As we saw in the X370-era, MSI were amongst the top performers, offering features unseen from other brands. It’s good to see they’ve carried on those thoughts and haven’t been distracted from their true focus; gaming.
Overclocking features, despite being aplenty, aren’t over the top on this model, leaving way for a more focussed, enthusiast-centric model in the coming weeks or months. Usually arriving under the ACK nomenclature. However, having said that, we did manage a 4.3GHz overclock and found the BIOS very easy to navigate. The all-digital 14+2 power phase, with the 8+8 CPU power does open up options, if you wish to explore the limits of the Ryzen 2nd Gen. CPUs.
With the rapid adoption of M.2 NVMe drives, for their speed, size and lack of cables, it’s good to see MSI sticking with a pair of slots on their boards but it would be nice to see more of these in the future. The M.2 FROZR, helping to decrease NVMe temperatures, certainly isn’t a bad thing either!
The placement of PWM fan headers around the edge of the board, for optimal cable management, as well as right-angled SATA and USB 3.1 will please those with tempered-glass cases, which are all the rage right now; helping to improve appearance and airflow.
Performance, considering the price of the M7 GAMING AC, was unfortunately a little lacking, but this may very well improve in the near future, from BIOS and Windows updates being issued. Though that doesn’t detract from the fact we must base our thoughts on performance in the here and now, instead of speculating on what might come. It did top some of our charts, but the margin amongst the three boards tested so far is small and largely insignificant, instead showing a trend towards an improvement over X370 boards.
The AM4 platform, as can be seen by the comparison to the mature AORUS AX-370 GAMING 5, a very capable board from the X370 line-up, shows a decent improvement in memory-intensive tasks, but power usage, both idle and load, were increased. This increase in power usage directly correlates with the higher TDP and power draw of the R7 2700X CPU. Obviously, due to this, the performance-per-watt does drop somewhat.
All in, we experienced no real issues with the MSI board, other than the asking price being higher than the tested competition; however, with the feature set presented and attention to detail on component placement, that price can be warranted, if those are attributes you require.
If you already own a Ryzen 7 system, the need to upgrade probably doesn’t exist, but if you require the bleeding edge of performance or are buying into an AMD system at this time, this MSI board will provide an incredible starting point to work from.
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Overclocking features, despite being aplenty, aren’t over the top on this model, leaving way for a more focussed, enthusiast-centric model in the coming weeks or months. Usually arriving under the ACK nomenclature. However, having said that, we did manage a 4.3GHz overclock and found the BIOS very easy to navigate. The all-digital 14+2 power phase, with the 8+8 CPU power does open up options, if you wish to explore the limits of the Ryzen 2nd Gen. CPUs.
With the rapid adoption of M.2 NVMe drives, for their speed, size and lack of cables, it’s good to see MSI sticking with a pair of slots on their boards but it would be nice to see more of these in the future. The M.2 FROZR, helping to decrease NVMe temperatures, certainly isn’t a bad thing either!
The placement of PWM fan headers around the edge of the board, for optimal cable management, as well as right-angled SATA and USB 3.1 will please those with tempered-glass cases, which are all the rage right now; helping to improve appearance and airflow.
Performance, considering the price of the M7 GAMING AC, was unfortunately a little lacking, but this may very well improve in the near future, from BIOS and Windows updates being issued. Though that doesn’t detract from the fact we must base our thoughts on performance in the here and now, instead of speculating on what might come. It did top some of our charts, but the margin amongst the three boards tested so far is small and largely insignificant, instead showing a trend towards an improvement over X370 boards.
The AM4 platform, as can be seen by the comparison to the mature AORUS AX-370 GAMING 5, a very capable board from the X370 line-up, shows a decent improvement in memory-intensive tasks, but power usage, both idle and load, were increased. This increase in power usage directly correlates with the higher TDP and power draw of the R7 2700X CPU. Obviously, due to this, the performance-per-watt does drop somewhat.
All in, we experienced no real issues with the MSI board, other than the asking price being higher than the tested competition; however, with the feature set presented and attention to detail on component placement, that price can be warranted, if those are attributes you require.
If you already own a Ryzen 7 system, the need to upgrade probably doesn’t exist, but if you require the bleeding edge of performance or are buying into an AMD system at this time, this MSI board will provide an incredible starting point to work from.
Pros
+ Great overclocking potential
+ DDR4-3600(OC) Support
+ Wireless and wired gaming possible
+ Audio Boost 4 for crystal clear sound
+ Alpha-Numeric LED readout for simple diagnostics
+ 2x M.2 slots
+ Right angled SATA and USB 3.1 ports
+ Good fan header and adaptor placement across the board
+ Easy overclocking GAME BOOST knob
+ 8+8 CPU power for extreme overclocking
+ Easy to use BIOS
Cons
- Not the best performance
+ Great overclocking potential
+ DDR4-3600(OC) Support
+ Wireless and wired gaming possible
+ Audio Boost 4 for crystal clear sound
+ Alpha-Numeric LED readout for simple diagnostics
+ 2x M.2 slots
+ Right angled SATA and USB 3.1 ports
+ Good fan header and adaptor placement across the board
+ Easy overclocking GAME BOOST knob
+ 8+8 CPU power for extreme overclocking
+ Easy to use BIOS
Cons
- Not the best performance
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
Stay connected with the Vortez Social Media pages:
Join in with the discussions on Discord
