs for nVidia nForce chipsets - both Intel-CPU and AMD-CPU alike.)

When I went back and looked at another review of the MSI Z87M Gaming board, I noticed that they had touched on the X-Fi MB3 software suite which has all of the same great features as the Creative Console when you typically have an X-Fi dedicated sound card. The Sound Blaster Cinema that I used previously off of MSI's product page for the board is subpar and doesn't offer anything substantial, like EQ, crystalizer, or anything beyond some slight preset modifications.

So I took my disc that came with the board and sure enough there's the X-Fi MB3 software suite AND the Sound Blaster Cinema. See here's the weird thing, the Sound Blaster Cinema I downloaded off of MSI's page works fine with the onboard/Realtek drivers but the Sound Blast Cinema AND X-Fi MB3 installers on the disc say "There is no supported audio device available.".

You can see guru3d using the software suite on their review, so how the hell did they get it to work and why can't I? Does the board support the software that was included with it or not? Because I can't get it to recognize any drivers from MSI for the onboard Realtek. I know it's not an X-Fi chip, however, the software is simply a suite of enhancements and I feel like it ought to work. I'm on Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit if it makes a difference.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_z87m_review_gaming,7.html

If I can get this to work I might seriously reconsider keeping the board since it will free a PCI-e slot.

Did you guys use the X-Fi MB3 software during your review?