Power Consumption and Fan Control

Power Consumption

We measure CPU power consumption since one of our first tasks is to truly verify system stability. I isolate the power coming through the 8-pin ATX connector using an in-line meter that provides voltage and current readings, and total wattage passed through. While this may not prove to isolate the CPU power draw in all instances, it does serve as a good indicator of board efficiency and effective VRM design. Total system power consumption is no longer reported as this figure can change depending on what VGA is installed. The sole board-only power measurements possible without physically modifying a motherboard are those taken via the 8-pin CPU connector, making it the only figure of value worth reporting. I use wPrime with eight threads selected in the options since it provides a consistently high workload throughout the full length of the test and runs long enough for the VRM and CPU to produce a fair bit of heat. Most average workloads will draw far less than that, although distributed computing applications are quite similar. This is not supposed to test stability since I use several other applications to do so, but merely to provide repeatable power draw numbers anyone can replicate. The meter used is an off-the-shelf Zalman unit that has been on the market for some time. It provides similar results in my test environment when compared with a FLUKE 337 clamp meter.


Power consumption with the MSI Z97 GAMING 9 was quite respectable, and idle power consumption while overclocked was superb. The increase to memory speed under OC conditions does tend to increase power numbers a bit in comparison to stock, but I only saw a 2W increase as compared to stock thanks to the clocks modulating down to low speeds for as long as the system is not in use. Some boards have failed to do so, which resulted in power consumption numbers under idle load and while overclocked that exceeded this board's by several times the 7W figure I saw.

Fan Control

MSI's Z97 GAMING 9 has some pretty decent fan control options, both in its BIOS and the OS. A few simple clicks and you can customize the controls for all fan headers individually, which is great for those of us with a lot of case fans or water cooling.


I have to give credit where credit is due, and some is definitely called for with the MSI Z97 GAMING 9. Everything I would want is here, and there were some extras as well.