Test System

Initial Setup

I had a lot of fun getting the MSI Z97 GAMING 9 up and running. Part of that was due to how well the board and my test VGA match, but there is also the ease of getting it all powered up and tested as that alone brought me a decent level of satisfaction. There was plenty of room all around to get all the cards and wires installed.


The VRM heatsink was a nice treat. It didn't interfere with my cooler, and the faint red glow that came off of it once powered up really made an impact. the rear I/O cover and audio shield really filled things out nicely and had me once again confident in MSI.


Getting both a reference clock and my standard overclock booted was quite uneventful. I did manage to push past the barriers I encountered with some other systems pretty easily, and the familiarity of DDR3 made it all that much easier. As is now the norm for me, the OC screenshot contains some scores for those interested in comparing the board's efficiency results to those with some minor BIOS changes. More performance can easily be had by taking the time to manually fine-tune the BIOS' settings.