[section_title title=”Closer Look”]
Now to take a look at the Z87M Gaming in its entirety. It is an MATX form factor motherboard. This board is in direct competition with the offering from ASUS in the form of the Z87 Gryphon, so I would expect the Z87M to have the same, if not more features. As you can see from the general overview, the motherboard is packed full of features for such a small package. MSI have used the same heatsinks that we saw from the GD-65 Gaming which really do make the motherboard look good. All of the space down the right hand side and the bottom edge of the motherboard has been utilised, we will look at that in more depth later. Something that I really liked seeing was the inclusion of Audio Boost. Having a sound solution that is supposed to be on par with a dedicated soundcard solution on a motherboard of this size, and for the price, is a massive selling point.
As we can see from the Heat sink design, MSI has decided to stick with the popular Z77 gaming design which adorned the previous board, a colour scheme which is predominantly black and red. However, unlike the previous Z77 generation of MSI Gaming motherboards, the Z87 versions feature a matte black PCB which is much more attractive to any prospective buyer. As you can see below, MSI have paid a great deal of detail towards the appearance of the heatsink. Both the side and top heatsinks on this motherboard, as well as the GD65-Gaming are the shape of the MSI dragon. Whilst this is a feature that you wont see during everyday use due to the orientation of the motherboard, its a brilliant little touch that I’ll applaud MSI for.
Upon removing the heatsink we are greeted with a view of the VRMs and chokes that hide below them. Â As you can see MSI have gone for 8 power phases in total with this motherboard, which is arranged as 6+1+1. As you can see, there is plenty of room to the top right hand side of this photo, however, MSI obviously chose this layout and design for the right reasons. Yes this could have been a stupendous overclocker if they had decided to cram as much onto the board as possible, but as you will see later it performs exceptionally well. Also in shot is the 8-pin, 12v CPU power.
A quick look at the bottom right hand side of the motherboard gives us a good look at the southbridge heatsink. This is adorned with a cut down version of the same dragon style heatsinks that we have seen on the previous MSI Gaming series motherboard that we have reviewed. There is one nice feature MSI have added to this motherboards heatsink which you may have spotted. The MSI part of the heatsink has tiny frosted inlays which, when the board is powered on, illuminate white.
Just to the right of the southbridge heatsink we have the SATA ports. The Z87M Gaming comes equipped with 6x SATA III ports, all six run off of the integrated Intel controller and the two eSATA ports on the rear IO run off of an AS Media controller. To the right of the SATA ports we also have a USB 3.0 header, which is a nice feature to cram onto a board lacking spare real estate.
In the bottom left hand corner of the motherboard we have the dedicated Audio Boost section. Audio is provided by the ALC1150 from RealTek and is assisted by a OPA1652 amplifier to ensure that your audio quality is a pure as it can be during those all important gaming moments. In keeping with the recent trend MSI have also separated the audio PCB from the rest of the motherboard, which is shown below by the transparent line, which illuminates yellow when powered up, with the audio boost logo itself illuminating red.
The rear IO is full of elements that are practically standard with the introduction of the Z87 range. We have a combined PS2 port along with dual USB 2.0 ports. Six USB 3.0 ports ensure that you have plenty of connection options as well as dual eSATA ports which are powered by an ASMedia controller and a , a Killer E2200 NIC LAN RJ45 port. We also have a good amount of outputs for people wanting to use the integrated graphics from their processors.
