Drive and Audio Performance Results

Our drive- and audio testing differs a bit from the rest of our testing for several reasons. First of all, when it comes to drive-performance comparisons, nearly every platform on the market is very close to all the others because most provide external drive controllers, making the numbers offered very platform agnostic. And finally, with audio, we do not list any numbers except for those reported by the product we are testing. This is to provide the most information possible, as each audio CODEC will behave quite differently. Many boards also employ a different CODEC. As such, there is no standard we can use other than the numbers themselves. You can always check our other motherboard reviews to make direct comparisons in audio performance.

We tested each drive interface separately in order to provide you with numbers that are as complete as possible. Employing HDTune Pro for all of the testing, we tested each drive outside of the OS environment through a separate OS on a separate drive. However, we put a fair amount of data on both the Crucial M4 drives(60% full) to simulate performance in real-world situations. Also new is that all USB 3.0 testing is done via the provided front-panel ports rather than the ports on the rear of the board since front-panel ports are more likely to be used. I also no longer test SATA interfaces using a SATA 3 Gb/s drive since SATA 3 Gb/s functionality is now a legacy item.

HDTune Pro (SATA 6Gb/s)

HDTune Pro (USB3.0 Front Panel)

The MSI Z97 GAMING's drive performance was pretty outstanding, providing excellent USB 3.0 numbers and fairly decent SATA 6 Gb/s results. Considering that the Crucial M4s I use for testing are only rated to provide 500 MB/s, I am pretty happy with anything higher, never mind that Intel's Z97 PCH seems to push things even further.

RightMark Audio Analyzer

Audio results are stellar, which is as expected. It was nice not to make any software adjustments to get decent RMAA results, which I sometimes have to do with other products. Having to turn up the line-in levels is normal, and I always max out the volume. With the volume cranked and line-in below 50%, the numbers speak for themselves. Audio is a big part of GAMING and MSI knows it.