Premium Thermal Solution: Enlarged heatsink with heat-pipe, MOSFET thermal pads rated for 7W/mk, additional choke thermal pads and M.2 Shield Frozr are built for high performance system and non-stop gaming experience Memory Support 7600+(OC)/7400 (OC)/7200(OC)/7000(OC)/6800(OC)/6600(OC)/6400(OC)/6200(OC)/6000(OC)/5800(OC)/5600(JEDEC)/5400(JEDEC)/5200(JEDEC)/5000(JEDEC) /4800(JEDEC) MHz Intel Test System #2: MSI Z690 MPG Carbon WiFi, Corsair iCUE Elite LCD 360mm, Corsair DDR5-6000 Vengeance RGB Memory (32GB), Nvidia RTX 3090, Samsung 970 Pro NVMe 1TB, Corsair HX-1050 1050 Watt Power Supply, Windows 11 (fully updated). Memory Support 7800+(OC)/ 7600(OC)/ 7400(OC)/ 7200(OC)/ 7000(OC)/ 6800(OC)/ 6600(OC)/ 6400(OC)/ 6200(OC)/ 6000(OC)/ 5800(OC)/ 5600(JEDEC)/ 5400(JEDEC)/ 5200(JEDEC)/ 5000(JEDEC)/ 4800(JEDEC) MHz LAN and Intel Wi-Fi 6E Solution: Upgraded network solution for professional and multimedia use. Delivers a secure, stable and fast network connection

With features and overview out of the way, let’s get into how the motherboard performed in benchmark testing. MSI MPG Z790 Carbon WiFi - Performance Intel Test System #1: MSI Z790 MPG Carbon WiFi, Corsair iCUE Elite LCD 360mm, Corsair DDR5-6000 Vengeance RGB Memory (32GB), Nvidia RTX 3090, Samsung 970 Pro NVMe 1TB, Corsair HX-1050 1050 Watt Power Supply, Windows 11 (fully updated). For this review, I found that my 13900K sample already struggled to maintain its thermal limits so was unable to push it further without extending beyond the realms of comfort. But, should you opt for a custom water cooling solution or hit the silicon lottery, these options are plentiful and readily available within the system BIOS. For gaming audio, music, and movies, the board uses an ALC4080 audio processor capable of 32-bit/384kHz. It’s not quite as high quality as the ESS DACs we’ve seen on other boards, but it delivers high quality audio that’s free from interference. MSI has gone the extra mile to source audio specific capacitors and to build in special shielding to keep the audio signal clean, which is great to see. On that front, MSI has also implemented a total of seven fan headers into the board. Five of these are for system fans and are intelligently positioned around the motherboard for clean wiring. There’s also a CPU and PUMP header for your air cooler’s fan of pump head if you’re water cooling.

SATA Cables If you’ve got any older storage drives that use the SATA data interface, you can install them with the included SATA cables. Compatible CPUs band support may depend on every country’s regulations and Wi-Fi 7 will be ready in Windows 11 SV3. LAN dan Intel Wi-Fi 6E Solution: Solusi jaringan yang ditingkatkan untuk penggunaan profesional dan multimedia. Memberikan koneksi jaringan yang aman, stabil dan cepat

There are also a number of quality of life features that I really appreciated with the board. It comes with a debug LED readout that is incredibly useful. As the system boots, it displays a series of codes that line up with what’s occurring at that moment, even if you don’t have video out to your PC. If there are any problems, the code will point you toward the source of the error. This is a feature that I refused to buy a motherboard without, so it’s great ot see it included here. Premium Thermal Solution: Enlarged heatsink dengan heat-pipe, MOSFET thermal pads dianjurkan untuk 7W/mk, additional choke thermal pads and M.2 Shield Frozr dibuat untuk sistem berperforma tinggi dan pengalaman gaming non-stop Mounted on the I/O through an M.2 port is the Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211NGW M.2 2230 card, which is easily serviced or swapped out as needed. This adapter also provides Bluetooth 5.3. From a first look, you’ll be able to see that both of these motherboards are rather similar, but there are some noticeable changes. Z690 motherboards were the first to have access to PCI-E 5.0, so we’re seeing this become more widely adopted on a range of boards including the MPG Z790 Carbon WiFi. The amount of USB ports has significantly improved as well with the Z790 maxing out at 10 high speed ports.

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The changes aren’t major, so the pressure is really on brands like MSI to make their boards worthwhile with custom features and capabilities. In fact, it’s entirely possible to run a 12th generation processor in a Z790 platform and take advantage of these same benefits, so you if you find yourself in the market for a new motherboard, Z790 is still a compelling option if it fits your budget. Intel’s Z790 chipset supports all of the brand new 13th-Gen range of CPUs along with the previous 12th generation series. This gives you plenty of options when it comes to upgrading. So if you’re purely looking to get some more rear IO or some more current features without a CPU upgrade, you can do this with a 12th-Gen CPU and a BIOS update. If you saw the first part of our review in progress for the Intel Core i9-13900K, then you’ve already had a sneak peak at gaming performance with this motherboard. Since I also had a Z690 Carbon WiFi on hand, as well as a 12900K, I decided to test it against the last generation board and to throw in the results using that board with a 12th gen CPU. Intel doesn’t expect there to be performance uplift in games and applications between Z690 and Z790, but I thought it would be interesting to show what the generational uplift is between the two models and CPUs.

AUDIO BOOST 5: Reward your ears with studio grade sound quality for the most immersive gaming experience The top M.2 slot is Gen4 and the heatsink is easily removed with a clip on the edge. Below that is the Gen5 M.2 slot, followed by three more Gen4 M.2 slots under a U-shaped heatsink — these are provided by the chipset while the other two M.2 slots are provided by the CPU. The main change is the inclusion of PCI-E 5.0 for graphics cards and SSDs. Most of the new Z790 boards have Gen 5 compatible slots which do a great job of opening upgrade paths for next-gen graphics card and SSD releases. We’ve also seen PCI-E 5.0 slots feature on a fair few on the cheaper boards which is a big selling point if you’re looking to upgrade in the future.Available only on processors featuring integrated graphics. Graphics specifications may vary depending on the CPU installed. Memory Support 7600+(OC)/ 7400 (OC)/ 7200(OC)/ 7000(OC)/ 6800(OC)/ 6600(OC)/ 6400(OC)/ 6200(OC)/ 6000(OC)/ 5800(OC)/ 5600(JEDEC)/ 5400(JEDEC)/ 5200(JEDEC)/ 5000(JEDEC)/ 4800(JEDEC) MHz

Inside, there are plentiful options to adjust the P-Core and E-Core multipliers, ratios, and multipliers. It also offers load line calibration to ensure your processor receives consistent, stable power. AUDIO BOOST 5: Manjakan kuping Anda dengan kualitas suara studio grade untuk pengalaman gaming yang paling imersif. And, as a fan of RGB lighting, I love the tasteful RGB MSI has implemented here. It’s just the dragon logo, nothing too overdone, but it provides a nice visual accent that looks great inside of a tempered glass case.

User reviews

The system also features a whopping five M.2 slots for NVMe SSDs. Four slots run at PCIe 4.0 x4 speeds while the second larger slot is rated for PCIe 5.0. There are also six SATA slots, but be aware that the final M.2 slot shares lanes with these, so you’ll want to position your SATA SSDs and HDDs according to the manual. With everything removed we can take a good look at the motherboard in all of its glory! Hidden under all of the heatsinks are several ICs: a Nuvoton NCT6687D-M 8-bit microcontroller with internal storage for controlling Super I/O functions and SMART Fan, a Nuvoton NUC126NE4AE microcontroller based on an Arm Cortex-M0, the ASMedia ASM1061 SATA controller for the first two ports (unlike the other four SATA ports, these can’t be RAIDed), and the Macronix MXIC MX25U25673G storing a 256Mb CMOS. The Intel SRM8P Z790 chipset is large, yet only draws up to 6W TDP, and uses DMI 4.0 for the bus interface. The I/O panel has three buttons for easy user interfacing which can be changed in the BIOS. The Smart Button is user-changeable in functionality with the default being system reset, and other options include: Mystic Light toggle (unless LED_SW1 aka EZ LED Control is turned off), Safe Boot mode (by holding the smart button and powering on 0, causing the system to boot with default settings and lower PCIe mode values), and Turbo Fan which toggles all fans between full or default speeds. The Flash BIOS Button allows users to update their BIOS without a CPU even or RAM. The CPU_PWR1 and ATX_PWR1 connections will be required to enable the dedicated USB port, which you can use to insert a USB drive with a compatible BIOS renamed to MSI.ROM in the root directory. Users can then hit the Flash BIOS button, which causes the LED to start flashing on the button until the process is completed. The Clear CMOS button can be used to reset BIOS to default values by holding it down for 5-10 seconds. Next is the pair of blue USB 3.2 Gen 1 5Gbps Type-A ports with the top being used for the Flash BIOS button, and an HDMI port for video output of any iGPU depending on if the CPU has one. The other main change is the more frequent usage of high speed USB ports. The amount of rear IO you have is often based on price, but we’ve again seen the inclusion of more ports on less expensive boards which is a nice touch. Many new boards may also feature a Thunderbolt 4 header for your PC case, or USB4 ports on the rear giving you access to fast charging and better transfer speeds. Overall, the Z790 chipset has not changed that much from its predecessor, but there are definitely some improved features that justify choosing it over Z690 for a new build.