MSI First Motherboard Brand to be Windows 10 Certified

[kemical]

What is the first of what I'm sure will be many MSI have released the first motherboard to come with Microsoft Windows 10 WHQL certification.
More on the Intel based board can be found here:
MSI First Motherboard Brand to be Windows 10 Certified

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Thanks for posting this. It's good to know. I personally don't buy MSI boards, as I haven't had the best of luck with them in the past. But, if it passes WHQL testing, it might be worth buying one for self-builders willing to experiment. Looking forward to ASUS getting some of their new Mobos WHQL tested; I might actually consider building a PC again. Haven't built one in years.

Cheers!
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[kemical]

Same here to be honest BigBear. I'm more of a Gigabyte man although I was very tempted last build by both Asus and MSI offerings. I was very impressed by the recent crop of motherboards ( I upgraded in Spring from AMD to Intel ) they are so feature laden and really good build quality. http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4959#ov
The onboard sound quality is fantastic as are many of the features and the Gigabyte board only just won through due to price and features.
I bet the new Windows 10 boards are even better! I love how the developers have embraced the whole gaming/overclocking genre. Even if the user doesn't overclock he/she still benefits from the better components used like VRMs, chokes and solid caps although admittedly one has to pay a certain premium for the priviledge..

 

[kemical]

Here's a nice Asus Windows 10 board:

Have a peek at the ASUS Z170 ROG Maximus VIII Extreme and then head on-wards into the review.

Reference

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Yeah, I saw this one on the other thread. VERY IMPRESSIVE! I'm looking at this one for my next custom-rig build.

<<<BBJ>>>

 

[ussnorway]

I was very impressed by the recent crop of motherboards ( I upgraded in Spring from AMD to Intel ) they are so feature laden and really good build quality. http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4959#ov

I've been considering this one as well as a replacement of my old http://www.gigabyte.com.au/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3833#ov home system...

on paper it looks like a nice upgrade but I cann't find any benchmark info I'd trust... what g-card have you placed in it?

 

[kemical]

I've currently got my old Nvidia 680 2GB running but come December that will be swapped out for a 980Ti. When I upgraded last Spring this was the best in regard to features/performance ratio and of course it's price bracket. The on board sound is the best I've ever heard from an on board solution and I have to admit I'm pretty impressed with it so far..

Reviews:
Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 Motherboard Review

GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-Gaming 7 Review

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015...g_7_lga_1150_motherboard_review/#.ViC_dZqrSHs

 

[Davejackson99]

VERY IMPRESSIVE!

 

[RichM]

Oooh pricey kemical to go from dark ages to 980ti but world of difference of course.
I build a fair amount of units for clients and I have all but deserted Gigabyte for issues, especially with 970A boards
this year and while I was using a lot of Msi boards I am now almost exclusively Msi. They are back folks and almost with a vengeance!
Check this out:
MSI H170A PC Mate LGA 1151 Intel H170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com
A lot of value for the price. I am using an older version of this with my 4790K cou and this board is rock solid!

 

[kemical]

I am using an older version of this with my 4790K cou and this board is rock solid!

It does look like a solid work horse with everything in the right place.

Oooh pricey kemical to go from dark ages to 980ti but world of difference of course

It's an absolute beast of a card and even tho it was expensive it's worth every penny to me..

 

[RichM]

Yep and I know you will really appreciate that. I know when I went from a 260GTX Nvidia card to the R9-280X card
I was flying!

 

[William B]

MSI have made significant strides the past 2-3 years, in some ways leading the pack now, which was not the case for years. The physical hardware on the boards are now very high quality right up there with Asus and Gigabyte. It's sort of sad though that now there are only a few vendors to pick from I can remember back in the day when Soltek, Soyo, FIC, DFI, Epox, Shuttle, Biostar (still there but fading) and so many more we had to choose from.

 

[RichM]

Yep very few quality mfgrs left and don't forget Abit and Intel, they both made some really good boards.

 

[William B]

I had a few Abit boards and built with many. My personal favorite with the Abit NF7-S. More were eVGA - which still makes some boards, XFX, AsRock (still making boards), ECS (L337-PCChips), Aopen, Tyan (mostly server and dual socket), VIA (not only chipsets but they made boards too), Sapphire, Foxconn, Supermicro, leadtek, Jetway, Acer, Chaintech, Iwill, Zotac, and more lesser known brands. I built with just about all of them too.

Primarily now we have Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, AsRock. with some ECS (l337) boards.

 

[RichM]

Actually I like AS Rock a lot ever since they started building their own boards they are now actually also quite good.
EVGA boards are also usually quite impressive but actually everything they do I have seen is a class act though they don't actually manufacture themselves.

 

[William B]

ASRock is pretty good but they do lack a tad on the QA side in my opinion -- meaning they tend to have slightly more failures than the big three. However, I would not say that I would not run one myself. I have built with many of them but mostly in the past in the AMD socket 939 days (939 dual). The Fatal1ty series is pretty good on both the AMD and Intel side. I have not built with an eVGA board since the Intel socket 775 days. This was the last eVGA board I built with here.

EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com

 

[RichM]

NIce looking EVGA board. I was always impressed with their boards. They seemed wrapped better with more attention paid to accessories and the boards themselves were much thicker and heavier but they never had more than a few models available and the bags and boxes were always sealed so you could tell if they were new or returns instantly. I think Socket 939 were the old AS Rock boards built by ECS and I know you don't feel about ECS as I do but the new boards since they began their own are way better put together I think and I have not myself seen any failures with new entries

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Oooh pricey kemical to go from dark ages to 980ti but world of difference of course.
I build a fair amount of units for clients and I have all but deserted Gigabyte for issues, especially with 970A boards
this year and while I was using a lot of Msi boards I am now almost exclusively Msi. They are back folks and almost with a vengeance!
Check this out:
MSI H170A PC Mate LGA 1151 Intel H170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com
A lot of value for the price. I am using an older version of this with my 4790K cou and this board is rock solid!

>>>Wow! This board certainly looks nice. When I looked up the 980ti 6GB video card, I almost fell out of my Chair! $600+
I guess I had no idea that hi-end Gaming GPU cards were so much moola! Question for you: Did you feel it was or would be necessary to use a CPU cooler with this Mobo and the 980ti? In Whoosh's build video I referenced, I think he was using one on a 5GB DDR5 GPU card. Got any thoughts on that??
I think I should talk to my son and see what new online Games he wants to play before I go any further. But, this one sure looks nice!

That 980ti card costs almost as much as my Property Taxes!! <<<
Thanks--BBJ

 

[RichM]

William is the best answer there I would never pay $600 for a video card no matter what it did for me but I am not a gamer either.

 

[matterny]

If you are already spending $600 on a board, I am curious as to why you wouldn't go with a gtx 1080 or 1070, are they not as good as I am hearing or is it just compatibility?