MSI Z77A-G45 GAMING Motherboard Software

In this section of the review we will take a brief look at the main software for the MSI Z77A-G45 GAMING Motherboard: MSI Control Center (PC) and Command Center (Android/iOS).

The first screen of MSI Control Center gives you info regarding your CPU and memory and their operating speeds, more detail is available via the ‘More’ and ‘advanced’ buttons. In this screen you can overclock in real time without needing to reboot your system. Of course when you go too far the system will become unstable and our old friend BSOD will present itself. After a quick reboot original safe settings are restored and you may continue playing.

The next tab is OC Genie. This screen is somewhat of a waste in my opinion. A paragraph of text that tells you “You are a dummy”, a fancy info-graphic, and an icon to enable and disable OC Genie. I enabled OC Genie and awaited confirmation, I don’t quite know what I was expecting but any sort of confirmation would have done. “OC Genie has successfully overclocked your CPU, you are now running at 7GHz” would have been nice, but I was left hanging. I will end this rant on a positive note though. OC Genie was able reach a stable overclock of 4.2GHz on my CPU in the same amount of time it took my mouse to click on the OC Genie icon and enable it. If you want a stable overclock and you can’t be bothered to learn how it all works then OC Genie is for you, and it only takes one click of your mouse. Genie-ous.

The Green Power tab allows you to monitor your system temperatures and adjust fan speeds to save power and reduce system noise. It’s quite basic but gets the job done all the same.

In the LED screen you can enable/disable the CPU phase LED’s on the motherboard.

The Record tab is your hardware monitor screen, useful if you are pushing your system to its limits and want to keep a record of what’s happening during a benchmark or stability test. in the bottom pane you can set thresholds to trigger an alert if they are reached.

The mobile tab allows you to set up a virtual server on your PC that will allow overclocking and system monitoring via an Android or iOS mobile device. This feature is also available to MSI Afterburner, so you can now control all aspects of your overclocking and monitor your system’s vital statistics via a remote handheld device.

MSI are taking overclocking to the next level with their Command Center app. As if overclocking from the Windows desktop wasn’t enough, you can now remotely adjust settings via your Android or iOS device. All of the settings available in the MSI Control Center desktop utility are also available in the MSI Command Center application. Setup is quick and easy and the UI is very well laid out.

The MSI Command Center app also features a very handy hardware monitor. Values are updated in real time so you can monitor your systems vital statistics while you are running benchmarks, stress testing your system or playing games. It would be nice if Command Center could also detect your video card but MSI do also have an Afterburner app for Android and iOS devices.

eControl has options to shutdown or reboot your system and a clear CMOS button. The next tab (shown above) is a nifty media center remote. This is a great addition for HTPC/Gaming PC’s hooked up to a big screen where using a mouse and keyboard might not always be practical.