MSI keeps the large-font clock and small-font settings theme for its Z87-G45 Gaming motherboard, and users can still jump quickly to its OC menu for clock and voltage configuration.

Accustomed to hitting 4.7 GHz at 1.3 V and 4.6 GHz at 1.25 V using four competing boards, were we very disappointed to see both of those limits drop by 100 MHz on the Z87-G45 Gaming. DRAM overclocking was similarly disappointing, with a maximum data rate of 2800 MT/s using G.Skill’s DDR3-3000 kit.
Everyone cheats a little with DRAM voltage these days, which is why I now adjust this setting using a voltage meter. The Z87-G45 Gaming gets to 1.65 V after picking the 1.635 V setting, and that’s far less egregious than some competing products. Thank you, MSI.
Primary, secondary, and tertiary timings are individually selectable between automatic and manual modes. The Z87-G45 Gaming maintains our memory’s XMP settings throughout overclock testing.
Our volt meter didn’t show any voltage issues using the Z87-G45 Gaming’s automatic settings, so we left those as-configured.
- Affordable Z87 Express Motherboards: Not Quite "Back To Basics"
- ASRock Z87 Extreme4
- Z87 Extreme4 Firmware
- Z87 Extreme4 Software
- Asus Z87-Plus
- Z87-Plus Firmware
- Z87-Plus Software
- Biostar Hi-Fi Z87X 3D
- Hi-Fi Z87X 3D Firmware
- Hi-Fi Z87X 3D Software
- Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H
- Z87X-UD3H Firmware
- Z87X-UD3H Software
- MSI Z87-G45 Gaming
- Z87-G45 Gaming Firmware
- Z87-G45 Gaming Software
- Test Settings And Benchmarks
- Results: 3DMark And PCMark
- Results: SiSoftware Sandra
- Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Results: Adobe Creative Suite
- Results: Productivity
- Results: File Compression
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Overclocking
- When Picking A Winner Is Almost Impossible






1- the x8x4x4 PCIe controller is a CPU feature in all i5 and i7. All the z*7 chipset does is unlock the CPU feature
2- same goes for multipliers on K-chips: CPU feature locked out by non-z*7 chipsets
3- SATA-6G ports do not really cost Intel any thing extra to put on-chip (little more than a PLL tweak to lock on faster signals), which makes it somewhat of a shame they aren't fully standard
4- USB3 ports do not cost Intel all that much extra either - maybe an extra square millimeter on silicon to upgrade all remaining USB2 ports to USB3
5- the DMI bus can only manage ~20Gbps so it will bottleneck if you attempt to use even 1/5th the total the connectivity available on z87
More connectivity, yes. But DMI lacks the muscle to actually stress that extra IO. As such, it is little more than a glorified SATA port replicator and USB hub.
I almost exclusively use Intel CPUs but it still annoys me how Intel charges extra for trivial things or unlock stuff they arbitrarily locked out just because they can.
1- the x8x4x4 PCIe controller is a CPU feature in all i5 and i7. All the z*7 chipset does is unlock the CPU feature
2- same goes for multipliers on K-chips: CPU feature locked out by non-z*7 chipsets
3- SATA-6G ports do not really cost Intel any thing extra to put on-chip (little more than a PLL tweak to lock on faster signals), which makes it somewhat of a shame they aren't fully standard
4- USB3 ports do not cost Intel all that much extra either - maybe an extra square millimeter on silicon to upgrade all remaining USB2 ports to USB3
5- the DMI bus can only manage ~20Gbps so it will bottleneck if you attempt to use even 1/5th the total the connectivity available on z87
More connectivity, yes. But DMI lacks the muscle to actually stress that extra IO. As such, it is little more than a glorified SATA port replicator and USB hub.
I almost exclusively use Intel CPUs but it still annoys me how Intel charges extra for trivial things or unlock stuff they arbitrarily locked out just because they can.
1- the x8x4x4 PCIe controller is a CPU feature in all i5 and i7. All the z*7 chipset does is unlock the CPU feature
2- same goes for multipliers on K-chips: CPU feature locked out by non-z*7 chipsets
3- SATA-6G ports do not really cost Intel any thing extra to put on-chip (little more than a PLL tweak to lock on faster signals), which makes it somewhat of a shame they aren't fully standard
4- USB3 ports do not cost Intel all that much extra either - maybe an extra square millimeter on silicon to upgrade all remaining USB2 ports to USB3
5- the DMI bus can only manage ~20Gbps so it will bottleneck if you attempt to use even 1/5th the total the connectivity available on z87
More connectivity, yes. But DMI lacks the muscle to actually stress that extra IO. As such, it is little more than a glorified SATA port replicator and USB hub.
I almost exclusively use Intel CPUs but it still annoys me how Intel charges extra for trivial things or unlock stuff they arbitrarily locked out just because they can.
In other words, they might be charging for stuff that should be free or should have been included all the way back in the Z68, but past omission doesn't negate current usefullness.
The market is flooded with tons of these Z87 motherboards and it can be very overwhelming researching them. So, hopefully we'll see a few more Z87 reviews from you guys, soon.
Would also like to see some powerful i7 builds built around more energy efficient components. That would be very interesting. Hint.
Rather surprised that Biostar had such a good board. Maybe it's time to start considering those boards for future builds.
It is great to see a round-up of the mainstream boards, though, so thanks!
Most users don't have enough such devices to fill every port in the first place (how many people need more than two upper-tier SSDs?) but those who might actually "need" and use 6xSATA-6G would be people wanting to do things like RAID0/1/5 with 3-6x SSDs. At 6x SSDs, we would be looking at ~25Gbps peak not counting GbE, USB3 or PCIe devices on the 8x 2.0 lanes.
Still does not change the fact that the only reason why Intel gets away with charging $10-15 extra for less than $1 worth of features while the DMI bus lacks the bandwidth to properly support them for people who may actually intend to use them is because they have a practical monopoly which allows them to arbitrarily fragment the market so they can artificially inflate prices.
The main reason most people go with z?7 is the overclock unlock for K-chips. That itself is the biggest joke since it is a completely artificial limitation Intel engineered into their products to enforce co-upselling. As shown with the h87 slip-up, the h87 is perfectly capable of managing multipliers on Haswell K-chips when the K-chip lacks the microcode to enforce the z87 unlock "requirement."
I don't bother with overclocking so this does not affect me... but it still annoys me on the basis of principles and general dislike for hair-splitting for profit.
I'm about to build a new gaming box, and I'll consider the 'winners' in the article when I'm shopping. While price is not a big driver for me, I'll see if ASRock stays true.
Instead of just cheap, you mean?
ASUS - 16
ASRock - 10
Gigabyte - 11
MSI - 8
ECS - 3
Biostar - 2
How in the heck does marketing sort out product definition for 16 models, all for the same form factor?
ANYWAY, your choice
Spend a lot for a single issue fix
Spend a lot more for a new layout with superior everything and future proof for next gen CPUs.
Spend nothing, stop whining and deal with it.
Thanks