MSI Z87I Gaming AC (LGA 1150) Mini-ITX Review

A Closer Look

MSI’s Z87I Gaming AC has a rather strange layout. The SATA ports and front panel connectors are where we’d expect to see the CPU 8 pin, while the 24 pin is where we’d expect to see the CPU fan headers. The CPU socket is also offset more towards the PCIe lanes than the top of the motherboard while the 8 pin placement makes it so that you have to have cables going across your motherboard – not ideal for a clean build.

Most of the time it isn’t worth looking underneath motherboards as there isn’t much to see. However, with mini-ITX there’s often a wealth of components that couldn’t be squeezed on top underneath. With MSI’s Z87I Gaming AC motherboard we can see that this is the case.

Looking at the rear I/O we can see all those ports I mentioned earlier:

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port
• 1 x Clear CMOS button
• 2 x USB 2.0 ports
• 4 x USB 3.0 ports
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF OUT connector
• 1 x RJ45 LAN jack
• 2 x Antenne connectors
• 1 x eSATA port
• 6 x OFC audio jacks
• 1 x DVI-I port
• 1 x HDMI port
• 1 x DP port

This is how the motherboard looks with the WiFi Antennae fitted. For anyone who is wondering, no the antennae do not block any ports when facing upright.

Here we can see the multi-connectivity card more closely, it sits in a half-size mini-PCIe slot.

The heatsink bares the MSI Dragon. We can also see those five SATA 6G ports, the USB 3.0 header, 24 pin motherboard power, front panel connectors and CPU 8 pin. As mentioned already the layout is strange, especially for the SATA ports. However, you have to consider that many mini-ITX cases will actually benefit from this seemingly unconventional layout as the motherboards are mounted facing upright and cables can rise up from each side except the back. Note the BitFenix Prodigy’s layout for example.

Near the rear I/O we find the CMOS battery mounted upright behind the heatsink which has the CPU 8 pin next to it and six CPU power phases.

We can also see a modestly sized heat pipe connecting the chipset’s PCH heatsink to the CPU VRM one. It appears to be a 6mm heat pipe.

The audio section is located by the PCIe X16 lane. We can see the shielded audio codec inside the audio boost casing with the audio capacitors and headphone amplifiers surrounding it.

The PCIe x16 lane supports Gen 3 speeds and is going to be your main source of GPU grunt, even if you have a hefty backplate it should not interfere with anything.

Finally we have the two DIMM lanes which open only at one end, the right end. This is to prevent conflict with the PCIe lane.