This would perhaps be why extreme overclockers pour hours into studying specification sheets, or hours into trying settings. Users have to know the intricacies of each option on the fundamental level to understand what difference adjusting a voltage would make. Highlighting a voltage option says almost nothing about the capabilities of the voltage, or how it might pertain to overclocking or stability.
The next stage would be the help section to also include the min/max of the voltage range selected, as well as the granularity. With the help section on the right hand side, we get a set of words pertaining to the option selected. Here we are reduced down to the simple overclock options, such as CPU ratios, Base Clock and DRAM frequency. Switching over to the Simple option cuts out some of the more harder-to-understand options: The Simple/Advanced option helps remove/add options that might add an extra element of confusion/expertise to overclocking. One interesting feature that I did not expect from MSI is actually the top one in the OC menu. Some manufacturers have told me that users prefer long lists of options, whereas others prefer succinct menus. selecting ‘CPU Setting’ gives the CPU Setting options), but it all comes down to user preference. It could be construed that MSI could hide each of these options behind another menu for each (i.e. This is followed by CPU settings, BCLK settings, DRAM settings, Voltage Settings and the ‘Other’ Settings. The layout starts with a selection between Simple and Advanced, which enables more options in the menu when Advanced is selected. Now onto one of the things that I am most proud of MSI for: after several generations of bemoaning the overclock menu for being a hodge-podge of options with no discernable order, it finally has order! I am still glad this is here, because due to MSI’s layout (compared to the other three major motherboard manufacturers) it is not always obvious exactly which menu we are in.
We praised MSI’s FM2 BIOS on the A88XM-E35 as MSI had decided to finally put the path of the options into each page, and here we see the ‘Settings -> Advanced -> PCI Subsystem Settings’ listed above, telling us where in the BIOS we are. I perhaps would still like the CPU voltage to be placed up the top with the other information, just for completeness and an instant reference. I believe MSI has decided to put them here rather than on the top panel to save space but also because of the fact that voltages in the BIOS do not change until the system is restarted. On this right hand side, users have two options here, ‘Help’ or ‘Info’ – the help screen is shown in the other screenshots down below, but I wanted to draw attention to the info screen which gives the system voltages. The screen above shows the settings menu with the option selected information to the right of the screen. To the left and the right are the main tabs which produce the list of options in the central screen. The only real data missing here is voltages and fan speeds, which MSI has moved to a different part of the BIOS. The basic layout (as in previous generations) is a top bar featuring the Motherboard name, BIOS version, CPU installed, CPU frequency, DRAM frequency, DRAM size and CPU temperatures. MSI’s solution is to move it out to this button on the top left, which simplifies things nicely. In the past I had noted that enabling XMP on MSI motherboards, especially for users with no BIOS experience, was a minefield due to the (then) disorganized way of accessing memory settings. One of the additions is the easier application of XMP, which now has its own button on the front page of the BIOS:Īt the top left, along with the OC Genie, is an XMP button. The Z97 Gaming 5 retails between the Z97 MPower Max and the Z97 Guard-Pro, so it was interesting to find those additions have carried down from the overclocking motherboard to the cheaper end of the spectrum. One of the major positives from our first MSI Z97 review, the MSI Z97 MPower Max, was that MSI had taken a large number of our comments about the BIOS from Z87 and Z77 reviews and actually placed most of them in. The MSI Z97 BIOS, as detailed in other Z97 reviews, is a nice step up from Z87.
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