KitGuru Annual Awards 2013

If your build is more likely to feature a top end Intel processor with liquid cooling and you are able to allocate closer to £200 toward the mainboard, then you are looking for a serious foundation for a serious system.

In recent times this section of the market has been dominated by Asus … and it still has some very strong contenders here. That said, Haswell did see more competition at launch than we have seen in a long while.

After testing board after board the KitGuru team found subtle differences in setting up. Most of that focused on the ease with which you could hit 4.5GHz with a Core i7 4770k – straight out of the box.

Our choice in this category is the MSI MPOWER MAX. The conclusion we wrote back in June says it all:

“The box presentation is fantastic and the bundle is the best of the three we have had for review. MSI include everything but the kitchen sink with the MPOWER MAX”.

We also stated that “The MSI board seemed the easiest to overclock, as we could post at 4.5GHz by simply increasing the CPU voltage to 1.225v after changing the turbo multipliers for each core ratio limit. None of the other BIOS power settings needed adjustment to get complete stability at the 1GHz overclocked settings”

And that it should be “Right at the top of your shortlist”

If you want an easy to build, easy to overclock board with a great bundle and excellent recovery options (for times when your OC creativity is maxing out your hardware's abilities), then this is the board for you.

Read our review, over here.

KitGuru's choice for Best Overall Intel Mainboard 2013 is the MSI MPOWER MAX.

Buy from Overclockers UK, from this link.

Become a Patron!