MSI Z97 MPOWER MAX AC (LGA 1150) Motherboard Review

Introduction, Specifications and Packaging

When it comes to premium motherboards bursting at the seams with features MSI’s MPower and XPower motherboards are certainly well recognised. Although tailored specifically for overclocking, and themed to join the ranks of other MSI Lightning hardware, the M and XPower motherboards still offer all the high-end features we’d expect from a good motherboard. Today we have a motherboard with us that epitomises that from MSI, the Z97 MPower Max AC. Not only is it geared towards overclockers with its advanced BIOS, voltage read-off points, assortment of onboard tweaking buttons and even integrated liquid cooling but it is also geared towards the power user with Gigabit Intel LAN, AC WiFi, Bluetooth, M.2, SATA III, high quality audio and a shed-load of USB connectivity. There isn’t really a lot else to say about the Z97 MPower Max AC other than it has just about everything you could possibly want in a motherboard, and better still it certainly won’t make your wallet cry with a very reasonable price of £170 or $260. The full specifications are as follows:

Packaging and Accessories

The packaging proudly displays the yellow and black colour scheme of MSI’s Lightning series, you can also see that AC WiFi takes pride of place: this is a feature MSI are really pushing so we are excited to test it.

The back details all the features and specifications, find more details on those here at the product page.

The accessory pack is absolutely jammed packed. For documentation we get an overclocking guide, quick installation guide, software guide, user manual, some driver and utility CDs and a MSI LN2 themed door-hanger.

You also get front panel MConnectors, stickers to label your cables with, voltage checkpoint cables, the WiFi AC module, a rear I/O and a screw and user manual for the WiFi module.

You also get 8 SATA cables, that’s a SATA cable for every port – something vendors rarely do, you get the WiFi antennae, an SLI bridge, an eSATA rear I/O bracket and a molex to dual SATA power adapter.