The MSI MPOWER motherboard series is returning with a Z790 chipset version that is expected to launch at $199-$229. The MSI MPOWER motherboard series was last seen, and introduced, for the LGA1151 socket that debuted in 2015, the Z170/Z270 series. That being said it's been the better part of a decade since MSI has used this branding and it's thought that it could, for now, be replacing its Unity line. The folks over at Wccftech were lucky enough to get a little bit of time with the new Z790MPOWER ahead of its official reveal.
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I think you mean the "Unify" line. It wouldn't surprise me. Now that a lot of budget oriented boards are dropping everything but the RGB headers, the Unify isn't really special for the thing it was predominantly known for. At first, it was an apology for the abysmal X570-A and extending an olive brand to the "get off my lawn" FUDs who whine about the cost of RGB and agonize over turning lights off.
Wow, I don't remember the Mpower brand or the Unity brand.
I do. I reviewed most of them back in the day. MSI had the MPower and X-Power boards. The latter were essentially HEDT boards.
In fact I can't think of any MSI sub-brand right now.
Part of the issue is that MSI has often chosen naming conventions that make absolutely no sense. Names like "Mortar, Grenade, Edge, Carbon, and Tomahawk " are all meaningless without additional context. They used to have others that leaned into the whole "Mortar, etc." nonsense
The only MSI branding I can think of was their dumb-*** "Military Class" branding they used for a few years there. Military class. You know. Made by the lowest bidder.
Military Class wasn't a brand, it was marketing for a feature set that basically all MSI boards had at the time. "Military Class" was essentially an alternative to GIGABYTE's "Ultra-Durable" marketing. Military Class actually did refer to adherence to military (Mil-STD) specifications for electronics. The military class boards all had a certificate in the box showing which standards they adhered to. I actually looked them up and verified they were indeed compliant.
That being said, there were better built boards out there that far exceeded military standards. However, the unwashed masses tend to think of "Mil-Spec" as being of the highest standard when that's not the case at all. It's not the highest standard, but rather a bare minimum one for reasonably reliable operation in expected combat and field conditions. People get this confused in a lot of cases but its far more prevalent in the gun industry than it is here.
People think that a Mil-Spec AR-15 is the top echelon when its not. It's the base standard for a combat rifle. It's actually a decent standard but its not the best. You have plenty of AR-15's from various companies that fall well short of meeting the TDP specs for an M4A1 carbine and plenty of others like HK's MR556, LMT's MARS rifles, and Knight's Armament SR-15 rifles that are well beyond those specifications. The masses don't realize this and think getting a Mil-Spec gun for $899.99 is the "best" when in reality, you'd be looking at well over $3,000 to get something you could argue as being "the best."
I don't know about everyone else, but when I go shopping for motherboards or other parts I do so based on specs and features. I sort by how many NIC ports does it have, how fast are they, what brand are they, how many PCIe slots, how many m.2 slots, etc. etc. I filter based on these things, not based on names, so I guess the names never register at all.
I don't do it that way. I basically look for the highest end models from each brand out there and compare them. From there features, price and aesthetics factor in after that. The highest end boards have the best VRM's (though similar VRM configurations do sometimes propagate down the product stack a bit) and their UEFI implementations will be the most complete. Lower end boards with more basic clock generators and voltage controllers do not offer the same granularity of tuning. Higher end boards also often have more tuning for higher performance memory, etc. Given that memory overclocking is about all that's left, it's relatively important to me as an enthusiast.
Beyond that, if a board lacks a feature I need it gets crossed off the list. However, this is extremely rare at the top end of the product stack for each of the major companies. Of course, I don't necessarily look at every company. Many companies don't really build the halo boards I'm typically interested in as they just don't really compete there. At least, not in the US market. You don't look to BioStar for halo boards as an example of what I mean here.
That is true, but MSI isn't exactly alone there, unless anyone can tell me what an Aorus is
An then it gets confusing with Pro, Master, Elite and Extreme superlatives. It's tough to remember the segmentation there. When everything is "ulttra" nothing is "ultra"
...and then they have the Aero branding which I guess is just called that because it is white, silver and light grey? Who the hell knows? Not me.
I deal with this **** for a living and even I can't tell you without having them in front of me. The brands have way too many SKU's, too many variants and there is nothing intuitive about their branding. Though I can tell you that Extreme is the top model for the Aorus line. I believe Pro is at the bottom and Master second from the top and so on. (If memory serves.)
I guess all I am trying to say is that MSI are far from the only ones.
Asus seems to be the exception, with pretty well delineated sub brands.
ROG = Hardcore Gamer (or at least enthusiast)
TUF = Regular Gamer
PRIME = jack of all trades desktop
ProArt = Artistic creatives
Workstation = IT/Engineering creatives.
It is not perfect, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense. We can argue if this level of segmentation is really necessary (I mean, are they really that different under the hood?) but at least it is easier to follow.
When you have to release a chart to clarify things for the public, you've ****ed up your branding. ASUS released a "motherboard brand pyramid" to clear up the confusion on the branding when they introduced ROG STRIX and TUF gaming. TUF wasn't a gaming brand prior to that. ASUS does do it better than most, but they've shifted these around to create confusion among their customers.
When ROG STRIX came out, people mistakenly thought those were the new ultra-high end boards because that's how the video card line worked. In reality, ROG STRIX was the bottom of the ROG family. ROG itself has been diluted to the point where its meaningless. Back in the first few years it was around there was but one ROG model per CPU and chipset type. You had one HEDT offering and one mainstream offering for both AMD and Intel's platforms. Essentially, there were only three models at a time. Super easy. Plus, ROG boards were essentially not just best in class for ASUS', but arguably best in class period. Many of the ROG boards at the time were simply the best of their respective generations.
Now, there are too many models and nameplates within ROG itself to have any idea what you are getting. At one time you had the Extreme, APEX, Formula and Hero. There was a great deal of overlap in those areas with the Formula sometimes being the best board outside of LN2 cooling though it was a little bit lighter on features than the Extreme boards were. Now that's taken up by the APEX model which is what Formula should always have been. The Formula and Hero for the Z390 generation's had weak VRM's but their branding made you think that wasn't the case.
The TUF Series used to be "ROG" without the focus on overclocking and more focus on stability and monitoring capability. All of that was integrated into ROG and TUF became a budget gaming brand. There were people that favored the TUF brand as they wanted high end boards but didn't care about overclocking. Then, it was all of the sudden a budget tier gaming brand which left people who were fans of the series shaking their heads. Essentially, TUF went from being the MCU movie to a CW super hero show.
ProArt and Workstation do make sense, but again ASUS keeps shifting the goal posts for some of these brands which creates confusion. Additionally, within ROG itself, you have tons of nameplates like Maximus, STRIX, Rampage etc. It's still confusing, just not as confusing as what MSI does.
Yeah, I had a Haswell era mini-ITX "Military Class" board in a HTPC/TV frontend box for many years. H81i I think it was called. I popped a Celeron (G1840) in it and it was a solid performer. Reliable and still works to this day.
Whenever it needed to be rebooted - however - the "military class" POST splash graphic was eye-roll inducing though.
So, yeah, good boards, just not the best branding, IMHO.
Well, it could be worse. The old X-Power boards had fake bullets on the heat sinks and GIGABYTE's "Sniper" boards had an HK Mark-23 on it. Rumor was that they actually licensed this from HK though I doubt that's actually true. It had no HK logo so the license wouldn't have been required.
Afaik MSI currently has MAG, MEG, MPG and PRO series mobo's, whatever those mean.
Well, you more or less have placed them in the correct order from highest end to lowest end. The first three are all gaming brands and the Pro is essentially the DIY versions of OEM boards for system integrators.
I'm using an MPG series mostly because it had the amount of SATA ports I wanted, stupid Asus only has boards with 4 SATA anymore these days other then some 800€ one orso.
Now my board works mostly fine, other then I can't do orange RGB, my RGB on the fans does not walways come back up after a wake from sleep but very much more annoying, the keyboard is sometimes not working after wke from sleep, unplugging and plugging it back in does the trick to make it work again even though the RGB in this case stays on.
Try using a different USB port. Yes, I know that one works but not all the USB ports on a given motherboard are equal. Some of them may be attached to internal USB hubs or integrated third-party USB controllers which aren't as reliable as the chipset based ones from AMD and Intel.
My Dads pc with a Z97 mobo from MSI has been rocksolid however.
MSI, ASUS, and GIGABYTE all make solid boards as a general rule. There are specific models that make you shake your head and wonder what the hell they were thinking when they came up with their feature sets and some of them are buckets of compromise to hit certain price points. No manufacturer is perfect and ASUS, MSI and GIGABYTE have all put out models that I can only describe as flawed designs. Though this is relatively rare. Of course, other brands are capable of making good products as well, but I singled out those three for being the most consistent. Don't get me wrong, I've had boards from all three die on my test bench or cause me extreme amounts of grief here and there, but for the most part I've had very few issues with any of them despite having reviewed probably 200 or more motherboards at this point. 150 plus of those were split between those three brands. The other 50 plus boards I've reviewed are probably everything else.
EVGA typically only has one or two models at a time anymore and is barely worth talking about. They are largely irrelevant beyond the cult following that they enjoy which at this point is largely undeserved. ASRock makes some good stuff, but its not a super consistent brand. Some models I've dealt with are nothing short of awful and their QC is the worst of the bunch. I've had more issues with ASRock boards than all others combined. That said, my experiences with them lately indicate they've turned the corner as even their ultra-budget stuff has worked well for me.
BioStar has almost zero footprint in North America and is barely worth acknowledging. They make decent boards but their availability is so poor that reviewing them almost makes no sense. What's the use of doing a review for a product no one can actually find? There is NZXT, but their motherboards are OEM'ed by ASRock and covered in plastic cladding that results in a small upcharge. NZXT never has more than one or two available models either, so its clear that motherboards aren't really part of their core business.
