MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi review: An excellent AMD Ryzen motherboard

With a worth of $500 / £430, you’d be proper to anticipate the MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi to look nice, supply an abundance of high-end options, and usually depart you with little purpose to lust after an improve till it now not presents assist for the most recent processors. It’s the corporate’s most costly MPG Carbon WiFi motherboard but, and it actually presents loads of headline options, together with Wi-Fi 7, USB 4, PCIe 5.0 SSD and GPU assist, and a good-looking look.

There’s rather a lot occurring right here when it comes to what’s been crammed onto the PCB and, after all, there are the added advantages of the MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi utilizing AMD’s finest gaming motherboard chipset, X870E, reasonably than simply the plain outdated X870 chipset. This provides benefits when it comes to the variety of high-speed USB ports and PCIe lanes obtainable, which means you’re much less prone to have to be careful for SSDs stealing PCIe lanes out of your graphics card, for instance.

In addition to kitting out this board with cutting-edge options, MSI has additionally given its EFI a makeover with a brand new HD interface and redesigned format, and it actually hasn’t in the reduction of on different options both. You get loads of overclocking and testing instruments, and even thermal probe inputs that may feed into your fan speeds, which is helpful for cooling particular areas of your PC, in addition to with customized water cooling.

Specs

Options

Let’s begin with the tool-free options on this board, as they’re a giant shouting level for all motherboard producers in the intervening time. MSI has taken an identical path to Gigabyte, as we noticed within the Aorus Elite X870 WiFi7 Ice, providing you with a push-button launch system on your graphics card.

Plus, like many 800-series motherboards, there are such a lot of M.2 ports that this characteristic is important, as you’d by no means be capable of entry the standard 16x PCIe graphics slot launch lever in any other case. MSI’s device requires you to press it as soon as to launch and once more to shut the latch as soon as your graphics card is put in to lock it in place. That’s maybe one step too many, however the mechanism is stable and leaves you in little question that your graphics card is safe.

The M.2 SSD heatsinks are additionally tool-free, with each that includes latches at one finish that launch or safe the complete heatsink with none want for further instruments, whereas the SSDs themselves are additionally held in place by extra tool-free latches.

Nevertheless, on the different finish of the heatsinks are pins that information and safe them into place, and these proved tough to line up, particularly on the bigger decrease heatsink. Against this, Gigabyte leaves these information pins uncovered so you possibly can see precisely the way to line up the heatsinks, however you’re working blind with the heatsinks right here and it may be a little bit tough.

The MSI board’s rear I/O panel can be undoubtedly an eye-catcher in comparison with earlier generations, with no fewer than 4 USB-C ports. Two of those are USB-C 4.0 and in addition double as DisplayPort outputs, whereas the opposite two are USB 3.2 Gen 2, topping out at 10Gbps. MSI nonetheless manages to cram in an extra 9 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Kind-A ports, although, so we doubt anybody will discover themselves wanting on the subject of USB ports on this board, now or sooner or later.

As well as, the panel additionally has each 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps Ethernet ports, plus buttons for USB BIOS Flashback, CMOS clear, and Sensible buttons, with the latter capable of be reassigned to numerous duties, comparable to resetting the PC or altering the RGB lighting.

In the meantime, the Realtek ALC4080 audio codec is actually the identical because the older ALC1200-series codecs as a substitute, but it surely’s now run off the USB bus. It in any other case has comparable specs and isn’t thought-about an improve regardless of the upper mannequin quantity. This audio system outputs to 2 3.5mm audio jacks, plus an optical output.

As you’d anticipate on a board at this worth, you additionally get energy and reset buttons on the PCB, in addition to an LED POST code show, which is helpful for AMD boards since they’ll take some time to POST because of reminiscence coaching and different options, so it’s useful to know your board remains to be booting and never frozen, particularly when you’re overclocking your system.

There are seven 4-pin fan headers as effectively, plus three thermal probe inputs, and the fan headers listed below are a lot better-placed than these on Gigabyte’s Aorus Elite X870 WiFi7 Ice too. What’s extra, all 4 M.2 ports are cooled above and beneath utilizing thermal pads and heatsinks, with two of them supporting the most recent PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs.

Design

If you happen to’re on the lookout for a black motherboard outfitted with modest RGB lighting you then’re in luck, and I additionally applaud MSI’s nifty engineering on the highest M.2 heatsink. This has a press-together connection for its RGB lighting, and that lighting additionally extends to the I/O shroud and a trio of 3-pin RGB headers.

The format can be glorious, regardless of the feature-rammed PCB, and promotes straightforward cable tidying, particularly on the subject of fan cables, because the headers are all positioned on the edges of the PCB. My solely criticism right here considerations the marginally tough heatsinks I discussed earlier, plus MSI may have hidden the ugly CMOS battery from view, maybe underneath one of many heatsinks.

In the meantime, the design of the brand new EFI is interesting and, as common, MSI has glorious overclocking and fan management sections, whereas the Home windows-based software program can be improved. The latter remains to be way more clunky to make use of than the EFI, though it may be helpful for fine-tuning your followers in stress checks.

Benchmarks

The MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi managed comparable Cinebench scores to the Gigabyte Aorus Elite X870 WiFi7 Ice, with a slightly slower single-core rating of 138, however a better multi-core rating of two,389.

In Whole Conflict: Warhammer 3 at 1080p its minimal 99th percentile and common body charges of 159fps and 220fps have been on par with the Gigabyte Aorus Elite X870 WiFi7 Ice too, with the common being 10fps increased. The audio efficiency was comparable as effectively, with a noise stage of -99dBA and a dynamic vary of 104dBA.

The highest SSD slot noticed our PCIe 5.0 SSD get a little bit toasty on the finish of our stress take a look at, sitting at 78°C, however this fell to 70°C utilizing the PCIe 5.0 slot underneath the bigger decrease heatsink so we advocate utilizing that one for a PCIe 5.0 drive.

In the meantime, the 18+2+1 part VRMs recorded a peak temperature of 63°C, which supplies you an affordable quantity of headroom when you plan on overclocking, whereas the system as a complete drew a little bit greater than the Gigabyte Aorus Elite X870 WiFi7 Ice, at 373W versus 361W.

Worth

The MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi worth is $500 / £430, making it one of many cheaper X870E motherboard choices on the market, but it surely nonetheless represents a sizeable funding. Provided that cheaper boards are simply as quick, many will discover the premium in comparison with cheaper choices higher spent on a extra highly effective graphics card or CPU, and even among the finest gaming SSD choices.

These cheaper choices embody older B650 and X670 motherboards, all of which assist the most recent Ryzen 9000 CPUs, together with the 9800X3D, in addition to B850 motherboards that shall be doing the rounds quickly too.

This board does have practically all of the options you’d need from a high-end motherboard, although, and presents a level of future-proofing in consequence, in addition to loads of scope for dealing with the most recent flagship {hardware}. With that in thoughts, you probably have a sizeable finances and wish your motherboard’s options to nonetheless be related on the finish of the last decade, then the MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi is certainly price contemplating.

Options

Gigabyte Aorus Elite X870 WiFi7 Ice

You don’t want an costly board based mostly on the X870E chipset to construct a fantastic Ryzen 9000 system, which is proved by this glorious Gigabyte motherboard based mostly on the cheaper X870 chipset. It doesn’t supply as a lot when it comes to PCIe 5.0 and high-speed USB assist, but it surely nonetheless covers most individuals’s wants, whereas additionally trying unbelievable.

If you happen to’re trying to construct a white PC, then this very good white motherboard will look nice in your white PC case, and it doesn’t value an excessive amount of cash both.

Learn our full Gigabyte Aorus Elite X870 WiFi7 Ice evaluate.

Verdict

Finally, what was as soon as an inexpensive mid-range board now retails for twice the worth of its predecessor based mostly on the X570 chipset. MSI’s MPG Carbon lineup has change into far more high-end within the course of, although, and this motherboard does supply a wonderful set of future-proof options, in addition to attractiveness. It wouldn’t look misplaced in among the finest gaming PCs with a Ryzen 9 9950X and RTX 4090 strapped to it, and are available January that’s prone to be an RTX 5090 and Ryzen 9 9950X3D, after all.

Fortunately, it does at the very least have the credentials to cope with these parts, in addition to all method of different high-end choices, comparable to customized water cooling, and, simply as importantly, it has cutting-edge options which are prone to change into mainstream in just a few years’ time. It’s costly, actually, however when you plan to construct a gaming PC with a high-end spec, and need a motherboard with options that gained’t be outdated in three years, it’s well worth the funding when you can afford it.

If you happen to’re pondering of constructing a brand new AMD Socket AM5 system, be sure to additionally try our Ryzen 7 9800X3D evaluate, the place we benchmark the present finest gaming CPU. You may also try our information on the way to overclock the 9800X3D, which we carried out utilizing this actual motherboard, so you possibly can see among the EFI options in additional depth.