MSI A88XI AC Review

[section_title title=”Conclusion”]Conclusion

When AMD announced Kaveri with the promise of Steamroller cores, I was watering at the mouth to say the least; were we going to get improved IPC performance with a better integrated GPU?  Well the short answer is no, not really and it left a lot of people disappointed but Kaveri does have potential and with boards like the MSI A88XI AC, it was easy to see why.  What did I think of the board on the whole?  Does it punch above its weight?

Well starting with the performance, it was hard to really to rate on the whole.  In some areas it was pretty nifty but in others, it fell short of the mark; this was especially the case during the 3D synthetic benchmarks such as 3DMark.  Although the motherboard is limited in size, it can certainly overclock with no issues at all which is a good thing and I had no issues gaining a decent sized overclock of 4.5GHz; this does increase the performance by around 10% which is a nice yield but please make sure your cooler can handle the temperatures.  Overall the MSI A88XI AC might not be the best performing motherboard out there, but it certainly does the job and for a small form factor motherboard, this would be highly suitable for a HTPC.

The design and aesthetics of the A88XI AC is another plus point, the black PCB gives it a nice finish and the motherboard isn’t too cluttered, especially for a board of this size.  In terms of bad points, I feel more effort could have been made to route the 802.11ac wireless cables over the motherboard instead of just letting the cables trail across the middle; although it is likely to go in a practical budget build, this would probably antagonise a couple of people and it is well worth pointing out.  Another point is the BIOS battery location, it is currently located on the back of the VGA port and I can’t for the love of me work out if it’s a plus or a negative.  On one hand it saves valuable PCB space but on the other hand, it looks a little low quality just being stuck there.  I will let you make your own mind up on that, but on the whole the board is pretty well designed and has plenty of features to make it worthy of a good score.

One of the main features of the board is the Wi-Fi support in the way of the 802.11ac wireless adapter which the board comes equipped with.  With its support for 2.4GHz and 5GHz, it makes it the idea HTPC candidate especially for those wanting to stream wireless media across their network.  This board isn’t just limited to HTPC though; it is easily capable of playing games at average/medium settings at 1080p.  Couple that with the potential of having a PCI EX Gen 3 card and Crossfire ability with an AMD R7 250, it makes for a hard decision in terms of purchase.

In terms of pricing, the A88XI AC comes in at a RRP of £74.99 which to me is hit and miss.  On one hand for the same money you could go and buy Gigabytes top A88X board in the way of the G1 Sniper but on the other hand, the MSI A88XI AC is more geared towards a HTPC than the concerning gamer.  For £74.99 you do pay a bit more than a standard ATX motherboard usually but the difference maker here is the 802.11AC 5GHz capable wireless adapter which is built in, which gives another dimension of use and allows the board to be a solid choice for an under TV media PC perhaps or even for gaming if you so wish.  I still however feel the price is a bit much given it’s “place” in the market (HTPC/budget gamers).

Overall the MSI A88XI AC might not be the ultimate choice based on looks alone but it does perform well and if it wasn’t for the lack of Vcore control, it would have scored a lot higher today.  That being said, if you are in the market for a media or HTPC and want to run with the M-ITX form factor, this is a really good buy and with the 2.4/5GHz wireless capability built in, it gives you exactly what you need!

A big thanks to MSI for sending us a sample in and I look forward to seeing more in the future.