MSI Z97S SLI PLUS (LGA 1150) Motherboard Review

BIOS and Overclocking

MSI reuse an almost identical version of their Click BIOS 4 on all the Z87 and Z97 motherboards. The main difference is that the Classic Series (which the Z97S SLI PLUS is part of) uses a blue skin, the OC Series uses a yellow skin and the Gaming Series uses a red skin. The MSI Click BIOS 4 uses a modest 1024 x 768 resolution and is visually designed with a tile-based interface. I’ve commented on previous MSI motherboard reviews that I don’t think this BIOS design uses space as efficiently as it could and I still hold that opinion. On the whole Click BIOS 4 is a reasonable BIOS implementation but it certainly isn’t my favourite. I think MSI lack the extensive range of tweaking options that some other vendors offer and they also don’t provide an “old-school” alternative BIOS for users who aren’t too fond of the UEFI design. If you’re into quick and easy overclocking you will find the Click BIOS 4 is perfectly adequate for that.

Overclocking

Overclocking on Haswell does get a little tedious but generally speaking every board will overclock the same, it’s all CPU-bound. We managed 4.8GHz stable with 1.3 volts, but moving up to 4.9GHz and 1.35 volts wasn’t stable. This occurs because our CPU simply can’t do 4.9GHz with a voltage that is tameable by “reasonable” cooling. Even then we still use a Corsair H100i which is a high-spec CPU cooler by anyone’s standards.