MSI Z170A GAMING M7 (LGA 1151) Motherboard Review

Software Overview

The manufacturer’s point of difference is not only the components it uses, but also what it can offer the user during day-to-day use. MSI, like others, offer many different programs for you to choose from once set up which can help to make your life a little easier. Most consider these additional programs a waste of space and ‘performance hoggers’; however, times have changed.

First up is the MSI Command Center. This is the heart and soul of the performance optimising applications that MSI have to offer giving you options from CPU, RAM and internal graphics processing (IGP) to the GAME BOOST functionality which inks in with the physical knob on the motherboard.

Along the bottom of the app are the advanced, settings and information buttons, these bring up individual bubbles that open up new windows for monitoring and providing information. The screenshots below show voltage, fan and sensor buttons.

The MSI Gaming App is essentially an extremely stripped down version of the command center. It allows you to adjust the on board LED’s, quickly choose between 3 clock speed profiles and all of the usual array of features that the gaming app has given in the past.

A key feature that caught my eye was the Mouse Master. This allows you to calibrate your mouse to tune out input lag and also configure the mouse click to your preference.

A key feature that has been implemented with the Z170 motherboards is RAMDISK. This takes a small amount of your RAM to make an ultra fast cache for your storage devices. It can be made with as little as 256MB, but it’s recommended to use over 2GB to see the real benefits.

With all of the Gaming range of motherboards, MSI include as standard the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility. You can download this additionally via the Intel website, but MSI have included this specifically on the driver downloads.

Another added feature is the Nahimic settings. The Nahimic audio software boosts the audio performance by supplying a high definition sound technology  which leads to clearer audio performance whether that be during music, video or gaming.

The video below explains how Nahimic can benefit the end-user.

The Killer Network Manager is a clean and simple application that allows you to monitor your networking connection and prioritise certain applications for bandwidth.

MSI ECO Center allows you to monitor the connected hardware and turn off the power to the unused components.

Super Charger is MSI’s high capacity USB charging feature, ideal to connect mobile devices to if you aren’t near an additional socket.

Live Update 6 is the backbone of the utilities. If you aren’t sure of all of the compatible utilities to install; simply install this and it will find all of the compatible apps, drivers and even BIOS updates available.

M-Cloud is exactly what the name suggests, a cloud based backup for all of your files.