MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC Motherboard Review

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Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

So there you have it, the MSI Z97 9 Gaming AC motherboard we feel is one of the best looking and performing products on the market, that's if you like the design of course. I am a sucker for the all matte black and red design really. I find the design to be done tastefully, and the CPU heatsink just sexy with that diffuse red LED emanating light from it. Combined with the red LEDs located at the backside of the PCB, creating a halo of light surrounding the motherboard while it sits inside a chassis with a see-though window? Yeah, that's just cool man. Specs and features wise there is also very little to complain about. Now this is not your 4-way SLI or Crossfire freak-fest, but if you game with up-to towards two graphics cards then you are good to go really. Three way CFX/SLI is possible as well, but slot PCIe lane configuration would drop down to x4 Gen 3.0 PCIe (that is still the equivalent of x8 gen 2.0). What more does one need?  Well, you will receive WIFI, WIDI, eight 6 Gbps SATA 3 ports and that all new M.2 interface. many USB 3.0 ports become available and of course an improved and enhanced audio solution that is accompanied by the SoundBlaster Cinema suite (a software layer sitting on top of the Realtek ALC 1150 codec). New to see is the preamp stuff for external DACs, albeit we doubt a little that many of you actually fined that useful. I do have to complement the audio features here, as over the standard realtek codec used like two years ago, we now see huge improvement on both hard and software side that is way more appealing to the audiophile. Now, I stated this in the XPower review as well, judging from the reaction in our forums there is slowly some negative noise towards KillerNIC E2205 so we would have preferred to see the Intel's Gigabit Ethernet jack embedded over the Killer one just for the sake of that argument. Still, we think the KillerNIC is a Ethernet jack with excellent software options. Combine all these features I just mentioned with the sheer 12 phase CPU power design and the options available to you and yeah, you have to admit that the MSI Z97 Gaming AC is not only looking really sweet, it has all the bells and whistles you want just as well.

The Platform & The Motherboard

Now, the Intel Z97 chipset all by itself is not really interesting from an upgrade point of view if you bought a PC in say the last two years. It is a re-spin of the Z87 DNA. There are a couple of differences that the chipset however offers, and that's making PCI-E storage units compatible with standards like SATA Express and M.2 PCI-E SSDs. But if you purchased a Z87 motherboard and a Haswell processor last year already, by all means there is just no reason to upgrade whatsoever. Even coming from Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge processors and the Z77 platform will not change my mind about this recommendation. The big conundrum however is this: Z97 motherboards can be very interesting if you are in need of an upgrade. See the motherboard manufacturers simply went nuts with their motherboard designs, and I believe that 2014 has to be the best year of them all if you look at what the motherboard manufacturers did and now are offering. The latest iteration of the MSI Click BIOS uEFI interface finally has become mature and I've actually started to really like it. It's easy to navigate through with and without a mouse and a couple of new features like the monitoring pages just kick black booty. So pop a nice liquid cooling kit on the processor and you will get to the 4600 MHz range with a 4770K easily. But before we talk dirty tweakin' we must state that the overall baseline (non overclocked) performance is top notch as well. MSI applied a small tweak on the processors turbo's so you'll see them hovering at 3900/4000 MHz a bit faster then they are supposed to do. All manufacturers apply this tweak with their high-end SKUs though. But performance wise on all fronts, CPU, storage and memory this Z97 Gaming AC performs extremely well.

Storage

Combined with eight SATA 6Gbps ports we can hardly argue anything. Six of them are provided by the Intel Z97 chipset and two more are controlled by ASMedia ICs, and these have become pretty decent really. So storage wise there's just really little to complain about. More interesting I find to be the all new M.2 interface, pop in a M.2 compatible PCI-E SSD and you'll see your SSD quickly perform in the 700/800 Mb/sec range. Overall your SATA and M.2 connectivity is plentiful and top notch when it comes to performance.


 

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Aesthetics

Taste differ per person, but admittedly we do totally like the way the Gaming AC looks. The black and red color schema combined with the nicely designs heatsinks, the LEDs and the extra shielding. Yeah, it is just an intriguing product to look at really. Just sheer awesomeness in a dark PC case. The red LEDs create an awesome HALO coming from underneath the motherboard, it makes the motherboard pop out of your system. Well visually that is. The PCB is extremely dark as it has received a proper coated layer, including the dark connectors, dark capacitors, with the subtle heatsinks this rocks my boat. This is just a great looking solution for the enthusiast PC gamer. 

Tweaking

We mentioned it in the first chapter of this conclusion already, overall non-overclocked performance as stated is above the baseline of the reference Z97 motherboards we tested, with an offset here and there of course. If you have two left hands in terms of overclocking then just press the OC Genie II button, power up and after a few seconds your motherboard will all of the sudden be mildly overclocked, a performance boost at very little extra power consumption as the CPU will now be throttled to 4200 MHz, admittedly a bit low. The tweaking performance of this motherboard was on par with what we expected. We got the 4770K processor rocking stable at 4800 MHz with the memory (XMP enabled) at 2133 MHz very easily, and that's not bad at all. One we added voltage and combined the Core i7 4770K processor with a H110 Liquid cooler from Corsair we could reach a stable 4900 MHz. But as mentioned so often, Haswell processors run hotter when overclocked opposed to Sandy Bridge, reaching 4600~4900 MHz might be easy to accomplish with the motherboard but you'll find yourself needing juice in the 1.325~1.400 Volts range of the processor and that requires massive cooling. So be prepared for processor heat, proper liquid cooling definitely deserves a recommendation here alright. We can't wait for Intel to release Devil's Canyon based processors where the cooling should be much improved.

Nitpicking

We always stumble into a thing or two that I miss, or find to be a design flaw. This is not different with the MSI Z97 Gaming 9 AC.  We would have liked to seen a second NIC and as mentioned, the NIC we prefer is an Intel one really. Now there are design issues with the Z97 Gaming 9 AC, let's address them. 
 

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The WIFI adapter that you need to install manually can be a bit of a drag. I wanted to install the unit into the Z97 Gaming 9 AC, but you probably will have noticed that the rear IO has that sweet looking metal EMI shield ? That shield is actually blocking the installation of the WIFI module. So you guys (the end-user) will have to unscrew the unit, install the WIFI module and then reattached the shield unit. The module itself you need to place it onto a very small socket with a very tiny pin connector. Visually you can't see what you are doing during installation as the EMI shielding of the module itself blocks the view. We already mentioned this in the XPower review. With the Z97 Gaming AC I actually managed to damage the WIFI module as one of the pins broke off due to improperly seating the module, very annoying. In the next generation of wireless adapter MSI must solve this with a better implementation as I find this stuff to be rather unacceptable for end-users to endure.  This is way too delicate. Anyway, we installed a second adapter, secured it with a screw underneath the motherboard and then and screwed back the shield in place (nut and bolt). But then noticed something ... have a peek at the photo below.
 

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So once I seated the WIFI module I mounted the big EMI shield/cover again and started to seat the motherboard on our test-bench. That's when I realized ... the shield is using the ATX form factor screw mounts. Seriously, I know you can screw the shield shut by using somewhat longer screws. But realistically, why design it like that? In our humble opinion, we absolutely fail to see how and why it got designed like this. That's just not OK in our book.

 

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Final Words

Now my comments on the WIFI module and shielding might seem a little harsh, but this is a 299 USD motherboard and when I drop that amount of cash on a product, I expect nothing other then the best. These comments however look pale in comparison to what the Z97 Gaming AC offers. So these remain minor annoyances at best if you place thigns in perspective. Combine the grand looks with the features like the eight SATA 6 Gbps ports, the KillerNIC Ethernet interface and the 7.1 channel HD audio as delivered by the high-end Realtek ALC1150 codec and we already get a smile on our face. But really, it just starts there though. In conjunction with an amplifier you get support for quality headphones that have an impedance of up to 600 Ohms. The Realtek ALC1150 codec is covered by an EMI shield, and the part of the PCB where the audio hardware is located is isolated to prevent interference. Sitting on top of that codec is a SoundBlaster Cinema 2 audio suite enhancing audio even further. Slowly but steadily audio solutions on-board a motherboard are becoming really good in terms of quality at audiophile levels.  The motherboard is multi-GPU up-to 2/3 way SLI/Crossfire ready. Then add to all this features like on-board buttons, pre-overclock modes and diagnostic LEDs, fantastic design and LED lit heatsinks and yeah, you will definitely have something in your PC that offers a great infrastructure, whilst looking amazing. The list goes on though, as the board provides everything you need from an enthusiast class Haswell processor platform, in terms of features, multi-GPU support, USB 3.0, SATA3, PCI-E Gen 3.0, ease of tweaking and sure, the design and component selection. Aside from my comments, all other stuff has been done right and this would be a motherboard to feast on. The Z97 Gaming 9 AC comes with extra's like AC WIFI and two antennas. It offers a very nice audio solution and is dressed to kill. We have no doubt to recommend the product as it looks fantastic, has a grand feature-set, overclocks like a beast and comes with a terrific audio solution, what's not to like ? Well, maybe the pricing at 299 USD / 240 EUR. But let's see how these prices pan out once the board reaches volume availability in re/e-tail first.

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“Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle.”

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