MSI Showcases Three New OC Certified Intel 8-Series Motherboards
MSI showcased three new high-end Intel Z87-based motherboards that have been OC Certified. These boards belong to the Overclocking product segment. Read on to uncover their unique high-end features.
MSI showcased three new OC Certified Intel 8-series motherboards at their Computex exhibition booth. The trio belong to the Overclocking product segment under the company's new business strategy. The boards are the MSI Z87 MPower, MSI Z87 MPower Max and MSI Z87 XPower. The Z87 XPower features five PCIe PEG slots; the second PCIe Gen 3.0 expansion slot from the top, offers provides direct connection to the CPU with its sixteen data lanes. Due to the presence of an onboard PLX PEX 8747 switch chip that is able to feed up to 32 lanes of PCIe Gen3.0 connectivity to the rest of the PEG slots, the Z87 XPower is able to support up to a quad-graphics card setup.
The MSI Z87 XPower motherboard that is the top dog in MSI's current range of OC Certified Intel 8-Series boards.
Another exclusive feature of the Z87 XPower is its set of onboard buttons called the XPower Direct OC. They allow the user to modify the multiplier and bus clock frequency of the board in real-time. The button with the lightning bolt is the Complete Discharge that will reset the BIOS settings of the board to its factory default ones, without having to power down the board. The board features a 32-phase VRM design that seems to be a staple on such high-end boards like the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP7.
The XPower Direct OC buttons allow for overclockers to tweak both the multiplier and bus clock frequency in real-time.
(Source: MSI)
The MSI Z87 MPower Max has a 20-phase power design to ensure the stable power delivery to the CPU and memory of the board. Like the Z87 XPower, this board also features the updated Military Class IV components of its power delivery systems. They consist of new PowerPak MOSFETs, Hi-c capacitors (Hi-C Cap), super ferrite chokes (SFC), along with solid capacitors (Solid Caps) and Dark capacitors (Dark Caps). Only the Z87 XPower has the new DrMOS 4, which is the updated version of the MOSFET found in the previous generation Military Class III VRM components.
The MSI Z87 MPower Max motherboard.
The Z87 MPower boasts of a 16-phase power design that is the lowest among the group. The board sports the same color scheme of its predecessor, the Z77 MPower. In terms of its feature set, the Z87 MPower can be considered a pared-down version of the Z87 MPower Max due to less onboard storage and I/O connectivity options like SATA 6Gbps connectors and USB 3.0 ports. In terms of cooling design for its VRM heatsinks, the Z87 MPower features the MPower Superpipe; while theZ87 MPower Max has the MPower MAX Superpipe that supposedly delivers better heat dissipation due to its extended design from the former.
The MSI Z87 MPower motherboard.
All the boards come with exciting features like the Double ESD (electrostatic-discharge) protection for all their I/O ports. To overcome the potential loss of USB 3.0 signals due to long cables used, the boards come equipped with USB Redrivers on the internal USB 3.0 ports to boost the signals. The Audio Boost features is available on all boards to deliver quality sound audio due to its hardware features like its EMI shielding for the audio CODEC chip. For more information on the new OC Certified Intel Z87 MSI boards, do head over to their site here.
(Source: MSI)
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