MSI Z87I Gaming AC Review

Overclocking

MSI has really upped it's game in the last year or two in the EFI stakes and is pretty much on par in terms of layout and clarity compared to Asus ROG boards in particular, although the latter still offer a few more features. The MSI Z87I Gaming AC sports the familiar red and black colour scheme we saw with the larger Z87-G45 Gaming, and we have no complaints about the ease with which you can tinker. There's also some nifty features too and we particularly like the hardware monitor and temperature-controlled fan control.

IN our overclocking we settled on 4.7GHz, matching the best results we've seen from our particular Core i7-4770K. It wasn't all plain sailing, though, and while other boards have reached 4.7GHz with ease, the Z87I Gaming AC needed as much voltage as our cooler could cope with to get there. In the end it needed 1.26V - a little more than the EVGA Stinger, and this meant the CPU was just about under control, although only by a matter of a few degrees away from throttling.