MSI Z97 Gaming 7 (LGA 1150) Motherboard Review

Overclocking

Overclocking went exactly to plan: we know our 4770K cannot do more than 4.8GHz without overheating from the additional volts required to get to 4.9GHz and unsurprisingly we topped out at 4.8GHz on this motherboard. We needed around 1.275 volts to achieve 4.8GHz which is a strong showing from this motherboard and we can see the 12 phase VRM doing its job. In reality the 12 phase VRM is massive overkill for Haswell CPUs because the VRM is controlled on-die but nonetheless it is great to have such a powerful overclocking motherboard. Maybe we will see the 12 phase VRM come into its own on Intel’s new Haswell Refresh K Series CPUs expected later this year.