The Board - Layout

The MSI Z97I GAMING is mostly black, with a hint of red and its black capacitors blending into the surface. As expected with such a board, the rear of the board is a mad mess of stuff.


The socket is fairly close to both the PCIe and DIMM slots, which might limit the number of compatible large coolers out there, but the back of its socket area is pretty free of stuff, so installing most backplates should not be a problem.


Expansion possibilities are limited as there is only one PCIe x16 slot. It connects directly to the CPU. With just two available, DIMM slots are also a bit limited, but that is the case with pretty much all mITX boards.


While the pins are spread across the board, most are right by the rear I/O towers, flanking either side of the cooling assembly. The front-panel audio plug is nice and close to the CODEC itself, which we do not see too often with normally sized boards, not to this degree. There are only two fan headers on the MSI Z97I GAMING, one for the CPU fan and another for a system fan. I think the board could at least utilize one more.


The MSI Z97I GAMING's rear I/O includes USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 connectors and an audio, PS/2, optical audio, and LAN port. Video connectivity includes dual HDMI ports and a DisplayPort.