It took me a surprising amount of time -
perhaps an hour for me to realize that the MSI motherboard I had been sent
didn't match the packaging. The box and manual referred to Z77A- GD55, but the
motherboard was the Z77A-G41 Plus. The prefix is the same for both models, so
the chipset and basic layout are the same, but the suffix of the G41 I received
indicates a lower level of features than the GD55, as well as a lower price.
The GD55 sells for $122, while this G41 Plus
costs $98, and the list of differences is significant. The G41 Plus has a
single PCI Express 3.0 graphics slot, a second graphics slot that is PCI
Express 2.0 x4, two PCI Express x1 slots and two legacy PCI slots. By contrast,
the GD55 has dual PCI Express 3.0 slots and a third long PCI Express 2.0 slot,
and doesn't have any legacy PCI slots.
The
box and manual referred to Z77A- GD55, but the motherboard was the Z77A-G41
Plus.
On the audio front, the G41 only has three
audio jacks, while G55 has full surround sound audio with optical and coaxial
S/PDIF. The third obvious difference is that GD55 has its SATA connectors laid
down horizontally, and finally we see that GD55 has micro buttons for power,
reset and OC Genie II. You won't be surprised to hear that G41 has vertical
SATA connectors and doesn't have those buttons.
Installing an MSI motherboard is a simple
matter. Once the hardware is connected and the chipset and network drivers have
been installed, you simply install the Live Update 5 utility and allow the
software to update the BIOS, drivers and any utilities that look appealing. I
like the MSI Control Centre v2.5 utility, but I chose to ignore the other
software that was on offer.
MSI has got Live Update 5 absolutely nailed
and it works far better than a simple installation disc or forcing the customer
to visit a website to download drivers. In fact, I blame Live Update 5 for
helping me miss the point that I had the G41 Plus model, rather than the GD55,
as I had no need to search for drivers but instead had simply left Live Update
5 to work its magic.
I
like the MSI Control Centre v2.5 utility, but I chose to ignore the other
software that was on offer.
The truth became evident when I started
testing the MSI and realized that the motherboard was missing the OC Genie
button. This is a superb feature that allows a simple click-to-overclock
operation, but as I didn't have the OC Genie option, I dived into the UEFI
setup screen to do the job manually. Here I found there was no option to raise
the Turbo Limit of my unlocked K series CPU, so I was limited to raising memory
speed by enabling XMP The clock speed increased to 2,400MHz, but the benchmark
tests crashed while they were running, so I was forced to reduce the speed to
2,133MHz. This worked well in PC Mark 7 and 3D Mark, but PC Mark 8 failed to
run to completion.
This
worked well in PC Mark 7 and 3D Mark, but PC Mark 8 failed to run to
completion.
This is a basic motherboard that has a long
list of features missing from the superior GD55 model. While the Z77A-G41 Plus
is pleasingly cheap to buy, I do not feel it offers good value for money unless
you're looking for a straightforward LGA1155 motherboard and have no need for
any frills or extras.
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Details
·
Price: $98
·
Manufacturer: MSI
·
Website: http:uk.msi.com
Ratings
·
Overall: 6
·
Quality: 6
·
Value: 7
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