MSI Z77A-GD65 (Z77) Motherboard Review

As said at the start, we were keen to take a look at this board, as you’ll usually see us with Asus or Gigabyte boards in our hands, and a look at something new and slightly different can be quite refreshing and it certainly was. MSI have tried to cater for all ends of the scale with their Z77 product lineup by offering boards for the budget concious, right up to the enthusiast, like we had today.

At the time of writing this, the GD65 is currently the top Z77 based board for MSI that has been released, but we are aware of the GD80 coming soon, which from the looks of things, will offer a bit more in terms of features, such as Thunderbolt, but that’s for later on, so we won’t dwell on it to much.

For now, the Z77A-GD65 really stands out, as it offers some nice features, with a lot that are unique to MSI, and the majority of this comes down to the quality, with their Military Class III components, coupled with key performance features, such as OC Genie II and Click BIOS II and THX authorised sound. These are all aspects that will appeal to the mass market, and ends up ticking some of the right boxes for our own criteria.

Styling on the board is second to none, with a dark blue and black contrast, which really gives the board an upmarket feel and shows that it’s here to do business and it does exactly that in terms of performance and overclockability.

The performance on the board fell where it should, in comparison to other boards, yet most of the other boards were aimed at the extremist market, yet the GD65 is able to rival that, at an enthusiast/mainstream level, which is great news for MSI, but maybe not so much for their competitors. In terms of the way this board performed, the thing that we liked the most, was how far it let us push our pretty dire i7 3770k. We made it clear that we haven’t exactly got the best clocking chip in the world, yet the GD65 was able to push it further than any other board so far which is great in our eyes.

After hearing me talk about features, overclockability, quality, design and style, you will automatically be thinking that it’s going to cost an arm and a leg, but at a measly $189, it’s one of the best priced Z77 boards on the market, not just from MSI, but from the other big brands including Asus, ASRock and Gigabyte.

MSI even thought about the little details with this board, like the package and bundle that comes on offer, and how the BIOS has been improved over previous generation versions. With specialist features aimed at overclocking, they have a very large segment of the market, that this board could be aimed at, especially with the SLI and CrossFireX capabilities, debug LED and quick clocking buttons, and various display connectors on the rear I/O. We simply can’t think of any part of the market, that this couldn’t be aimed at, especially with the price being so attractive.

For me, the Z77A-GD65 really does offer amazing bang for buck, but on the same hand, is an extreme performer, and offers innovation at its finest, while being an overclockers dream. Gamers are sure to love its capabilities too and that’s why we can only offer it the best award around; the Editor’s Choice Award.