I have the MSI Z97 Gaming 5 motherboard which is the same as the 7 minus a few features. I've had it about a month. So far its been rock solid for me. No locks ups no BSOD's nothing. Very stable. BIOS is great lots of stuff to setup in their and very easy to use. The Killer NIC has been fast and stable. With my system and UEFI enabled my system boots to desktop in less than 5 seconds I'd say go for it mine has been awesome. I also like the fact that MSI has official support forums to post your questions etc and they actually respond

 

Thank you very much for your input it is appreciated !!!

 

id personally go with a gigabyte gaming 7, its 20$ cheaper and has 8 true phases instead of 6 doubled

 

I did check them both out and the only thing I didn't like about the gigabyte board is it only has one PCI x16 slot, I intend on running SLI so that board won't work for me. the MSI board has two PCI X16 slots so as long as it is a good board it would work great for us.
Thank you for the input though great information !!!

 

MSI doesn't have 2 PCI-E x16 slots. It's the same as Gigabyte.

 

Learn more about the MSI Z97-Gaming 7

Model
Brand
MSI
Model
Z97-Gaming 7

Supported CPU
CPU Socket Type
LGA 1150
CPU Type
Core i7 / i5 / i3 / Pentium / Celeron (LGA1150)

Chipsets
Chipset
Intel Z97

Memory
Number of Memory Slots
4×240pin
Memory Standard
DDR3 3000(OC)/2800(OC)/2600(OC)/2200(OC)/2133(OC)/1866(OC)/1600
Maximum Memory Supported
32GB
Channel Supported
Dual Channel

Expansion Slots
PCI Express 3.0 x16
2
PCI Express 2.0 x16
1
PCI Express x1
4

Storage Devices
SATA 6Gb/s
8 x SATA 6Gb/s
M.2
1 x M.2

Onboard Video
Onboard Video Chipset
Supported only by CPU with integrated graphic

Onboard Audio
Audio Chipset
Realtek ALC1150
Audio Channels
8 Channels

Onboard LAN
LAN Chipset
Qualcomm Killer E2205
Max LAN Speed
10/100/1000Mbps

Rear Panel Ports
HDMI
2 x HDMI
DisplayPort
1 x DisplayPort
USB 3.0
8 x USB 3.0
USB 1.1/2.0
2 x USB 2.0
Audio Ports
6 Ports

Internal I/O Connectors
Onboard USB
2 x USB 3.0 + 4 x USB 2.0

Physical Spec
Form Factor
ATX
Power Pin
24 Pin

 

When using multiple graphics cards, the PCIe slots do not operate at their full bandwidth. As with most other motherboards, the configs for graphics cards are:

16x, 0x, 0x

8x, 8x, 0x

8x, 4x, 4x

This is listed in the specifications for the board on their site.

I actually ordered the Gigabyte Z97 Gaming 7 today to replace my MSI Z97 Gaming 7 that I received yesterday due to the fact that it has better power phases.

 

Quote:

Learn more about the MSI Z97-Gaming 7

Maybe you should start opening product manuals and checking what that actually means?

Like Shaitan said, the slots are X16 in length, but electrically wired to X16/X8/X4, and then they drop down exactly like Shaitan listed.

 

For me it came down to looks. The Gigabyte board has the old stand up USB header which I hate. The MSI has a right angle so things will look better flat and nice and neat Yes I know a personal preference. And The gigabyte board looks like it has a million things going on with it part wise. The Msi is clean simple and very few parts used. Not over crowded looking like the gigabyte board. But this is all IMO mind you

 

Thank you for all the input I do appreciate it.
The situation I am in is I have two GTX 560 TI's sitting on my shelf with nothing to plug them into. I am looking for a board to maximize the video output by running SLI, maximize the ram and have multi-core CPU support. I tried using them on my AMD board and ended up getting BSOD's every few hrs. If any one has any suggestions that would be great.
Thank you

 

8 true phases doesn't always mean that it's better than 6 phase doubled to 12. MSI Gaming 7 has more efficient mosfets, better inductors and thus has more output potential than Gigabyte Gaming 7. And MSI's design is also harder and more expensive to apply.

 

MSI Gaming 7 doesn't have more efficient MOSFETs. It just has more of the same ones due to higher number of phases. Better inductors are also useless assuming "worse" inductors are enough to max out current on the MOSFETs. Yes there are a lot of variables.

 

You don't need more output potential unless - maybe - you do LN2 world records, in which case you'd spend more for specialized LN2 boards like the SOC Force or the OC Formula in the first place.

A ga-z97x-gaming 5 or 7 can do ~400W while you may never need more than 200W on air or water.

It might be better to look for a good digital controller and other quality components after a point.

 

Yes, but still digital controller doesn't mean much, if it's badly applied. Gigabyte z87 boards have slightly the best VRM compared to their counterparts on the shelves, but in the end of the day most of the people had stability issues even with running 4 sticks matched pair of rams together and that hasn't been resolved for more than 6 months.

So in my opinion, recommending a motherboard just based on its VRM isn't a good idea.

Also more of the same mosfets mean that there will be less load on each fets and less heat. Moreover according to fateswarm's calculations MSI Gaming 7's mosfets were slightly more efficient than Gigabyte's Gaming 7s. Not the same.

So claiming that Gigabyte Gaming 7 has better VRM compared to MSI Gaming 7 is just a bit biased thought imo. You'd need a lab stuff to find out which one is actually better, while MSI Gaming 7 has tad powerful on the paper.

 

Quote:

Also more of the same mosfets mean that there will be less load on each fets and less heat. Moreover according to fateswarm's calculations MSI Gaming 7's mosfets were slightly more efficient than Gigabyte's Gaming 7s. Not the same.

Yea, but not much to make difference for Haswell. Then there is an argument that Gigabyte got better caps and cheaper (also there is GB Gaming 5 is even cheaper with similar specs to both 7s while MSI Gaming 5 is lots worse).
Quote:

So I really wouldn't recommend a motherboard just based on its VRM.

That was never the case unless someone only cares about VRM.

 

Memory has a different voltage regulator. e.g. the GA-Z97X-gaming 5 has an 1-phase one with probably a cheap controller, while the 7 has the same CPU VRM but the memory controller is 2-phase and digital.

 

Yea I know, that's why I said similar. Personally, I could care less about RAM overclocking. There are few good OCing sticks on the market and RAM overclocking is a lot of PITA in general.

 

That's right but still that doesn't mean anything if it's badly implemented. While Gigabyte z87s having some badass components they couldn't even handle 4 sticks of matched ram even at 1600mhz. Most of the people had to use their memories at 1333mhz, some of them couldn't even use them together for months. I don't know if they manage to fix that though. But the problem was still there a few months ago. Then I stopped reading their forums. So well that means VRM might mean less when it comes to real life.

Also I wouldn't say Gigabyte has better caps. There isn't any good comparison between solid polymer caps and tantalum poscaps anywhere on the internet. All I know is those tantalum caps has more lifespan, that's all.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by fateswarm

Memory has a different voltage regulator. e.g. the GA-Z97X-gaming 5 has an 1-phase one with probably a cheap controller, while the 7 has the same CPU VRM but the memory controller is 2-phase and digital.

Well all of the Gigabyte z87 boards had that problem and they use IR controller and most of them are 2 phase and digital. Yet they had incredibly weird stability issues and can't handle 4 sticks of ram.

So well, it's not always the quality of the stuff, it's the quality of the implementation.

 

GB had some RAM issues. Some people experienced it, other did not. I don't know what with that, but probably they still didn't get memory settings for BIOS right. They generally overtighten timings compared to others, and maybe it had to do with that.

In general all boards have issues. For the past year I've seen few people reporting MSI board having BIOS failures. And since they have no ways of recovering it's either RMA or secondary BIOS chip (unlike GB they can't recover main BIOS from backup because it's GB patented).

Asus seems to have the least issues, well, except RMA stories and high prices.

 

You talk abstractly while I see no issue with their quality at the moment to be honest. But whatever.

I was even worried their mosfets may overheat now but it turns out they never reach their max.

They do on the 4-total-phases boards, SOC non-Force excluded. Those boards are bad.

 

That ram problem wasn't a normal failure and it wasn't about tightening the timings or about overclocking. It was just bad implementation. Gigabyte forums were flooded with those threads and people just couldn't get their memories run together. Some of them made it just downclocking their rams to 1333mhz

New series boards might be a lot better. That's why i say better VRM doesn't "always" mean that board is better than others.

By the way MSI boards can backup from second bios chip but just manually. Takes 10 seconds (maybe less).

 

Was there any pattern with RAM issues? Like if RAM sticks have certain ICs? Because Z77 Gigabyte thunderbolt boards didn't like Crucial RAM. IIRC people had issues even with qvl RAM sticks, right?

BTW. Did you try M-Flash portable bios chip feature? I've always wondered how it works.
Quote:

The stored data does not only have backup and upgrade function, moreover it can also be seen as a portable BIOS chip which is actually able to boot up your PC.

 

The VRM of gaming 7 is exceptional actually. I prefer it over the "Z87-ish" option of Z97's UD5H. It has more true phases.

Most people think of current-capacity of better mosfets like they need it.

They may get boards that can do 2,000W while they need max 200.

Yes, the XPower can do ~2,000W. The father of overkills.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by DeXel

Was there any pattern with RAM issues? Like if RAM sticks have certain ICs? Because Z77 Gigabyte thunderbolt boards didn't like Crucial RAM. IIRC people had issues even with qvl RAM sticks, right?

BTW. Did you try M-Flash portable bios chip feature? I've always wondered how it works.

As far as i read from their forums there wasn't any certain ICs. It seemed like any brand and any model had issues, from kingston to corsair, crucial gskill etc..

I haven't tried the portable bios chip feature yet. I actually don't know how that feature comes in handy. I only made a back up of one of the bioses and don't know where that flash drive is now.