MSI Nightblade Compact Mini-ITX Gaming System Reviewed

MSI Nightblade - Making the Cut?

Mini-ITX motherboards have been available for years; however, they weren't usually the board of choice for system builders, looking to build an enthusiast grade desktop PC. In recent years, it appears these small in stature boards are undergoing a renaissance. From the ASUS Maximus VI Impact, the first mini-ITX board from ASUS' Republic of Gamers series that was positioned as a 'proper' small form factor Intel Z87 gaming motherboard to the Corsair Obsidian Series 250D, a well-built mini-ITX casing; we can be sure that there are many options to build a small form factor desktop system with no compromises on performance and quality.

First announced at CeBIT this year, the MSI Nightblade barebone mini-ITX system has made it more palatable for a casual system builder to eschew those bulky tower-based gaming PCs, and opt for a SFF system. For, the Nightblade is capable of accommodating a dual-slot graphics card, so as to handle the graphics processing requirements of the latest PC game releases. Even so, the Nightblade is a pretty compact system with a width of 175.7mm, with a length of 345.8mm, and is 277.3mm tall. With its inclination of meeting modern gamers needs, the Nighblade is part of MSI's highly publicized Gaming series of products within its all-in-one PC line-up.

As expected of a barebone system, you'll need to purchase your own CPU, memory, storage and graphics card. Here's a quick look at the other specifications of the system before we check out its design aspects in detail:-

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Design & Features

Working our way from the top, the front panel of the system has a large silver power button, and the OC Genie button, when triggered, will automatically boost the clock speeds of an unlocked processor and its accompanying memory modules. There are the usual USB 3.0 ports and audio connectors. We find the wireless LAN indicator useful as it will provide visual cues to the operational status of the onboard Intel wireless module. At the top, there are vents just beyond the front control panel.

Speaking of vents, there are intake vents at the bottom, near the carrying handle of the chassis. The position of the carrying handle also aids to prop the case at an angle that allows for better ventilation.

More Vents

One of its side panels has vents for an optional intake cooling fan. It also sports a Dragon Army motif that has been tastefully painted in black:-

The other side panel has vents for the cooling fan of the bundled SilverStone 650W PSU:-

Tipping the chassis on its side, we see there are bottom intake vents with a removable dust filter.

After uprighting the chassis, we removed the decorated side panel to reveal a side fan bracket that will house an optional 92- or 120mm intake cooling fan. The company has stated the bracket has been designed "to support R9 290X graphics cards"; however, we felt that it will provide additional cooling to any installed graphics card, provided that the intake fan has been installed.

We removed the side fan bracket so that the bundled MSI Z87I Gaming AC motherboard can be seen clearly. The mini-ITX motherboard features Military Class IV VRM components for stable and reliable power delivery, just like its full ATX counterpart, the MSI Z87-GD65. The system supports overclocked DDR3 memory modules that have been rated to operate up to 3000MHz. However, do take note that there are only a pair of DIMM slots; hence, the total capacity of supported RAM maxes out at 16GB.

Current high-end mini-ITX motherboards tend to be packed with features, and the Z87I Gaming AC is no exception. As a nod to gamers, the board features the Killer E2205 Gigabit LAN controller that is touted to reduce network latency to improve online gaming experience. For wireless networking, there is an onboard Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module, which also supports Intel WiDi. The board also features a PS/2 keyboard and mouse combo that is optimized for high polling rate gaming mice.

Audiophiles will be pleased to know the board supports the Audio Boost technology. This means the audio options of the system are powered by an onboard Realtek ALC1150 audio codec chip that has EMI shielding implemented on the board and a headphone amplifier. In addition, the audio ports have a thin gold plating that provides better conductivity and prevents the connections from rusting over time.

Installation

We proceeded with the installation of the following components.

• Intel Core i7-4770K CPU
• Crucial Ballistix Elite Series (1.65V, 8GB Dual-Channel DDR3-2133 Memory Kit)
• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti Windforce 3x OC
• Western Digital Caviar Black 7200 RPM 1TB SATA HDD

With these parts, we would be able to have a complete high-end gaming system after our installation process. We chose the Gigabyte graphics card as we had ascertained the efficiency of its Windforce 3X cooling system. As such, it would be ideal for a SFF gaming system that is expected to generate a lot of heat in its confined spaces.

Our installation went smoothly even though it wasn't an entirely tool-free experience. We had to use our Philips screwdriver for the installation of our HDD and graphics card. The 3.5-inch HDD and ODD drive bracket have to be removed before the drives can be secured.

In our review unit, the slot-loading ODD wasn't included; however, the CPU cooler was bundled. We were informed by Corbell that the CPU cooler will not be bundled with the final retail version of the MSI Nightblade. Therefore, system builders need to take note of the space constraints when they are shopping for an appropriate CPU cooler. fortunately, the slot-loading ODD is provided in the retail uni. Speaking of space constraints, in order create more room to maneuver during installation, the bottom panel of the chassis can be removed.

According to our reviewer's guide, we had to mount the CPU cooler such that hot air is expelled in the direction of its rear outlet fan. This makes sense considering that there's only one exhaust fan in the entire system.

Before we put back the side panel, let's take a look at the one of the more interesting accessories of the Nightblade; the mSATA expansion board. This board will allow you to install a pair of mSATA SSDs and configure them as a RAID array using the motherboard's chipset support for Intel Rapid Storage Technology. As such, the mSATA expansion board is actually devoid of any RAID controllers.

The mSATA expansion card is housed in the 2.5-inch drive enclosure where an additional 2.5-inch drive can also be installed.

After the side panel was replaced, we had a complete mini-ITX gaming desktop system.

The wireless connectivity range of the system can be extended with the pair of antennae.

Test Setup

To reiterate, we chose the Gigabyte GTX 780 Ti Windforce 3X OC graphics card as it had the most efficient cooling system for a high-end graphics card. At the same time, we would like to compare its performance when it was installed in our MSI Nightblade system, against its performance on our regular graphics test bed. The point of this comparison is to prove the capability of a mini-ITX system as compared to a regular oversized system.

These are the specifications of our usual graphics test bed:

• Intel Core i7-3960X (3.3GHz)
• ASUS P9X79 Pro (Intel X79 chipset) Motherboard
• 4 x 2GB DDR3-1600 G.Skill Ripjaws Memory
• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti Windforce 3x OC
• Seagate 7200.10 200GB SATA hard drive (OS)
• Western Digital Caviar Black 7200 RPM 1TB SATA hard drive (Benchmarks + Games)
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

And these are the specifications of the MSI Nightblade:

• Intel Core i7-4770K CPU
• 2 x 4GB DDR3-2133 Crucial Ballistix Elite Series Memory Kit
• Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti Windforce 3x OC
• Western Digital Caviar Black 7200 RPM 1TB SATA HDD (OS, Benchmarks and Games)
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1

The drivers for the graphics card were updated to version 335.23.

Benchmarks

Since the performance capabilities of a GeForce GTX 780 Ti have been thoroughly explored before, we're only focusing on a subset of our usual benchmarks to determine the gaming performance of the compared systems. The two benchmarks used are as follows:-

• Futuremark 3DMark 2013
• Thief

3DMark 11 was used for our temperature and power tests.

Gaming Performances

We can see that the gaming performance of the systems vary from test to test. For the artificial benchmarks of 3DMark, our usual graphics test bed turned in slightly better scores. However, the MSI Nightblade system turned in better performance figures when measured using the in-game benchmark of Thief.

Overclocking

Just for kicks, we used the one-button MSI OC Genie feature to overclock our Intel Core i7-4770K (3.5GHz) to a high of 4.0GHz. When enabled, OC Genie automatically tweaked the CPU Ratio to a high of 40. Further to that, we manually overclocked the Gigabyte GeForce 780 Ti card to a clock speed of 1173MHz, from its base of 1020MHz. At the same time, its video memory was overrated to 7388MHz, from its base of 7000MHz. In the end, we managed to experience gains of approximately 10% when we overclocked both CPU and the graphics card.

The graph below captures our performance boost experience. The first bar represents the Nightblade's default performance with the Gigabyte graphics card. The second bar captures performance with the MSI OC Genie enabled. The third bar documents performance of the Nightblade system with OC Genie + manually overclocked Gigabyte graphics card, while the last bar is Gigabyte card's performance on our Intel X79 graphics test bed system.

Temperature & Power Consumption

As noted in out temperature test segment, the card reached a high of 83 degrees Celsius, and while in our open workbench graphics test bed, its temperature was a low of 60 degrees. This is why it's important to invest in a graphics card that has excellent cooling capability. For the GeForce GTX 780 Ti class, Gigabyte's Windforce 3x OC tops our charts.

In terms of power consumption, the MSI Nightblade Silverstone 650W managed to keep the Nightblade humming at 55W of power draw during idle; and under load, the Nightblade drew a high of 326W. We can witness the main advantage of a SFF gaming system with its relatively conservative power consumption levels as it has far less components onboard. However, due to its compact nature, the operating temperatures of its components will definitely be higher, like our Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti graphics card. Hence, additional cooling fans are in order, especially if the Nightblade is to be overclocked for performance gains.

Conclusion

We find the MSI Nightblade suitable for a casual system builder who doesn't want to make the nitty-gritty decisions of choosing the mini-ITX chassis and the motherboard for a SFF gaming PC. In fact, one doesn't even need to pick the PSU and ODD too. These are very practical concerns a PC DIY user will often face when trying to build a small form factor system where getting the right mix of compatible and hardware is a notch more difficult than building regular sized systems. While the options available are expanding, it's still not a wide variety and you may have trouble fitting a suitable PSU in some of the compact casings or getting a slot-load ODD. Worse yet, depending on your region, the chassis options available for mini-ITX boards are less than desirable in design.

With the Nightblade barebones system, MSI takes care of the above headaches and you'll only need to consider an appropriate CPU, cooler, compatible memory and storage options. The rest of your budget will be centered squarely on obtaining a high-end graphics card to handle the demands of current PC game titles. Obtaining these components are far easier and that makes the Nightblade system easy to set up. Drawing on our installation experience with the Nightblade, the prospective owner will also breeze through the tasks of putting together a fully completed system. Performance and system capabilities were to our expectations as tested in this review, so there's no doubt about its capability.

Our main grouse is the lack of a bundled CPU cooler in its final retail version. As mentioned earlier, the decision making process of component purchases for the owner has simplified somewhat due to the very nature of barebone MSI Nightblade chassis. Why impede his quest for a SFF gaming system by sneaking in a tricky requirement; the need to source for a compatible CPU cooler? While you can stick in a stock Intel cooler, it's design and airflow characteristics aren't ideal to optimize the Nightblade's exhaust system.

Since the MSI Nightblade is already retailing at a price of S$699, we believe that the cost of a bundled CPU cooler will not increase its retail price by a prohibitive margin. In short, we do see a winning product from MSI here, but its final retail bundle needs a minor tweak to make it a perfect little package.

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