We've already told you how MSI has made a big splash at i49 with its all-in-one systems and of course with its handsome Dutch PR man, Joran, but that's not all it had on show. There was also a couple of newly released motherboards that drew my attention – one of them, is also a record holder.

The eye-catchingly clean looking Z87 MPOWER MAX recently helped its companion i7 4770K CPU break the GPUZ world record by hitting 7012.36 MHz. The most impressive part of this was that the chip used was factory spec – this was no fancy engineering sample.

Of course massive cooling was needed and the Z87 MPOWER MAX makes that easier by having most of its unnecessary features removed and as much extraneous ridges in the PCB stripped out to make a large flat surface surrounding the CPU socket -which makes attaching insulation and a big copper liquid nitrogen block, much easier.

As you might expect, this board is being targeted at enthusiasts.

This is a group that MSI has been targeting for a while though, argued Joran, who was really quite excited by the other motherboard he had on show, the Z87 G45 gaming board. It has a big feature list compared to its stripped back, yellow/black brother.

Recommended by professional gamer FNATIC, this board features dragon styling on all the heatsinks and is designed to cut back on add-in cards, by incorporating the Killer E2200 gaming network chip, reducing CPU load and improving latency, along with a Creative Sound Blaster chip for high fidelity audio.

Other features include the use of military grade components throughout, as well as the ability to run triple XFIRE and SLI setups and support for up to DDR3-3000 memory.

KitGuru Says: Styling wise I definitely prefer the slick look of the MPOWER MAX, but my hardcore overclocking days are behind me. I'd probably be safer with the G45. Which one would you guys pick?

Become a Patron!