MSI's MEG Z490 ACE Review, Overpriced or a Premium Motherboard?
MSI's MEG Z490 ACE Review - Today we're taking a look at their Meg ace. This is one of their top tier boards. I think the only board above this is the godlike, but this is coming in with a pretty expensive price tag at 400, USD or 760 Aussie dollars, and so for this money, you're getting a 17 phase, vr m16 plus one design, 90 amp power stages.
The is l9 939 zeros chokes they're, using their titanium 3, which are 60 amp chokes and them figure they're dark cap rated at 10k for the PWM control, we're looking at an ISL six, nine, two, six nine and all this made the results quite good on both The temperatures and, of course, the power, consumption and everything in between where we saw a maximum surface temperature of 78 degrees and then the heatsink itself went to 57 degrees and 70 degrees from the vrm readout in the software.
This is at 5.2 gigahertz custom overclock on the 10900 K, which scored around 259 Watts max power draw. So it's pretty much right up there in terms of the vrm efficiency, it's scoring right beside that of the velociter.
So it's a really good vrm, not just in the hardware they've put on this, but in the results that we're turning out with this thing. And but one thing to keep in mind is: I did notice in the bias, if you're just going to overclock your cpu and sit in the multiplier. Don'T do this, because when I did this, I was getting close to 350 watts power draw.
So the automatic voltage settings will over volt the CPU quite big. So if you're overclocking, this thing definitely set in the voltages manually, but out of the box, 4.9 gigahertz, all core overclocked, we saw much lower temperatures and, at the same time the efficiency was a lot better at 197 watts. Another thing too, about this vrm heatsink: it's got a 30 mil fan integrated into it, and that's one of those.
The noise is virtually you pretty. Much cannot hear it at all, even at full speed, while we're doing it 5.2 Giga it's over blog I'll. Let you guys, though, take a quick, listen, [, Music ], so we're now looping Cinebench, odd 20, and the microphone here is right. Next to this 30 mil fan on the BRM heatsink and honestly, I cannot hear it versus the other noise around it, and my voice is about 60 centimetres away, so the vom solution, they've implemented on this board is phenomenal.
I wouldn't expect any less at this price point. The 30 mil fan is also doing a great job and the heatsink is weighing in at just over 300 grams. So I can't really critique anything on this point. It'S the most important point when it comes to an overclockable. Motherboard is getting the vrm right, especially at this higher tier price point.
They have done just that. Moving on now to the onboard audio we're seeing here, the real tach 12:20 is again being used. 2.1 decibel roll-off 84 decibels of crosstalk when we test that and then the mic import is using mic suppression, noise suppression and the frequency response curve was pretty much flat. The whole way through so onboard audio is really good if you're going with mid-range cans.
Of course, if you're doing any streaming or anything like that, your noise isn't gon na come through with any hissing and stuff. But of course, if you want to do professional audio recordings, then you may wish to step it up to something that's dedicated solution with that noise suppression, of course, giving you no noise, but reducing your voice quality, though moving through the PCIe features on this board.
We'Ve got three 16x slots, but the bottom two are actually truly only 8 X in the pin layout and then in between those we've got 2 1x slots and then at the top you've got a 16 speed slot and then for m dot. 2. We'Ve got three solutions on board here: supporting x4 and then three of those are all covered by heat sinks as well: testing out m2 speeds, as well as the m dot two temperatures.
We saw a maximum here of 52 degrees Celsius, so that heatsink is doing its job perfectly fine, going through the RGB. You'Ve got that on the top and bottom of the heatsink, as well as the aesthetic being a gold and black with all the RGB off you've. Also got an LED control, switch to turn that off the RGB, the whole instantly, if you wish to and then just besides, that, you've got white LEDs on the power and reset buttons.
Debug read out, it actually does look quite clean in practice, though, speak of the bias itself, you've also got the ability to quickly turn on your RGB and have that being controlled. If you want to by a separate manual controller, I believe you can do that with this motherboard, where you've got five volt addressable RGB down the bottom and top as well as 12 volt down the bottom and top two for a total of four RGB headers.
Debug read out, it actually does look quite clean in practice, though, speak of the bias itself, you've also got the ability to quickly turn on your RGB and have that being controlled. If you want to by a separate manual controller, I believe you can do that with this motherboard, where you've got five volt addressable RGB down the bottom and top as well as 12 volt down the bottom and top two for a total of four RGB headers.
And then, within the bias itself, I do like what they've done here very easy to control your overclocks very easy to save profiles lock in X and peas. It'S easy to control the eight PWM fan headers individually. You can set the profiles as well as control the MOSFET heatsink. You can individually control that if you want that to be louder and push more air through, though, as we said before, it's doing an absolutely fine job out of the box on its default fan profile.
As I said in the previous gigabyte, motherboard review I'd like to see RGB control itself added into the BIOS and have its own separate chip. So you don't have to install any software or you don't have to get an external controller, though moving through the final features of this board. 8 pin power connectors at the top and then on the rear.
We'Ve got 8 USB ports, one of those being a Type C. 3.2. We'Ve also got Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5, as well as your optical out and surround sound manual connection ports, and then we've got a clear CMOS button and a BIOS flash back button. So I do like the boss flashback with the dedicated ports. So if you've miraculously found yourself without a CPU, but then a next-gen CPU in the future, then you can use the BIOS flash back button without having a CPU that supports the current generation of BIOS.
So finally, they've integrated 1 and 2.5 g NICs for a total of two at the back and then there's an integrated IO shield. So you have to worry about installing a separate i/o shield and all completely losing it, which I'm sure over time. If you build enough, pcs you'll run into a motherboard without an i/o shield, and now it's conclusion time that with this motherboard and what do I think of it in general, should you go buy it if you're in the market for a high-end, z4, 90, and the Answer is yes, it's a solid board, there's nothing.
I could really pick out and fault about this board V RMS well on board, audios good. All the other features check out and everything worked. Absolutely fine. I have been hearing some reports in the comments about the 2.5 g nic canceling out. Sometimes nothing of any sort happened on this board. Everything worked smoothly and absolutely fine. Bios is pretty good, though.
If you watch back, there are some little things that I'd like to see change, but in terms of stability and usability, this thing is really good. They'Ve had to critique one thing that I'd like to see change, and this is a definite I'd like to see them. Take off the sharp edges here around these heatsinks.
These are actually very sharp, and I have critiqued and told MSI about this in the past with a I think, their laptop, and so this could be dangerous if you're, building a new, PC and you're like me, and you build pcs in a hurry, you could easily Cut yourself quite badly on these heatsink, so I would like to see them at least round off the edges a little bit so you're not at risk to cutting yourself so easy on these heat sinks.
That'S about the only thing I could take them for so, if you are building with this motherboard do be careful. You managed to even use some gloves because it's seriously the the sample I've got here. In the very least, it has very sharp edges. Ultimately, to sum things up, for you guys, it is a premium board with a premium price point that does deliver on the premium features set.
Also, one thing I will quickly mention is it took these four thousand four hundred megahertz XMP profiles in absolutely no problem, so it will support those without any issues whatsoever and there's also a big back plate on the rear and on the heat sinks themselves for the Vrm there is a little rear heatsink to absorb some heat out.
The back anyhow, if you guys enjoyed today's review, then be sure to hit that like button for us and do let us know in the comments section below what do you think of premium motherboards at premium price points? Is it something you usually get or is it something you overlook, love, reading your thoughts and opinions as always, and what do you think of this board in particular, especially the aesthetic?
Are you digging that black and gold themed look and now we've got the question of the day which comes from cytosis media and they ask? Are there any ITX sets that are good in price? You just made me reconsider my AMD Rison 5 2600, build that I'm gon na be ordering in the next week, or so. I really want a small form-factor, but on a budget are there any ITX sets out there that are good in price.
How trustworthy of these used CPUs so they're speaking about the x99 use eons that we've been looking at on the channel here and I'll put the link to the video is actually talking to up here, but basically, x99 and ITX. They don't really go together at all. If you're looking for ITX, you want to go with something, you are especially something like B 450.
You can get some really good before 50 ITX, motherboards and they're not going to break the bank in terms of Z 490. It remains to be seen what's gon na be out for the ITX solutions there, but in terms of ITX, I believe, there's like only one ITX x99 board made and that's gon na be quite expensive. So if you want to go ITX and x99, i do advise against it. I would just stick with Rison for that.