First Look – MSI Z97 Gaming 7
MSI leaves the red dragon theme and returns to a more badged look. Like the other platforms, there are three PCIE slots for NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX. Four additional PCIX Gen 1 ports provide further expansion. The bottom of the board contains any USB headers and a power, reset, and OC Genie 4 button. Pressing the Genie automatically overclocks your Haswell or Devil’s Canyon CPU of choice. It’s not clear if the Genie will favor the cooler Devil’s Canyon processor over Haswell though. But hopefully we’ll find out in a future article.
Storage capabilities include 8 SATA ports along with SATA Express support. There is also an M.2 slot behind the chipset heatsink.
The IO panel features 10 USB (8 USB 3.0 and 2 USB combo in red) ports, a legacy PS2 port, clear CMOS button (careful not to accidentally push), two HDMI, and one Displayport. The Audio Boost 2 analog audio is different, containing a red port dedicated for standard to 600 ohm headphones. Dual OP amps give the audio a much needed boost. Finally, a single Killer E2200 Gigabit network port gives gamers the option of prioritizing their apps that utilize bandwidth.
In terms of quality, the MSI Z97 Gaming 7 has all the right components in the right places to create a stable gaming platform. It’s one of the least busy boards around. Like the other boards, the upper DDR3 overclocking spectrum is at 3300 MHz. MSI upped the software with an updated MSI Command Center and Gaming App for overclockers and regular users alike. It’s as easy as pressing a button or clicking a mouse to get extra performance on this board.
Inside The Box – MSI Z97 Gaming 7
The MSI Z97 Gaming 7 also comes with a similar bundle to other boards in this round up. There are four black SATA cables, SLI/CrossfireX bridge, voltage jumpers (oddly, for extreme tweaking for high-end overclocking which isn’t in the board’s repartee), matching theme IO shield, door sign for when gaming, two USB connectors, software disc, and various installation manuals. There is an MSI case badge and some cable stickers if you need help remembering which port has which storage device.
This is a relatively even bundle, and at $190 US/CA, it is certainly one of the more affordable boards of the round up.
First Look – ASRock Fatality Z97 Killer
The ASRock Fatality Z97 Killer is actually a slightly narrower ATX board meaning that you should make sure your computer case still has the holes for proper mounting. Since this is a budget gamer platform, mainly just the basics are being offered in this red highlighted board, which doesn’t include NVIDIA SLI support, with only AMD CrossfireX supported. It still supports SATA Express and offers an M.2 slot just below the first PCIe slot right next to CMOS and BIOS (1 or 2) selection jumpers. ASRock opted for two PCI slots a the bottom which are becoming a rarity just like the VGA out on the IO area. Users will get 7 SATA ports including one for SATA Express below the red chipset heat sink.
The rear IO panels include 8 USB (4 x USB 3.0 and 4 x USB 2.0) headers. All, but the USB above the green/purple PS2 port (left), are inactive till you install the OS-USB drivers from the DVD or website. There is one Qualcomm Killer E2200 network interface port. For video out, there is a VGA, DVI, and HDMI port. Like the GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD5H, these kinds of monitors are few and far between anymore. Plus, GPU purchases come with adapters so these aren’t really needed anymore.
Finally, the ASRock Purity Sound II is actually a Realtek ALC1150 audio processor. A few capacitors help support clearer audio fidelity though. With proper implementation, we’ve heard the audio create a surprisingly lively experience in games and music.
Inside The Box – ASRock Fatality Z97 Killer
The Fatal1ty Z97 Killer includes four SATA cables, colorful non-matching IO shield, software disc, manual, and various software options not typically seen with gaming boards. The board did not come with an AMD CrossfireX bridge so hopefully your AMD card does. As for the software, Keymaster can theoretically help improve your game through keyboard macros and mouse tuning. However, it only works on high DPI precision mice and most real precision gaming mice are already programmable not to mention, they have their own software. The same goes for the keyboards.
Other extras include X-Split Gamecaster and Broadcaster for streaming your games, but it’s only free for 3 months. Otherwise, it’ll cost you $24.95 every 3 months. ASRock Cloud is actually Orbweb ME which is a bit like having multimedia based cloud storage.
At $135 US/CA, this is the, ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 is the least expensive board in our round up, and likely one of the cheapest gaming boards on the market, and comes paired with a fairly unique software bundle.
Now that we’ve had a good look at what each of our round up motherboards are bringing to the fight in terms of hardware, let’s have a look at the setup and BIOS of each of the boards next.