MSI MEG Z490 Ace Motherboard Review

Rating: 8.5.

We used the MSI MEG Z490 Ace as the platform for our launch review of Intel’s Core i9-10900K CPU. The VRMs delivered all the power we needed for rock solid performance and that meant we were able to focus on the CPU and those ten cores of 4.9GHz goodness. We also used the BIOS to overclock the CPU to hit 5.2GHz, however there were plenty of features we ignored and we didn’t get too hung up on the £400 price, or at least, not until now.

Key features

• Form factor: ATX
• Chipset: Intel Z490
• Socket: LGA1200
• RAM: 4 DIMMs up to 128GB DDR4-4800MHz(OC) in dual channel.
• Graphics slots: 3× PCIe 3.0 x16 (supports 2-way SLI and 3-way AMD CrossFire).
• Expansions slots: 2× PCIe 3.0 x1
• Storage: 3× M.2, 8× SATA 6Gb/sec
• USB:
  • 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 20Gbps Type-C Lightning
  • 3x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
  • 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C
  • 4x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
  • 6x USB 2.0
• LAN: Realtek 8125B 2.5Gb/sec + Intel I219V Gigabit
• WiFi/Bluetooth: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 + BT 5.1

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