MSI Z97 XPower AC Motherboard Review

With the release of Intel’s Z97 chipset, we have seen motherboards of nearly all flavors get reviewed here. From budget conscious boards all the way up to the ‘I am made for extreme overclocking as a primary function’ type boards. Today, we get to look at MSI’s flagship motherboard, the Z97 XPower AC. This board is a step above the previously reviewed MPower MAX AC in both physical size (it’s E-ATX) and by way of additional features and accessories. Being their flagship motherboard, overclocking should not be a problem even under extreme conditions such as LN2. According to MSI, this board broke some world records while using LN2 cooling… Exciting! Let’s get down to business…

Specifications and Features

Below is a table with the specifications from MSI’s website, which shows the high level specifications and features. Some things to note here are support for up to DDR3-3300 MHz memory (assuming your IMC and sticks can support such speeds), five PCI- E 3.0 x16 physical slots (see details below for SLI/CFx configurations), the now seemingly standard M.2 port supporting speeds up to 10 GB/s, an Intel NIC, a total of 10 SATA3 6GB/s ports, a slew of USB 3.0 ports, Realtek’s ALC1150 audio Codec, and seven PWM fan headers. And of course, its an E-ATX form factor. Whew, that was a long, sentence! See the table below for more details.

As far as the feature set the XPower AC has, we cherry picked a few of them (images from the MSI website again) and their descriptions for you. On MSI’s higher end motherboards, they throw around their Military Class 4 components consisting of the DrMOS MOSFETs, which are more efficient than ‘other power saving solutions’ and deliver more power with less components needed. The capacitors on this board are a HI-C cap that MSI describes as being small but ‘super-efficient’. You will find these around the socket area. The Dark CAPs provide lower ESR and the SFCs run cooler with better current capacity and efficiency, which they state will allow for better power stability. MSI uses the MIL-STD-810G for temperature, humidity, and drop height.

Moving on, MSI also has a ‘Focus on quality’. They state their RMA has dropped recently, so that is always a good thing. Supporting, or better described as the potential source of that rate dropping is their use of ESD, Circuit, EMI, High Temperature, Humidty, and ECO power protection. Now, I am not sure how some of these would evolve their way to a better return rate, but I’m on the outside looking in too.

MSI brings over their DigitALL all digital PWM design to this board as well, which helps with more accurate voltage delivery and reduced power consumption. This is always a good thing, but to be fair most motherboards in this price range also use a digital PWM.

Next up, I wanted to show their little Wi-Fi AC, Widi, and Bluetooth unit. This tiny little box (maybe 1″ x 1.5″?) plugs into the motherboard at the rear I/O area. As the name of the piece describes, it is there for Wi-Fi capabilities, Intel WiDi support (must have a WiDi receiver or a device that supports it), and Bluetooth 4.0.

Last but not least, MSI is putting improved audio on their motherboards and calling it Audio Boost. MSI separates their audio components from the rest of the motherboard, and then covers the Realtek ALC1150 IC for EMI protection. Along with that improvement, MSI also includes a 600Ohm integrated headphone amplifier for driving a high-end set of headphones.

(Images from MSI website).

	MILITARY CLASS 4 COMPONENTS Military Class 4 is the next step in high quality components. The DrMOS II, Hi-C Cap, Super Ferrite Choke and Solid Caps will make sure that your PC runs more stable under extreme conditions. DRMOS DrMOS is the next-gen Mosfet which is used to deliver the power for the CPU. MSI DrMOS does not waste much power, stays cool and is more power efficient than other powersaving solutions. Because DrMOS is a 3-in-1 chip it delivers much more power with less components needed. This solution gives you the power to break world records. HI-C CAP A Hi-c CAP is a very small, but super-efficient capacitor. Besides ensuring enough spacing around a CPU socket to install large coolers, it also allows for 93% energy efficiency. Thanks to Hi-c CAP`s MSI mainboards are the most energy efficient in the market. DARK CAP With their aluminum core design, Dark CAP’s have been a staple in high-end motherboard design and provides lower Equivalent Series Resistance (ESR) as well as its over-10-year lifespan. SUPER FERRITE CHOKE Super Ferrite Choke uses a Ferrite core that is Super-Permeable. This allows the Super Ferrite Choke to run at a 35 degree Celsius lower temperature, have a 30% higher current capacity, a 20% improvement in power efficiency and better overclocking power stability.
	FOCUS ON QUALITY We put extra effort in increasing customer satisfaction. Our RMA rate has drastically decreased in the last few years. To achieve the highest quality the MSI Overclocking motherboards are developed by our most senior engineers on the most advanced production lines. We are continuously improving our customer services, so in case you might run into a problem you can be assured we offer a fast response to your questions and hand you in depth information on the subject. CIRCUIT PROTECTION ECO POWER HUMIDITY PROTECTION HIGH TEMPERATURE PROTECTION ESD PROTECTION EMI PROTECTION
	DIGITALL POWER PWM DigitALL Power digitally steers and receives feedback through a DigitALL PWM controller. This allows for pinpoint voltage delivery and lower power consumption.
	INTEL® WI-FI AC & BLUETOOTH The MSI Overclocking motherboards come with an easily unpluggable Intel® Wi-Fi / Bluetooth module which also supports Intel® WiDi (stands for Wireless Display). This way you can easily connect to other wireless devices in your home. The support of 802.11 AC and Bluetooth 4.0 ensures that you have the fastest available transfer speed. With Intel® WiDi and a WiDi receiver (not included) you can watch movies on your TV without the need for any cables.
	AUDIO BOOST Reward your ears with true quality. Get ready for ear-drum shattering sound, with MSI Audio Boost! With Audio Boost we’re delivering the highest audio quality so you can enjoy crystal clear sound and music in games. Because the complete audio circuitry is isolated from other features, you’ll enjoy less interference and more stability. The built-in headphone amplifier allows you to use studio-grade headgear and get the most amazing sound quality out of your PC. Studio level integrated 600Ω headphone amplifier Golden audio jacks for pure audio signals EMI shielded audio codec High quality audio capacitors Illuminated audio PCB separation

There are a few other neat features on this board I wanted to showcase as well. As was referenced earlier, the Z97 Xpower AC has a lot of space around the socket. This helps with easing your insulating needs for the extreme overclocker. For the average Joe using air, there is plenty of clearance around the power bits and the heatsinks that cool them. MSI also uses an OC Engine that allows you to keep your BCLK and everything attached to it at its 100 MHz rate. It can use straps to reach 125 MHz or even 167 MHz BCLK assuming your CPU can support it of course. You can eek out the last little bit of performance with the added flexibility it gives.

Speaking of pushing the limits, with Intel’s ‘mis-step’ of using an inferior TIM between the IHS and die, a lot of users have been de-lidding their CPUs to improve temperatures. MSI has a socket setup made specifically for those that want to de-lid called the Delid Die Guard. This guard helps protect the CPU die and provides secure mounting pressure, which are both sometimes a trick. They also include a nifty fan stand called OC Fan Stand, which helps get air circulating around the socket area. This will help in an open bench environment. I set it up, and it was pretty sturdy as they describe in that it will hold in specific positions. A nice value add to the board for sure. Note the fan does not come with it.

Keeping on with the overclocking theme, the XPower AC gives you a slew of on-board buttons and switches. Dubbed OC Essentials, these items are intended to help you with overclocking. The on-board button and switches provide a slow mode, disable/enable PCIe slots, +/- buttons to raise BCLK or CPU multiplier, complete power down, and the more common power/reset buttons. Its all there to help increase stability, aide in trouble shooting, and have simple push button overclocking to simplify things in the heat (seems like the wrong word here, heat…haha!) of the extreme overclocking moment. When you are ‘extreme’ overclocking you want to have an accurate idea of the voltages used, and that’s where the V-Check Points 2 feature comes into play. Last up is the addition of the M.2 slot and SATA Express ports, which support speeds of up to 10 GB/s versus the SATA3 limit of 6 GB/s. This board also comes with an M.2 to SATA Express converter.

	EXTREME OC SOCKET DESIGN What is more frustrating than not being able to properly fit your cooling solution on your motherboard? Through feedback from professional overclockers, extensive research, unique design and the use of Military Class 4 components, we were able to create a lot of space around the socket making sure you can fit any cooling solution you want. Having this much space also makes it easier to insulate the motherboard for use with LN2 or other extreme cooling solutions.
	OC ENGINE Run into unstable situations when pushing your CPU to the limit? This occurs because the internal clocks are linked through the 100 MHz BCLK strap. Thanks to a integrated Clock Generator, MSI Z97 Overclocking motherboards support more flexible BCLK adjustments, from 100 / 125 / 167 MHz straps. Using these straps prevents system crashing while overclocking on the edge and opens doors to achieve the absolute maximum.
	DELID DIE GUARD Whether it’s for 24/7 overclocking use or breaking world records, the MSI Delid Die Guard helps with your air, water or subzero overclocking activities. This solid mounting system makes it easier to mount a delidded CPU and helps to achieve lower CPU temperatures, making sure you can squeeze every MHz out of it. Whether you are a beginner in overclocking or a veteran, we hand you the tools to succeed. Helps to lower CPU temperature Easier and more stable fitting of cooling solution Protecting the die of your CPU Generate optimal mounting pressure
	OC FAN STAND Having trouble with your fans while overclocking? Are they falling over all the time when accidently touched? The MSI OC Fan Stand lets you easily set up your fans while overclocking without worrying about them falling over when your in pursuit of that world record. A sturdy, cool looking, and easy to use design makes setting up fans a whole lot easier.
	OC ESSENTIALS A small set of tools that are essential to get the best performance out of your motherboard. These features increase stability, assist in trouble shooting, allow you to keep your complete system in check and allow for simple management. This way you can keep your mind on overclocking.
	V-CHECK POINTS 2 After MOA feedback we enhanced the V-Check Points with 2 extra ground connectors. This way overclockers can use 3 multi-meters at the same time.
	PUSH YOUR SSD TO THE LIMIT Enjoy a blazing fast system boot up and insanely fast loading of applications and games with MSI Overclocking motherboards. We offer the next generation of high speed storage support through M.2 and SATA Express. M.2 and SATA Express transfer data through a PCI Express 2.0 x2 interface up to 10 Gb/s, making it 67% faster than SATA 3.0 solutions. Faster storage solutions with M.2 M.2 is the successor to mSATA, offering a 67% performance increase up to 10 Gb/s. M.2 is packed in a small form factor and is compatible with 3 different sizes to fit most storage solutions. All latest generation Intel® based MSI Overclocking motherboards feature M.2 storage. Flexible fast storage with SATA Express SATA Express introduces a new solution in high speed storage through PCI-Express, providing more bandwidth for the latest generation SSDs. We offer flexible solutions with an M.2 to SATA Express converter for more convenience.

Retail Packaging

As we look at the MSI Z97 XPower AC’s retail packaging, we see the familiar black and yellow theme that is MSI’s OC Series. On this box though, instead of an “M” for the MPower MAX AC I reviewed earlier, there is a “X” for XPower. The back of the packaging shows some of the features like the 16 phase power, 4-way SLI/CFx capabilities, OC Essentials, and the Intel Wi-Fi AC unit, among other things. As usual, not too much to see on the sides. When we open up the “X” flap, we see even more features listed on the left, and on the right is a windowed (plastic) pane that shows the board hiding underneath.

Accessories

Moving on the the accessories, to put it simply there are a holy ton of them. Anything from a door hanger, to the included 8 GB USB stick. Of course, we have the Intel Wi-Fi AC unit, the OC Fan Stand parts (fan not included), Delid Die Guard, a pack of voltage read points, SATA cables and labels, driver disk, instructions… and I will stop there. TONS of stuff in here people.

Next up is a Sharkoon fan you can put on the included brackets. It matches the theme and moves a fair amount of air when pushed. More than adequate.

Below you get your first glimpse of the motherboard.. And you know me, I love this black and yellow theme MSI has going on with their OC line. You can see, like in the MPower MAX AC, the heatsink around the CPU socket also supports water cooling with built in barbs that snake up from the PLX chip through the power bits. Other obvious features are the OC Essentials buttons at  upper right corner, five PCIe slots with the ability to run quad SLI/CFx, and the Audio Boost cover over the Realtek ALC1150 Codec.

Not too much to see on the back outside of the electrical setup of the PCI-E slots. Three of them are full x16 electrical and two are x8 electrical allowing the lanes to be divided up like so.

• x0/x16/x0/x0/x0
• x16/x0/x0/x16/x0
• x16/x0/x0/x8/x8
• x8/x0/x8/x8/x8

About the only other thing of note here is the doublers sprinkled around the socket area (8 small squares around the outside of the socket from 11 o’clock position to around 4 o’clock) that the IR3563B uses to work with the 16 power phases.

The next picture in this grouping just shows the socket area from a different angle. This shows off the 16 power phases, and the neat looking heatsink with the “X” on the sides. You can also see a better shot of the barbs in that picture.

A Closer Look

Moving around the board to get a closer look, I will start with the top left area, basically the socket. What should be obvious here is the cooler and its water cooling components around the clear and flat socket area. The board requires an 8 pin CPU power while the 4 pin next to it is there for when things get ‘extreme’ when overclocking. It was good to 5 GHz+ on the 8 pin in my testing. Also pictured is the 6 pin PCI-E power lead to give extra power to those slots for multi-GPU setups.

Moving down to the bottom left, we focus on the audio and PCI-E slots. For the audio, MSI has separated its audio solution from the remainder of the board as well as covered the Realtek ALC1150 IC to minimize EMI from other parts of the board. You can also see the different style, higher quality caps used as well. As far as the PCI-E section, we see a total of five slots, which support quad SLI/CFx  The additional lanes come from the PLX PEX8747 chip, which is hidden under the heatsink above the first PCI-E slot. For single graphics cards, use the 2nd PCI-E slot from the top as it is direct connected to the CPU and removes the small amount of latency that the PLX solution introduces. There are also two x1 slots between PCI-E slots 3 and 4 and slots 4 and 5. 

Around the PCH area there isn’t too terribly much going on. We can see the PCH cooler, the BIOS chips, a BIOS switch, the Boot to BIOS button (so handy!), a better shot of the M.2 slot, as well as a couple of ASMedia SATA controllers.

Last, but not least, is the DIMM area. Here we have the four DIMM slots that support up to 32 GB of system memory, the front panel USB 3.0 headers, and then it gets a bit more interesting. Here is where you will find the OC Essentials. The buttons and switches on the board make overclocking just a bit easier than using a software solution, which of course MSI has too. The +/- are for BCLK and multiplier ratio adjustments. You can choose between 1 MHz or .1 MHz adjustments by using the bottom DIP switch shown in the picture. The top DIP switch is for slow mode, which will drop the CPU multiplier down to 8x for the boot process and back up once windows is loaded. When pushing the limits, this can be a great tool because OS boot up can put stress on the CPU. The middle DIP switch is to switch between OC Genie modes. There is a 4 GHz Gear 1 (standard) or 4.3-4.5 GHz Gear 2 available. The other buttons should be self explanatory outside of the lightning bolt… that little button performs a full power off as opposed to just a bios reset. It erases anything out of the PCH as well. Finally, the voltage read points. There are a bunch! From left to right it is CPU voltage, IMC voltage, Core 0 voltage, iGPU voltage, ring bus voltage, and system agent voltage. The remaining three slots are grounds. There are a couple of grounds in this area so you can run multiple meters from the same source for grounds… nice thinking there.

As far as the IO goes, on the rear we have:

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port
• 1 x Clear CMOS button
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF-out port
• 2 x USB 2.0 ports
• 8 x USB 3.0 ports
• 1 x RJ45 LAN jack
• 1 x 6 in 1 OFC audio jack
• 1 x DisplayPort with max. resolution up to 4096×2304@24Hz, 2560×1600@60Hz, 3840×2160@60Hz,1920×1200@60Hz
• 1 x HDMI ports with max. resolution up to 4096×2304@24Hz, 2560×1600@60Hz, 3840×2160@60Hz,1920×1200@60Hz. This platform supports dual-display and triple-display function

For the bottom I/O:

• Front panel audio
• System Fan 3 header
• VGA Cease Fire (DIP switches to disable PCI-E slots)
• System Fan 1 header
• USB 2.0 header
• USB 2.0 header
• Dual BIOS switch
• Boot to BIOS button

As for the SATA ports, there are a total of 10. Six of which are mated to the Intel chipset, while the other four are powered by the ASMedia 1061 controller.

In looking at the board without the heatsinks, we see the 16 phases that MSI describes hanging out around the socket area along with its other “Military Class 4” components. Not too much to see underneath the PCH really, but there is the board in its unclothed self! The next picture just shows the base of the heatsinks. We see good contact throughout. I have to mention though, I really don’t like the thermal paste that is used. It has the consistency of slightly hardened bubble gum which made it a bear to get off in order to replace it. Not a huge deal as it cools plenty fine without it, but something I figured I would mention anyway. Last up we see some closeups of the CPU socket without the heatsinks flexing its 16 phase brawn.

Next we look at closeups of some of the ICs on the board. We first start out with the NuvoTon NCT6792D, the Super I/O chip for all your monitoring needs.

Sliding over the right we see the all important buck controller, the IR3563B. This is an 8 phase controller using doublers on the back of the board to manage the 16 power phases.

In the last two pictures I show the ASMedia 1074 (USB 3.0 controller/hub), and the ASMedia 1061 SATA controllers.

UEFI BIOS, Overclocking Software

The UEFI BIOS looks just like the MPower MAX AC I looked at with perhaps a few tweaks. The slideshow below shows the main options on the left and right sides starting with Settings, OC (detailed in the next slideshow), M-Flash BIOS flashing utility, OC Profiles, Hardware Monitor, and finally Board Explorer (shows what hardware is in what slots and other board level information). As I have said in the past, this UEFI implementation is one of my favorite. The layout is logical, and there are PLENTY of options to keep even the most seasoned tweaker messing with things for days.

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The next slideshow is the Overclocking screens only. After looking through these, I am sure you’ll notice there is everything you need and more to get the CPU to its limits.

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MSI Command Center

Last is MSI’s windows based monitoring and overclocking tool, MSI Command Center. You can do things like system monitoring, adjustment of fans, overclocking, setting up the OC Genie speeds, and even setup a RAMdisk.

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Test Setup, Benchmarks, and Overclocking

Listed below is the test system used for benchmarking:

Below are the stock and overclocked results for this setup. Like usual in my motherboard reviews, I used AIDA64 (latest version), MaxxMEM, SuperPi 1M/32M, Wprime 32M/1024M, Cinebench R10/R11.5, and Pifast. In most cases there are very few performance differences between motherboards, so we are going with simple screenshots of the results. We have a few boards to compare against the Z97, all Z87 based note, so we have some of that data as well.

AIDA64 and MaxxMEM – Memory Bandwidth and Throughput

Cinebench R10 and R15 – CPU Rendering Benchmark

Super Pi 1M and 32M / Pifast – Single threaded CPU benchmark

WPrime 32M and 1024M – Multi threaded CPU benchmark

 Overall Performance (Compared to other boards)

Since we have enough data from my previous motherboard reviews, we can put it all together to show the relative performance between them. The first graph shows SuperPi, WPrime, and PiFast. This type of graph on motherboards is really anti-climactic in that you will not see much of a difference between all of them. Outside of perhaps an outlier, all of these results are within 1-2% of each other. For most tests, this is a margin of error type of difference. One thing to note here is at the time I completed these benchmarks, I was still stuck on 2400 MHz ram, so in some tests the results may change a little for the better.

On the rendering side of things in Cinebench R10 and R11.5, there were little differences there with under a percentage point between the boards for the most part (again 2400 MHz memory used). The same story with the memory, outside of the copy results that was right up towards the top of the group. All in all, not too much difference as we have come to expect!

Pushing the Limits

As always, my favorite part of reviewing motherboards… though at this point, my poor little chip I think has seen better days. Nonetheless, we lit it up again and managed to hit 5.1 GHz on 4 cores, as using hyperthreading just gets the thing too hot. Getting there was a breeze with this motherboard. With me already knowing what voltage to put in being quite helpful, just inputting the voltage, changing the multiplier, and booting was all it took.

The tough part here was the memory. Well, I shouldn’t say tough. To be more accurate, I should say that my XMP profile for the sticks I use (Kingston HyperX Predator 2666 MHz CL11) does not work. MSI has been working closely with me to get my sticks to work with a couple of BIOS revisions. However, it still doesn’t work at this time. That said, setting things manually did work. I had to change (raise) a couple of secondary and tertiary timings to get things where they needed to be. In these discussions, MSI said they have the exact same sticks in house which work fine. Perhaps there is something up on my end, but those same sticks work in a different board with the same processor, so who knows.

Overall, as I have stated already in this review, MSI’s UEFI implementation I really like to work with. The layout, to me is quite logical and things appear to be where I would want them to be. Mouse movement is buttery smooth should you choose to go that route. Otherwise, tabbing through the options and changing them with using the +/- keys or simply inputting a value is a breeze as well. Keep up the good work on the UEFI MSI!

Conclusion

The Z97 chipset really hasn’t changed a lot features wise, outside of M.2/SATA Express implementations and its support for the ‘oh please would you get here already’ Devil’s Canyon processors. If you were expecting major changes, that just didn’t happen. That said, if you want drop in Broadwell support in 2015, Z97 is it (for now). MSI has a long history with their high-end boards and this implementation of the XPower will be no different.

They are using higher end parts and making sure that few, if any, stones are left unturned as far as features go. Being from their overclocking series, it comes with a lot of neat value adds such as the Delid Die Guard for those that have the fortitude to pop the top off their CPU for better temperatures. For the extreme overclocker, they have given brackets that go on the board to hold a fan to get air moving across the heatsinks and pot in an open benching station. Though truth be told, their heatsink really does a great job regardless, and I did not have a need for it at all with ambient overclocking. The socket area is relatively clean of your typical capacitors making for much easier installation of your artist eraser or armaflex to protect from condensation.

About the only complaints I have is simply wishing that my ram’s XMP profile worked out of the box. I am not sure what is going on with it really as MSI is running the same sticks at their office successfully. I was able to set the 2666 MHz speeds manually, as it appeared that it was setting some secondary and tertiary timings too tight (raised a couple of values to get the successful use). At the same time, it works in another board with the same CPU so like I said, not sure what is up. I also managed to somehow blow a bios out of the water by flashing it. Now, that bios is not even flashable/usable. I don’t foresee that being a problem but more of an anomaly and again worth a passing mention.

For the ‘regular user’ the Intel NIC is a solid, and a less gimmicky choice than the Killer NIC found on some boards, so that is a nice addition. It also supports up to quad SLI/CFx as well. Last, but certainly not least, is the Audio Boost/Realtek ALC1150 Codec and integrated headphone amplifier that wrap up some high level features that any user would like to see on their motherboard.

So that brings us to pricing. We know the XPower is MSI’s flaghship , and it will be priced accordingly. Currently at Newegg.com the board comes in at $399.99. Currently, it has two real competitors in that price range for the most part, the ASUS Z97 Deluxe (where oh where are the ROG boards?!), and the always formidable EVGA Z97 Classified coming in at $379.99. So, the pricing may be painful for some, but is spot on for its place in the market and feature set. With the Z97 XPower AC, MSI has really done another great job at bringing out a new motherboard chock full of features for both the gamer, enthusiast, and specifically the extreme overclocker. This board is Overclockers.com approved!

Click the stamp for an explanation of what this means.

– Joe Shields (Earthdog)