MSI includes a fair amount of software with the 970 Gaming.
On the audio front the first layer of software comes as part of the Realtek ALC1150 drivers. These drivers pack in speaker configuration, sound effects and room correction and while it works well enough there are some curious things going on.
Look at the first screen grab and you'll see a row of four buttons that are short cuts for Sewer Pipe, Bath Arena, Stone Room and Auditorium sound effects. That's a curious selection.
MSI has ridden to the rescue with a package of Sound Blaster Cinema 2 software that shares the 970 Gaming black and red colour scheme. This software is skewed towards headphones and volume control and seems like a fine choice for gamers.
Another piece of software included in the package is the Killer Network Manager. The Killer LAN hardware is rated at 550MBps up and 450MBps down which is far higher than any Internet connection you are likely to be using. This means you are likely to want to control the software running on your PC and in particular to prioritise your gaming traffic.
This can save you from nasty surprises when a piece of software decides it is time to check for updates and causes the connection to stutter.
While the audio and network software are useful it is less clear that the MSI Control Centre adds much value. This is reporting software that copies information from the BIOS and gives you the ability to make changes within Windows, which might sound convenient, but this method is rarely as reliable as delving directly into the BIOS.
This software caused a spot of confusion as one of the features of the MSI 970 Gaming is the inclusion of OC Genie 4 which automates the process of overclocking. If you look at the second tab on Control Centre you'll see it activates OC Genie II.
The curious result of using OC Genie II was that the speed of the FX-8350 CPU was cut in half from 4.2GHz to 2.1GHz. This seemed unlikely however a quick run of 3D Mark Fire Strike showed the score dropped from 7,904 marks on standard clock speeds to 5,728 when ‘overclocked' with OC Genie II. It was the Physics score that took the hit, dropping from 7,787 to 4,070 marks.
The moral of this tale is that you might use Control Centre for information but if you want performance you need to work in the BIOS.