MSI BIG BANG Z77 MPOWER Socket 1155 Mainboard Review

Motherboards/Intel S1155 by leeghoofd @ 2013-01-21

Designed for overclocking, usage of high grade military components and extreme durability are a few of the slogans the marketing people like to use to label a new product. The catchier the better, all of course to draw the attention of any potential buyer. Sometimes it's only the inclusion of an overclocking tool on the included driver CD that makes up for some of the bold PR claims. However for the enthusiast crowd almost each motherboard manufacturer has got a board or even an entire lineup specifically built with the highest quality components, OC friendly BIOSes and idem ditto board layouts. Sadly most of them boards retail at a steep price, as most OC designed boards are at the top of the lineup. Prices of over 350 dollars are quite common for an ATX format OC board. The Big Bang series are available already since the release of Intel's P55 chipset, MSI's range that are targeting gamers and enthusiasts. The Intel Z77 chipset based version is baptized as the BIG BANG Z77 MPOWER. Time to find out how this board reacts to the treatment at the Shrimps lab.

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Overclocking Software

MSI's Core Control center got a nice overhaul and now has a nice graphical and intiuitive interface, matching the board's theme. For Die hard overclockers things might be even more simplified and some vital RAM timings need to be added. But for the casual overclocker/enthousiast the updated Control Center is very easy to use.

 

 

 

 

The OC Genie boosted our i7-3770K CPU up to a rock steady 4200MHz clock out of the box. A nice gain by just  pressing the OC Genie II button. Other values can be adjusted via the OC Genie tab in the bios.

 

 

 

The Power LED can be turned on or off and a multitude of settings can be monitored via the Control Center software.

 

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