MSI ATX DDR3 2600 LGA 1150 Motherboard, Z87 MPOWER MAX

First off, this MB is expensive but I obviously knew this and purchased it anyways... It's also huge, this is my first XL-ATX board so I didn't know what to expect. My case (Antec P280) supported it so that's all that mattered. Though when trying to install it, it fit into my case but the P280 didn't have all the stand-offs near the PSU to support the bottom row of screw mounts. I just have to be careful when plugging in cables along that edge or 4th GPU (which will be never). If you're considering this board, make sure your case can accomodate XL-ATX and has the stand-offs/mounts needed to securely mount it.The packaging was nice - almost a shame to throw it away. Amazon did a good job boxing it up too; even though UPS dented up the outer package, the MSI box was was fine inside.This MB is awesome if you get over the cost, it has more features than 98% of the competition. This MB is for over-clockers and enthusiasts and that crowd always pays a premium when purchasing components. If you have no desire for all the features, you should look elsewhere. MSI's M-Power or M-Power Max are good alternatives with nice overclocking functions for a lot less money. The selling point to me over others in this class was the PLX chip that enables additional PCIE lanes for cross-fire (also has a PLX bypass PCIE port for single GPU setup), the built in mSATA port and the Realtek ALC1150 sound processor. I don't plan on using this a bench so the on board OC buttons and voltage meter test points don't mean anything to me but they look nice. Speaking of esthetics this board is a pleasure to look at; all black PCB with the LED lights looks nice (my case doesn't have windows so it was nice to look at before I put the side panel on). Looks better than my previous ASRock MB which was also black and much better than my Gigabyte MB which was black and orange.The BIOS isn't as nice as Gigabyte's but that's subjective and I'm sure others will disagree with me; this is just my personal opinion. The wireless features (WiFi, BT & WiDi) are nice extras but they'll go unused on my setup; these are standard features on most higher end MB's - which were unused on my previous MB's as well. The nice thing about this MB is that the Wireless module plugged into the motherboard by the I/O backplate, many other MB's either use a mPCI express slot or a PCIe x1 slot. Remember to screw the module in before mounting the board into your case; forgetting this detail will have you removing eveything and starting over because it screws in from the back of the board...Everything booted up fine on first try, got the BIOS configured the way I wanted and loaded up the OS; I first had problems getting SSD caching configured with RST - kept crashing when setting the controller to RAID, but MSI added a handy utility that automatically configured everything for you including the BIOS. Tried using this utility after several manual attempts and it worked, the board stopped crashing after rebooting. I still can't tell what it did differently from my manual configuration attempt. All the settings were the same as what I set manually but go figure... I'm just happy it worked what ever it did.Haven't tried over-clocking it yet beyond the auto OC-Genie (4.0GHz) until I get a better CPU cooler. Going for the best air option as my ordeal with my Corsair water cooler didn't turn out well with my previous Gigabyte build. With 32 power phases, this MB has two sets of 8-pin CPU power connections but only one is required unless you intend on heavy overclocking. I went ahead and plugged the second one in anyways because my PSU supported it.Overall this is the most expensive board and the best featured board I've ever had the pleasure to own and play with. If budget is your priority then you can find a cheaper MB from MSI or other vendors. You get what you pay for so if you don't need the extra's you get with this premium MB don't get this one. If you want all the bells and whistles, then be prepared to pay for it...

I still use this works great!

I have mixed feelings.The bios seems somewhat ok, but the Command Center software to control things, sucks.I tell the MSI customer service guys I'm getting freezes/hangs, and his first response is "did you try reinstalling it?"I do IT work and I know it's a question to cover bases, but seriously, looking around the net, I'm not the first.Command center also seems to read higher/lower voltages and fan speeds than what is actually present. I wasn't oc'ing and it said 1.296vcore. CPUz, OCCT, Aida, all report other temps/voltages. But they're all the same, Command Center is the oddball.The bios is the only way to control fan speeds across multiple reboots. Command center, if it crashes, or you reboot, you have to reset EVERYTHING. The fan control is superior in Command Center, so this sucks.The options on the board are awesome. No other board has 32 power phases. It also comes with full x16/x16 SLI/Crossfire support.It also has a discharge button that not only clear cmos, but also other chips on the board which never get cleared on other boards where the only option is a clear cmos button or pulling the cmos battery. It might not be necessary 90% of the time, but if for some reason you had issues with new gpu's etc, this button will give you peace of mind that EVERYTHING is wiped for proper troubleshooting.These were the reason I bought it, nobody else can match that.Customer service seems average, I've had a few inquiries thus far. 1 out of 3 have been challenging.400$ though, that's awful steep. But nobody else has 32 power phases, full speed SLI, and the magical button. Oh, and nobody else comes with WIDI. And nobody else does a torture test on their boards like this one.They power it up with a cpu running at 4ghz, then leave it running for X hours with NO airflow across the mobo... a true test to weed out the winners and losers.Overall, I'll probably keep it since nobody comes close, but I wish they would fix the command center software and get their bios's tuned a bit more. It's been out more than several months so they should already be pretty much finished with bios adjustments, but obviously not.

This product is the best Z87 Haswell motherboard out that you can buy. Everything you've read about it being awesome is true. You might hear a lot of things about the Killer Ethernet being bad but that is 100% untrue. The problem was the board launched with bad drivers on the install DVD for the Killer Ethernet so in a lot of cases, the driver won't activate the ethernet port. The workaround? Go to the MSI website, choose your correct motherboard and download the latest drivers for the Killer Ethernet Chipset!Just download that latest driver and install the software suite and everything will work 100%.If that direct link doesn't work, you can always go to Qualcomm's Killer Ethernet product page and download the latest driver suite.You'll want to download the drivers in the Killer(tm) e2200, Wireless-N 1102, 1103 and 1202 tab. Download the version for you operating system (Either 32-bit of 64-bit). Install and it'll be 100% working!I hope this helps anybody having problems with the Killer Ethernet drivers and port. I just hate seeing these boards get a bad wrap because some faulty drivers were released. That does NOT mean the board or the ethernet port is broken. The Killer Ethernet by Qualcomm has been tested to be on par and equal to Intel and Realtek offerings on most other consumer flagship motherboards.MSI Z87 XPowerIntel Core i7-4770k @ 4.8Ghz using custom water cooling loop32GB Corsair Domintor Platinum DDR3 2400Mhz CAS10 (4GB x 4)Nvidia GTX 780Ti Tri-SLICorsair AX1200i PSUOCZ Vector 256GB SSDRoccat Ryos MK Pro Mechanical Gaming Keyboard w/ Cherry MX Brown SwitchesRoccat Kone XTD Mouse

che dire, scheda madre di altissimo livello, ho acquistato nello stesso periodo una asus formula vi e questa msi, posso dire la preferisco per le caratteristiche eccezionali che offre, trasmette una solidità incredibile, supporto a 64 gb di ram ddr3 3000 hz, dal vivo è molto più bella per chi come me da una certa importanza all estetica. In conclusione sono estremamente soddisfatto.Ripeto però, la differenza è amazon!!!non hanno rivali nel servizio garantito, nel servizio resi, nella disponibilità, è come acquistare prodotti nel negozietto sotto casa.

Item broken and unfonctionnal properly