MSI Big Bang Z77 MPOWER Pro Reviews

The MSI Z77 MPower is a jack of all trades, yet master of none. It sits looking nice, and those willing to dive into the settings should be able to get something good to work in a home system. But for a home system there is plenty of competition at the $210 price point, and extreme overclockers who want the best will only consider the MSI based on brand loyalty or funds (despite fierce competition +/- $30). What MSI need to do is bring out a specific gaming SKU, and another SKU that works for overclocking but can also be gaming oriented, for example with an add-in card with audio/network, suitable numbers of USB/SATA ports, and on-the-fly adjustment buttons. With these in place, they can then look to lower cost versions of each to hit various price points. The other three main motherboard manufacturers have recognized and done this, and I look forward to MSI’s entry for Haswell and Z87.

MSI Z77 MPOWER mainboard boasts numerous advantages. Some are typical of Micro-Star’s mainboards in general, such as high-quality electronic components, for example. Some belong to this specific mainboard model, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support, for example. However, these advantages become secondary once you face multiple challenges this model has in stock for you. Yes, everything may happen: the model may turn out not so balanced, or we are plain unlucky with our specific sample. However, unfortunately, this is none of the above, because we have been pointing out the same exact things over and over again in our reviews. You may see a slogan on the mainboard packaging and in the startup screen saying “Chang The Game Of Overclocking”. Yes, we understand what the idea was. The pre-sale quality check should have changed the standard situation when overclocking success is random and unpredictable. “OC Certified” seal should have guaranteed the board’s ability to overclock, but in reality nothing has changed. The mainboard still doesn’t support Vcore adjustment in Offset mode, which forces us to put up with lower overclocking results, in order to have an optimal and balanced overclocked system with all power-saving technologies up and running. The additional quality control step didn’t save us from any of the existing challenges with MSI mainboards.

The wheel of time turns and chipsets come to pass, and a year after the Z77 chipset's launch, you can pick up top-spec boards for a fraction of the price you could just a few months back. MSI's Z77 MPower is one such mobo, packing in a rather impressive specs list for £135. Bargain, but by no means budget.

Before continuing with our final weigh-in on the board, we would like to take this opportunity to give our friends at MSI a hearty “Thank You” for giving us the pleasure of reviewing the Z77 MPOWER board. To say that I've been eager to put this board on the test bench would be putting it mildly. Since hearing MSI's claims concerning the performance and overclocking potential of the board, I've wanted nothing more than to prove them wrong. Well, I didn't by any stretch of the imagination. This board is a rock-solid performer in both stock and overclocked settings. The engineer in me appreciates the over-engineered nature of this board. By over-engineered, I'm talking about the use of over-the-top power circuitry and components in its design which gives it such great overclocking and performance potential. Pair that with the features and stylized look of the board, and any computer enthusiast would go wild. The Z77 MPOWER did have a few minor shortcomings and areas of concern. The first was the odd placement of the CMOS battery and CMOS reset jumper. In order to access either of them, you would have to physically remove the video card seated in the primary PCI-Express x16 slot. The other feature that was lacking was more SATA ports. Most higher-end Intel Z77-based boards contain a minimum of eight SATA port, 4 of them being SATA III capable instead of the 2 SATA III ports included on this board.

MSI has built a very good motherboard in the Z77 MPower. It has shown to be a great overclocker needing very little input on the tweaking side of things. That is also one of its downfalls though. If you are looking into a motherboard that will let you play with BIOS settings all day, the Z77 MPower was a bit resistant for us on that front. Currently it is selling for $189.99 after $10 MIR at Newegg and $194.99 at Amazon which make it a solid purchase for those somewhat on a budget that are looking for high 4GHz overclocks and very good stability.

The MSI Z77 MPower is a very capable board marketed for overclocking at a quite reasonable price. The board has WiFi/Bluetooth both included and removable individually which is a cool and useful feature. The BIOS button is great as it makes a otherwise occasionally annoying chore as easy as a button press. The UEFI is smooth and just works really well with little I could see for improvement. The onboard buttons make for a easy to use experience along with the ability to customize your OC Genie profile to whatever settings you like. Some areas we would like to see improvement in are things like inclusion of at least enough SATA cables to cover the standard PCH ports. Also we think the layout of the V-Check Points could have been moved more toward the button area which would allow better placement of the 24 pin and 6 pin connections. The overall feel of the overclocking felt a little more difficult than other board but its probably just that we are more used to their BIOS at this point. All in all the MSI Big Bang Z77 MPower board is a good performer, it has some solid overclocking features, good performance capability and a very nice price point. The important thing to remember here is that even when I talked to MSI they did not want this board to be in the epeen contest with the big overclocking players, as MSI was perfectly happy being a capable player just as adept on the test bench as it is in a gaming rig and I think they pulled it off well.

The MSI Z77 MPOWER motherboard is a solid platform for building a high performance LGA1155 system. MSI has gotten the hardware right, and the features and software provided make it possible for a user to build a solid, high-performance system. The overall performance of the system was excellent, as far as CPU and memory performance go. OC Genie gave the CPU speed a nice boost and automatically applied the XMP profile of the 2133MHz memory I was using. USB 3.0 performance could be better if advanced transfer modes like UASP were possible; as it is, only standard USB 3.0 block transfers are supported. MSI goes for a black and yellow scheme with this motherboard, with brush metal accents calling out "MSI", "Big Bang", and "Military Class III" at various points around the motherboard. These days, this qualifies as "understated". It's attractive enough and will be supplemented by the various LEDs on the board should you have this in a windowed case. The construction quality...well, what can you say except "MIL-STD-810G". It's kinda hard to top that. And should something fail anyway, there's that three year warranty to fall back on.

Well, there's not much I can add to the list above. MSI did a decent job with this product, and the price is pretty good as well. I really like that they have a common theme available throughout the different parts they sell, like the Lightning VGA cards and "OC Certified" memory with the same black and yellow color-scheme, which really is MSI's own. When I stuck the included software DVD in and launched the autorun listing, I was really shocked by how much was offered, and I liked the LiveUpdate5 tool a lot, since it offers updates for everything you need right in one tool. Unfortunately, I was hoping for the board to be a top 3DMark performer, but it wasn't. Yet, at the same time, 24/7 use doesn't really need high 3DMark scores, as the Z77 MPower did manage to took the top spot in a fair number of other benchmarks, including 3D game testing.