MSI Goes Mini! Z87I Gaming and GTX 760 Mini ITX Gaming Review!

Shawn Michaels January 15, 2014 Hardware, Motherboards, NVIDIA, Reviews & Articles, Video Cards/Graphics Cards 1 Comment

Our Final Thoughts (MSI Z87I Gaming)

MSI’s Gaming series of boards has really opened them up to another market segment by offering specialized gaming boards with gamer targeted feature sets. Now with the Mini ITX offerings MSI enters yet another niche which is actually growing as of recent with the SFF community.

Adding to their gaming series with the Mini ITX while still keeping feature sets strong is a good move for MSI as the gaming ITX board has some very good features from the audio to the super fast AC WiFI with WiDI support and even strong VRM for great overclocking and overall performance potential.

The bad side of this is like with any ITX build you can expect space limitations to make connecting up the board more of a pain than you would like, and also figure that cable management will not be as easy either. Being cramped means that onboard features likely will not be as plentiful as well.

For those gamers looking for a compact gaming solution MSI has stepped up their Mini ITX game and with that the gaming crowd has yet another solution in their mini gaming build stable.

MSI Z87I Gaming

The Pro’s:	Cons
Killer E2205 High end Audio Boost Solution Strong VRM with Military Class Components Unique Dragon Styling Sound Blaster Cinema Compatibility Gaming Device Ports USB Audio Power Solution New clean UEFI with some cool options Black caps look sweet Small build capable	More SATA cables included would be nice

Our Final Thoughts (MSI GTX 760 Gaming Mini)

MSI came to the Mini ITX gaming table with both barrels loaded showing not only the Mini ITX board but also a mini card at similar size to allow optimum small system fitment.

The Mini ITX based GPU has a very nice fan solution allowing for a quiet running mini card which also stays nice and cool in the process even under heavy gaming testing.

MSI has shown great capability in being able to fill a market segment with these new gaming models available and since the only other model we have seen with this size card is from ASUS and as of yet they have not moved it into the US market that makes MSI the only player in the game.

The ingenuity with the new fan design was quite cool as I have always loved the shrouded style fans and MSI even added to this with the outside vanes/flaps which help push air out laterally for maximum cooling efficiency.

MSI GTX 760 Gaming Mini

The Pro’s:	Cons
RADAX fan design Super compact card Effective display connection array Quiet operation single 8 pin connection nice looking backplate	Connectivity may require adapters if more than one DVI is needed

Review Overview

Performance - 9

Value - 9

Quality - 9

Features - 9.5

Innovation - 9

9.1

MSI stepped into the Mini ITX game ready to run with both a capable motherboard with good feature set and even a mini card to ensure you have the whole package.

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