MSI Computer Corp. Intel Z77 ATX DDR3 2400 Intel-LGA 1155 Motherboards Z77A-G43

This board supports pretty much all of the latest technologies as of late 2012. It has USB 3.0, HDMI, PCI Express 3.0, and supports the 3rd generation Intel Core CPUs. Sturdy, reliable, affordable, and has BIOS designed for overclocking to your heart's contentment. The board supports 32 GB of DDR3 RAM. I have no complaints and found it easy to setup and use and once setup, it runs very reliably.

I bought this from the Goodwill in California as used (doubt you can find these new anymore). I have a really old Windows XP box that uses some really old music recording software that is tied to an old PCI SoundBlaster sound card. In an effort to keep it alive, I found this motherboard suited my needs allowing me to upgrade from my old system which was a hybrid 32/64 bit AMD duo with 4 GB ram to a newer i5 Intel with 16 GB ram and SSDs. My music recording software appears to be able to run on Windows 7 64 bit, which is great since I can utilize the full 16 GB ram and newer video card. So far so good! Everything is in working order with the used motherboard.Some issues I ran into were:1. It wouldn't boot up using a fairly recent nvidia 770 video card, I had to use an older 560 series.2. It wouldn't boot up with a USB memory stick plugged in, had to boot up with it unplugged, then plug it in once it bootedMSI still has everything you need on their website for this motherboard. All I got was the motherboard swapped in anti-static plastic and the faceplate, wrapped in large amounts super fun bubblewrap. I downloaded on another PC and copied to a USB memory stick once I installed Windows 7 on it. No issues so far! Great motherboard.Hopefully this will last me a while, there's fewer and fewer motherboards that support old PCI sound cards, and I really like my old software and hardware.

After 8 years of usage, one of the capacitors next to CPU exploded; However, I was able to boot the computer and continue to use it. I think the motherboard will die eventually. Don't recommend buying it

The Good:- Everything worked right out of the box.- Compatible with Ubuntu 12.10 linux- Latest Intel "Northbridge/Southbridge" chip- Room to expand.- Low costThe Bad:- Poorly executed graphical UEFI- The physical board is thin.Overall:I'm fairly impressed with this motherboard. I have been out of building desktops for years now, so I had to do quite a bit of research before settling on this mobo. I spent a lot of time reading reviews, looking for reliability issues. It is a fact of modern manufacturing processes that a certain percentage of product will fail. It stinks, but that's reality. However, steps can be taken to reduce that percentage. After a fairly unscientific study (kept a running total of failures reported in comments for various mobo manufactures, I selected MSI.This board had everything I was looking for. This box was built to dual function as a multi-user desktop for the basement as well as a whole home file and media server. For this, I like the the number of SATA drives it could support, and the variety of PCI slots offered. The extra USB3.0 header was a bonus. I bought a front mounted usb port / card reader and attached it to this header. At the time of purchase (late 2012), the Z77 chip was the best intel chip out there. Not many boards at this price point offered this chip.As this box was built to run linux, compatibility was another huge consideration. I'm happy to report that this mobo (and an Ivy Bridge i3 processor) worked right out of the box on Ubuntu 12.10. No drivers to compile, no hoops to jump through.I also appreciated that MSI included a couple of SATA cables with the mobo. It is a small item, but a nice bonus to the consumer. After finding I didn't have an extra cable as I thought, it saved me waiting for another order to be delivered before building my desktop.I find the UEFI (the new version of the BOIS) to be poorly laid out and clumsy to use. The graphics are a little overwhelming, with little distinguished between an item that can be clicked to execute an action and graphics that are just eye candy. The old text based BIOS systems were very linear, very structured systems. You could quickly and easily go through every option in a methodical manner to set up your system. Not so in the new graphical UEFI. I found myself hunting all over the screen trying to find the options I wanted to set. Once you determine what is actionable, your are then left to decipher the meaning of some of the icons yourself. Some of the options are presented as only icons with no text to explain their meaning. The most annoying was the boot sequence. It was only by trial and error that I was able to select the correct disk drive (I have multiple in my system) as the boot disk. I also had issues when attempting to boot from a USB stick. After setting it as the first boot device, the system would occasionally bypass the USB and go to the next device listed. After restarting the system, it would boot correctly.I also noted the thickness of the board. This has absolutely no affect on the function of the mobo, but during installation I noticed the board was significantly less rigid than the 10 year old board it was replacing. This allowed the board to flex during installation to the point I was worried it might at times snap. I assume this is less of a fault of this particular MSI mobo and more a result of cost cutting over the entire industry.Overall, I'm extremely satisfied with this board. After a lot of research, it represented the best balance of performance, expandability, compatibility and value. It has been powering my machine for 4 months now without an issue. If you're looking for a solid motherboard for a decent price, this will work well.

Was looking for the best buy I could get plus have all the features I wanted.I was really impressed with this board when I first saw it after taking it out of the box.It is very sturdy and strong.The board looks good and looks good inside the case.Has a lot of utilitys you can install from the driver disc or on MSI website and the Live Update utility will scan your system and recommend what drivers and bios version you need to update if any.Works very well and for the price is a very good choice.

Motherboard worked perfectly!!!

I like MSI motherboards, but this one had problems and had to be returned. Based upon past experience with MSI, I would certainly be willing to give another one a try. These things occasionally happen.

I bought this board as a replacement for one that died. The board looks sweet and has a ample amount of nice features for a budget board. It went in easily and booted up perfectly the first time. I usually have good luck with MSI products so I'm sure I'm looking at a good long life from this board.