Previous to the discharge of Intel’s eleventh Generation Rocket Lake processors, motherboard distributors unveiled their ranges of Z590 motherboards prepared for the realm of PCIe 4.0. We noticed numerous refreshed fashions, with the MSI MEG Z590 Ace being one among them. Sometimes positioned as a bridge between the mid-range and the flagship fashions, the Ace has supplied distinctive options previously, with barely fewer bells and whistles of fashions reminiscent of MSI’s Godlike, however nonetheless loads to get enthusiastic about. The MSI MEG Z590 Ace contains a formidable 4 M.2 slots, six SATA ports, 2.5 gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 6, and Intel’s newest Thunderbolt 4 Maple Ridge controller. Seeking to dominate the premium motherboard market section, we deep dive into the Ace on this assessment.
MSI MEG Z590 Ace Overview
It is no secret that the worth of recent forefront Intel motherboards has risen to unprecedented ranges. There was a time when probably the most premium topped out at $175, however the mid-range on a premium chipset reminiscent of Z590 can simply price customers north of $300. Right now distributors are competing greater than ever to stack their boards with as many options and controllers as doable, even with fanciful designs and flashy RGB. It drives the worth up much more. However moderately than paying $600 for the highest tier, going one beneath that high tier can supply nearly the identical stage of options, however at half the worth. Enter the Ace.
MSI’s designs have been getting higher and higher over time, and the MSI MEG Z590 Ace being a tremendous instance of this. Designed as a premium, albeit lower-cost different to its feature-laden MEG Z590 Godlike flagship mannequin, the Ace is definitely no joker and offers ample specs to the desk. The aesthetics features a primarily black design, with gold accented textual content on the rear panel cowl, a heatpiped energy supply heatsink, and two areas with built-in RGB LED lighting; the rear panel cowl and the chipset heatsink. Curiously, MSI has performed away with plastic covers and as an alternative opts for premium metallic covers, together with the one hiding away the audio chip. There’s additionally further motherboard reinfocement on the rear of the motherboard to assist with massive heavy graphics playing cards.
For customers in search of one thing barely totally different, MSI lately unveiled its MEG Z590 Ace Gold Version, with gold and brushed aluminum ending for a ‘lighter’ wanting different to the common Ace, albeit with the very same characteristic and controller set. Included within the set of each features a driver set up on a USB drive, one thing we have been advocating for, in addition to a cleansing brush. Properly there is a first time for every thing.
Among the board’s options embrace three full-length PCIe slots, together with two working at PCIe 4.0 x16 or x8/x8, with the underside full-length slot electronically locked to PCIe 3.0 x4 from the chipset. In between the full-length slots are two PCIe 3.0 x1 slots, whereas MSI features a complete of 4 M.2 slots, with the Ace being one among a small number of boards to incorporate greater than three. The highest M.2 slot helps PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 drives, whereas the opposite three can assist PCIe 3.0 x4, with two of the three that includes assist for SATA-based drives. For typical SATA gadgets, there is a complete of six SATA ports which all embrace assist for RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 arrays. With Intel’s memory-related refinements for eleventh Gen and Z590, the Ace can assist as much as DDR4-5600, which could be very quick, whereas the 4 reminiscence slots may also accommodate as much as 128 GB of capability.
Increasingly premium Intel motherboards use Thunderbolt, and the MSI is utilizing Intel’s newest Maple Ridge Thunderbolt 4 controller. This not solely provides two TB4 Kind-C ports on the rear panel however a pair of mini-DisplayPort video inputs, that are particularly useful for daisy-chaining exterior shows, and providing unparalleled connectivity for content material creators. Different rear panel connectivity contains two USB 3.2 G2 Kind-A, 4 USB 3.2 G1 Kind-A, and two USB 2.0 ports, with an extra USB 3.2 G2 Kind-C entrance panel connector, one USB 3.2 G1 Kind-A header providing two ports, and two USB 2.0 headers which permit for 4 further ports. MSI makes use of a premium HD audio codec and DAC pairing for onboard audio, whereas networking features a 2.5 GbE controller and Wi-Fi 6E CNVi pairing.
From a efficiency perspective, the MSI MEG Z590 Ace did very effectively in all three components of our check suite, together with system, compute, and gaming. By way of energy consumption, the Ace did use somewhat extra juice than most Z590 fashions we have examined up to now, though POST time is aggressive, as is DPC latency efficiency. In our computation and gaming benchmarks, the Ace was aggressive in opposition to different fashions.
The MSI MEG Z590 Ace present process our VRM thermal testing
Once we overclocked the MSI MEG Z590 Ace with our i9-11900K, we noticed comparatively tight Vdroop management at decrease frequencies and CPU VCore voltages beneath 5 GHz, though this modified as we above 5 GHz with some very aggressive Vdroop. We managed to get to five.2 GHz all-cores 100% steady, with no thermal throttling and an unimaginable and equally terrifying energy draw of 485 W at full-load. We noticed a rise in POV-Ray efficiency as we examined every frequency. MSI’s auto-overclock Recreation Enhance presets within the firmware truly carried out worse than the default settings, with extra CPU VCore, and far increased core temperatures and energy draw. In our VRM thermal testing, the Ace carried out effectively, with a reported temperature of 69ºC from the built-in thermal sensor on the big 18-phase energy supply and 73 and 75ºC respectively from our pair of Okay-Kind thermocouples.
The MSI MEG Z590 Ace has an MSRP of $500, however you may at present discover it cheaper at each Amazon and Newegg. On the time of writing, it may be bought at Newegg for $492, whereas Amazon is an efficient chunk cheaper with a present value of $470. One other mannequin worthy of mentioning, which is in an analogous value vary, is the ASUS ROG Maximus XIII Hero (our subsequent Z590 assessment), which does have the higher rear panel of the 2, additionally with Thunderbolt 4, however extra USB 3.2 G2 Kind-A, with twin 2.5 GbE. The MSI MEG Z590 Ace does, nonetheless, have loads going for it, with extra M.2 actual property, and appears to play its hand barely in a different way than different distributors.
That is solely the introduction to our assessment! Learn on for our prolonged evaluation.
