MSI Z87-G43 (LGA 1150) Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

MSI’s Z87-G43 currently costs £89.94 with a special free delivery option from Scan Computers, £86.99 at Overclockers UK on a special limited offer (normal price is £95.99) and £86.99 at Overclockers UK with a complimentary Alpenfohn Civetta CPU cooler bundled. In the USA the MSI Z87-G43 costs $104.99 on Newegg, reduced from the normal price of $119.99. In Canada the motherboard can be had for $129.99 at NCIX.

Final Thoughts

MSI’s Z87-G43 motherboard probably isn’t the most glamorous motherboard on the market but I think our testing shows that you don’t need a glamorous motherboard to get the full advantages of the Z87 platform and the Haswell architecture. MSI’s Z87-G43 is a motherboard that performs within margin of error of all other Z87 motherboards (as you’d expect) and costs a fraction of the price. In fact it is priced very closely to some B85 and H87 motherboards so makes a very attractive proposition to someone looking to build a high performance PC on a budget. MSI’s Z87-G43 is a motherboard that is aimed at the masses. It is going to suit a wide range of needs from the basic home user who wants SATA III storage connectivity to the overclocker who wants to push their Core i7 4770K near its limits. Of course it doesn’t feature all the fancy extras of higher end motherboards but the basics of a high performance motherboard are still there.

MSI have been modest with the overall design and I think on the aesthetics side the Z87-G43 is a winner. It looks plain and simple and certainly there are no complaints to be had for looks. If we look at storage options well the motherboard provides what the Z87 chipset provides, no extra SATA or USB chips, and to be honest that really is fine because most people will never use that many drives and USB devices. If you want more than six SATA devices then you’ll need to consider a different motherboard. The PCIe connectivity is also spot on. There’s only really true support for 1 graphics card and for a motherboard of this price point you’ll probably only be using one so it does make sense. The addition of legacy PCI is also sensible because many people may still have legacy sound cards. That leads nicely onto sound actually, of which the MSI Z87-G43 didn’t impress that much. The ALC 892 Realtek audio codec is really showing its age so those legacy PCI sound cards might come in handy. The audio quality isn’t bad, its just average. Users will find that substantially better audio quality can be found on Realtek ALC 1150 based motherboards.

Despite the budget focus the Z87-G43 has the mainstays of a premium motherboard. A graphical UEFI BIOS with abundant overclocking options, high quality components, high speed memory support, SATA III, USB 3.0, PCIe 3.0, Gigabit LAN, 8 channel audio and a pretty decent software package from MSI to allow you to control and monitor everything in your system. For the price point there is little to mark this motherboard down on, other than the audio – I would of liked to see ALC 1150 used instead but you can’t have it all – and most people won’t be able to tell the difference anyway – unless you’re a real audiophile.

Pros

• Affordable
• High quality components
• Clean design
• Good software package
• Legacy connectivity options are sensible for price point
• Decent overclocking potential
• 3 Year warranty

Cons

• Average audio
• Black PCB would be preferable to Brown for most
• BIOS layout isn’t as intuitive as I’d like

“MSI’s Z87-G43 motherboard may not be the most exciting Z87 motherboard on the market, but it is by far the best value motherboard if you want to get onto the Z87 bandwagon. It brings all the high-end features of the Z87 chipset, good overclocking potential, sensible connectivity options and a good looking design. Of course the best part is that the motherboard is practically a steal at its current MSRP.”

MSI Z87-G43 (Z87) Motherboard Review

Thanks to MSI for providing this review sample.