MSI Z87I Gaming AC (LGA 1150) Mini-ITX Review

Ryan Martin / 11 years ago

Test System And Methodology

We used the following pre-defined test system – only the motherboard varies between reviews. We only compare results where consistent components have been used.

Z87 Motherboard Test System

Motherboard – Varies by review
Processor – Intel Core i7 4770K at Stock With Turbo Enabled
RAM – 16GB (2 X 8GB) Corsair Vengeance Pro Series at 2400MHz and 10-12-12-31-2T
Graphics Card – XFX HD 7970 Double Dissipation (Stock Clocks)
CPU Cooler – Corsair H100i (Quiet at stock and Performance at overclocked) with Noctua NT-H1 Thermal Paste
Power Supply – Corsair HX1050W
Main Storage Drive – Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD over SATA III interface
Additional Storage Drive – Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD over SATA III interface
Chassis – Lian Li PC-T60 Test Bench
Display – Dell U2711 Ultra Sharp @ 1080p
Operating System – Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit

We would like to thank Asus, Intel, AMD, Corsair, Kingston, Lian Li, Noctua and all our other partners who supplied us with test equipment and hardware. Their generosity makes our testing possible and without them we wouldn’t be able to produce the reviews we do, so thank you!

For the testing procedures we use a variety of professional software and free to use programs which you can see below. The full details of each test will be available preceding the graphs if you are interested in the details for purposes of result replication or further enquiry.

Software used: