Introduction

Lately we've taken the time and checked out many new Dual Channel RAM kits. While it's been a while since the Intel Z77 chipset launched, we've recently started seeing companies bring out refreshes of the extremely popular chipset that has gained a great reputation when paired with K based Ivy Bridge processors.

The most recent company to offer a refresh of the Z77 came from ASRock in the form of the Z77 OC Formula which did an absolutely awesome job of impressing us. Today, though, we'll be taking the time to see what MSI is doing with the new MSI Z77 MPOWER board.

Before we take a closer look at the board itself there's a few things we need to do before hand, and the first thing is checking out the box along with the contents of it to see what MSI is doing with the bundle. Once we've done that we'll move onto the board itself and see what exactly is going on with the new Z77 MPOWER.

Once we've looked at that we'll move onto the BIOS to see what's going on before moving onto the testbed side of things. Once we've done that we'll also cover the overclocking side of things while we also talk about the motherboards that will be in our graphs today. Once we've done all that it's into the performance side of things to see just how the new Z77 MPOWER from MSI goes. First, though, as we mentioned, let's see what's going on with the package today.

Package

Looking at the box we can see a pretty sweet looking design going on with the front of the box. Opening it up we are greeted with some of the main components that makes the board stand out from the competition. In typical MSI fashion we've got improved components which in turn help give us improvements in both power and thermal. Along with that we've also got a bunch of OS Essential features which we'll take a closer look at when we move onto the board.

Looking at the bottom of the box you can see we've got a picture of the board and again a number of the main features are highlighted with a brief explanation. Turning over we've got even more detail which covers the "OC Certified"� labeling that MSI has given the board. We've also got some of the main specifications of the board and a look at the I/O side of things.

Moving inside the box we can see the normal line up of paperwork included which also has that Certificate of Quality and Stability that we're used to seeing on higher end MSI motherboards. Along with all that you can also see we've got the standard driver CD present.

On the cable side of things we've got four SATA cables, SLI bridge and I/O panel cover. As far as little extras go we've got a Wi-Fi antenna, V-Check cables to check the voltage of the board in certain areas and M-Connector kit to make installation that little bit easier.