Review: MSI Z87-G45 Gaming

Final thoughts

...covering all the expected bases and built with thought and care in mind, MSI's Gaming motherboards, much like its graphics cards, are solid in every respect.

It is safe to say that most enthusiasts looking to build a new system will look towards Intel's 4th Generation Haswell processors. Once the choice of CPU is made, the next step in specifying a build should be to look at motherboards. MSI is therefore hoping that the Z87 G-45 Gaming piques your interest, as it has ours.

Presented nicely and laid out with care, MSI has included a sensible number of value-adds on top of the Z87 chipset. Backed by a well-stocked BIOS and performing as well as any other LGA1150 board in our tests, the £115 street price represents good value. We're struggling to think of any genuinely bad points, which is always the sign of an above-average board, and we can certainly recommend putting the G-45 Gaming on a shortlist for that next build.

Bottom line: covering all the expected bases and built with thought and care in mind, MSI's Gaming motherboards, much like its graphics cards, are solid in every respect.

The Good

Good selection of features
Good BIOS
Very solid performance
Competitively priced

The Bad

No onboard buttons or debug LCD

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MSI Z87 G-45 Gaming

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The MSI Z87 G-45 Gaming motherboard is available to purchase from Scan Computers*

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.

*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.

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I've been looking for an opinion on these boards for my new build, glad it ticks Hexus's boxes. I don't like the dragon on it, though so am leaning heavily towards the MSI Z87 MPOWER. I believe they are pretty much the same board, but the MPower has been more heavily factory tested to ensure stability (or something).

The MPOWER has onboard buttons and debug LCD, which are the two drawback's hexus list in this review - so I guess you could say it's the perfect motherboard!

I have the Z77 MPower and it's bloody great.

Butuz

Ps I disagree with the negative points, as neither of it's competitors in the review have onboard buttons and debug LCD either so why mark it down? Espcially as the Asus is silly money and the Gigabyte is a low end board(lack of heatsinking will limit overvolting, pcislots, whuuuut??) at an MSI price.

My 2p.

Butuz

2D load is higher than 3D load? Have I missed something or is this due to clocks when a discrete card isn't available?

Something I thought Hexus would highlight is the functionality of MSI's bundled software. The Live Update utility is great to use for all your required drivers, I will miss that feature when I go back to my repaired GA-Z77X-UD5H.

I got my Z77A-G43 Gaming motherboard to use when I sent off my faulty Gigabyte board because I wanted to see what a different manufacturer's board was like since I haven't used anything other than Gigabyte for 6 years now. I was pleased with the board but I am missing some of the higher end features that my Gigabyte board offered like dual BIOS that I can switch between, power button on the PCB, Load Line Calibration for overclocking and an eSATA slot on the back panel for my Icy Box HDD dock.

If MSI include an eSATA port at the back and PCB power button + debug LCD for their higher end Gaming motherboards I might go for one of them in my next build because I like the features their Gaming series has that the competition don't.