MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC LGA1151 Gaming Motherboard review

MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC LGA1151 Gaming Motherboard review

MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC LGA1151 Gaming Motherboard review

FORGreat overclocking of two DIMMs
Good overall performance
Supports SLI, Crossfire, or additional x8 storage card
All features are enabled simultaneously (no HSIO sharing exclusions)
Includes Intel 1.73Gb/s Wi-Fi module

AGAINSTVoltage regulator is under-cooled for heavy Core i9-9900K loads
Four slots of space won’t support six slots of graphics cooling.

Specifications

Socket	LGA 1151
Chipset	Intel Z390
Form Factor	Micro ATX
Voltage Regulator	11 Phases
Video Ports	HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2
USB Ports	10Gbps: (1) Type-C, (1) Type A 5Gb/s: (4) Type A
Network Jacks	(1) Gigabit Ethernet, (2) Wi-Fi Antenna
Audio Jacks	(5) Analog, (1) Digital Out
Legacy Ports/Jacks	(2) PS/2
Other Ports/Jack	✗
PCIe x16	(2) v3.0 (x16/x0, x8/x8)
PCIe x8	✗
PCIe x4	✗
PCIe x1	(2) v3.0
CrossFire/SLI	2x / 2x
DIMM slots	(4) DDR4
M.2 slots	(2) PCIe 3.0 x4 / SATA
U.2 Ports	✗
SATA Ports	(4) 6Gb/s
USB Headers	(1) 10Gb/s Type-C, (2) v3.0, (2) v2.0
Fan Headers	(5) 4-Pin
Legacy Interfaces	Serial Com Port, System (Beep-code) Speaker
Other Interfaces	FP-Audio, TPM, (2)RGB-LED, (2) D-LED, Corsair RGB, Thunderbolt AIC
Diagnostics Panel	✗

Internal Button/Switch	✗ / ✗
SATA Controllers	Integrated (0/1/5/10)
Ethernet Controllers	WGI219V PHY
Wi-Fi / Bluetooth	Intel 9560 802.11ac 2x2 (1.73Gb/s) / BT 5 Combo
USB Controllers	✗
HD Audio Codec	ALC1220
DDL/DTS Connect	✗ / ✗

now you know I love computer parts and the good thing is I got em si here to help me out with my addiction and oh I've got a beauty for you here today this is the MSI mpg z Gedge AC and man I love this motherboard corny enough no seriously though I do let's jump in all right so the MPG z Gedge AC this is going to be a performance gaming motherboard from MSI that is intended to help max out intel's ninth generation CPUs so there's a couple of key features that I want to cover while you all get to see some close-ups of the board here so let's hit those so the

difference when you move from the Z 370 to the Z 390 it's not going to be huge but there are a couple of key features one of which is C and VI support which is gonna help you open up 21.73 gigabit per second Intel wireless AC so basically this just means you're gonna be able to game at blazing speeds the other addition is that you can actually have a higher number of USB 3.1 gen2 ports so those are a couple of the technical differences but there is another important

difference the msi adds to these boards and that difference is an extended heatsink and improved pwm design so basically it can deliver all the power that is needed for these new nitrogen power-hungry processors and it can keep it cool or it's not gonna be too hot so to me that's a pretty big deal I have a ninety nine hundred K and I've done some testing and that bugger is hot and trust me you'll be glad you have this extra beefy heatsink design so those are

some of the key differences let's do a quick unboxing and then I will have some footage of a build I made with this board and I will talk a little bit more about some of the other features and things I like so let's head to there all right let's roll through what is in the box I will cut the dramatic music for now because we don't have any crazy scenes in the background but you know I'd like to just liven things up a bit so let's unbox this beautiful board and let me just say

one of my favorite things about this and you'll see it when I pull it out of the package just the the kind of oblique angle design that they have on the heatsinks is beautiful it is very unique and it's something I haven't seen anything quite like and I have had a lot of motherboards come through my hands and I really enjoy that about this board and I think the other thing I like is you know I'm really into RGB with my computer but if you're not if you're one of those people that wants something that is a really nice showpiece but it doesn't have to be all lit up then this

board fits both worlds it has RGB controllers which you'll see later but it can also go normal and still just be an amazing showpiece so there's the board itself you have your drivers an sli bridge different things inside here so there's that there's gonna be some product cards to help you get quick started to get your product registered and things to help you out with the build and then of course there is a manual and a QuickStart guide that is in there as well which is

quite helpful again especially for full first-time builders and builders like myself who have built a lot you still need to know where to plug stuff in so always appreciate having that and then here's gonna be our a/c wireless antenna that connect to the i/o on the back and here's our IO shield that goes on the back of the motherboard and then there are some SATA cables which again always nice when you're putting together a build so you get a couple of those there are some RGB connectors that come with this board which is always good to have especially in

today's RGB crazy world and then at the very end there's just a couple of very small screws that come that you can use with MDOT two drives so that's what those are even though the focus won't really get them there so I put this thing together in a bill just to show you all what it looked like and how oh man it definitely looks good it is one of the favorite motherboards I have seen give you a little shot of the inside and the the rear i/o shield here it really looks nice it looks real nice and then I'll give you some shots of it here lit up so what are some of my favorite

features that come with some other boards some mystic light it's going to talk about right here you can sync it it has a header where you can connect other devices so here I was able to sync this coolermaster case to the mystic light and you can set up whatever patterns or colors that you want all kinds of potential for customization basically so an awesome feature and then you get the twin MDOT two if you want to use them two drives I'm not using one in this particular

bill but I have on other MSI boards extremely fast boot up times very nice to have that MDOT to support and then the USB 3.1 gen2 support for front and rear also great to have get that high speed I mean really the biggest thing I'm loving about this board is how well it can handle the power delivery K because that thing is a mammoth of a chip and the extended heatsink and the power delivery is fantastic and let me get this build set up to where it

is running full speed ahead no problems but anyway those are a couple of my favorite features if you have other questions I'll have some links in the descriptions to just tech spec sheets for this so you can see all the different headers and stuff the great motherboard i highly recommend this one if you're gonna jump into an intel ninth gen build yep so if you're ready to

make that jump go make an upgrade and try out the new intel chips and honestly i know a lot of people are probably gonna be interested in those new i5s their high frequency this is gonna be a great platform all the way up to that I really a great option to give yourself either a kind of a mid-range power build for gaming all the way up to a very high-end gaming build so again this gonna be a heavy recommendation for me fantastic board it's working great appreciate it sighs sending it if you want to get out build definitely can suggest this one .

MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Edge AC LGA1151 Gaming Motherboard review

I have sent us the mpg:0mpg the board it is the AC vision as well I've got to say this is probably about top tier boards with half a 20-19 so far did promise you guys a bit more content this year so hopefully this is suited work for you if you're going to be purchasing a z3 19 board but let's go through what's inside the box so what's inside the box comes with the user guide for the z3 90 motherboard also it's got a so look here so it shows the graphics card series and the

old mnemonics they've got up the optics MGP as well here so put a bit of a read also has looks like an RGB extender cable but it is non addressable is 30 centimeters it's got the drop of utilities please download them to record for mimasaka they'll be updates from that from this CD I wish in the solid bring it a USB version but cities in there anyway just in case you did in it and you don't have obviously interred at the time so they will come in handy if you've got a

fault like I said off the ferp they had USBs because not most people today or actually don't even know who actually has a CD drive in their computers in your so it's going to go by an external that will still work it also has the AC obviously antennas for this is a Wi-Fi board so it comes with two antennas as well it also comes with a quick installation guide for your CPU is if you hit sync see yeah it looks like the MDOT two screws which I'm pretty sure they are on the board

but they can be two spare screws just in case it's got two SATA cables pretty standard there and also two looks like this is cable management stickers from Emma size so it's for your starter cable so you can actually identify which cycle that this does what so if you've got multiple hard drives you can label your your arm obviously one side of the SATA cable so drive a for example drive B and you'll label it on the other side so you can identify this off the board it's actually not bad by deep inside also has the backplate which is also a backplate it is black accent with red

writing on it and has got the MSI logo there as well comes with a case-to-case sticker they're pretty cool it's got an SLI bridge yep so it's library from in video and at least we've got the register so you can just register your product on the MSI socially not too bad at all let's put this to the side for the moments and it's have a look at the board so looking at the board here Emma so I brought out something very very nice again for the Z 390 series it is a black accent board

with a ton of ton load of i/o and fan kinnexa you can see on here it is running the LGA 1151 socket as well so it does support ninth gen and 8th gen CPUs looking at around here so graphics card wise I can see here it's got three PCI connectors running at 3.0 and they can't be can run in different configurations as well so you can run about time 16 x 0 or x 4 or we can run them at times 8 times 8 2 x 4 as well modes also has 3 PCI 1 slots and also to this it can be can fit in two

configured in two way or 3-way SLI and crossfire so I am the support which is actually pretty good you've got on the back here after you got your port to the back side it does have your own HDMI it's got your display here I've got two USB 2.0 as a ps2 port USB C 3 USB point a 3.0 3.1 as it is it's got your Gigabit LAN also to has your Wi-Fi AC your Intel Wi-Fi AC as well your audio and obviously your optical as well now I've going to the memory also it does support for

dims it's in dual channel and run a ddr4 and you can it scan over can be overclocked to four four thousand four hundred megahertz which is absolutely fantastic going to the m dot two slots now so now this does support to m2 m2 and also supporting Intel obtained as well and now it can run it looks like it's got one two it's got six SATA ports on here as well running at six speaking six cubic connections and USB 3.1 gen2 plus six USB 3.1 gen2 so absolutely taken six x USB 2.0 as well in this motherboard now going back to the lantern it runs an Intel one-two-one

one-two-one 9 - V Gigabit LAN and also has the wireless AC 946 - but also also has being Wallis it's got bluetooth 4.0 and going back to the audio it has eight channel 7.1 HD with audio boost 4.0 audio boost for so I should say now the extender heating design on the msi on the inside the hey cx-10 hates me it's the head of hate seat design Emma site has extended a PWM and enhanced circuit design to ensure maximum cooling for this motherboard as well so let's dive in a little bit more onto this motherboard itself so it does have a Levin phase vrm circuit

designed to ensure even high in processes to fall to run in full speed so the extended cooling on this motherboard itself so to call this V RMS looks like MSI have extended the heatsink a bit higher to allow more air flow to go through the actual heat sink itself so go to the core boosts with premium layout and fluid design digital power design to support more cores and better performance for your CPU so on this board here we will be running the i9 1900 k really can't

wait to put that in obviously now mystic lighting inside do have music lining on all their products now even the from their monitors to motherboards video cards so it's all supported so music lighting has RGB LED personalise your PC with sixteen point eight million colors with twenty nine effects control to one click using mr. Khiladi go into the m-dot to so it does have two m dot 2 slots now you can have obviously you can run nvm sorry you can run until

obtained on this as well but going back to your standing in MDOT twos it has two m dot whistles running at PCIe gen3 Tom's for to maximize your performance on nvme space T SSDs going to the audio so going to a spec sheet here it does have audio boost for its isolated audio with 120 decibel with 24-bit quality audio to process all your obviously audio needs and does give you a better immersive gaming as well Intel turbo USB 3.1 has Jen tooth powered by Intel and or interrupt the connection with your stability and fastest USB speeds and then it's got a

you an easy debug early date for easy troubleshooting on the motherboard if you do happen to have which hopefully you don't but going further onto this obviously it's got four dimm slots on here you've got your main power connector your 24 pin it does have two CPU pair as well so it's got one for port and it's got an eight pin as well here as well just better overclocking especially on the own ions your to go back to the silos this obstacle it's got six SATA ports on

here as well it's got two your USB 3.1 for your front hitter it's got a massive amount of looks like your case fan so it's got one two three four five six CPU seven this seven on here that's absolutely fantastic it's got a few igb headers as well but best thing is let's just get this straight into a case power it up let's see what the eyeline can do it will be cooled down using the master liquid ml 240 are from pool master so we'll call that down with fats and we're using the g.skill trata z RGB this is running at two 200 megahertz I've got 32 gig of that and then we'll be

grabbing this the MSI Juke 2080 let's see how it all performs this goes straight to the case this motherboard is an ATX size board with 1151 socket with Intel's laters of z3 90 chips at supporting Intel's latest i9 processors look at the CPU power connectors MSI a fitted an 8 pin and a 4 pin 12 hour power connector to give you sufficient power delivery to the V RMS and CPU socket to give your processor a clean stable overclock MSI have not gone over the top with

the vrm cooling but it looks efficient enough to keep the MOSFETs cool to give the chokes and capacitors clean power to the CPU socket this board can support up to four memory modules in his capable of a hundred and twenty gig of ram memory speed start from the 21 33 megahertz right up to 4400 may have megahertz on an overclock so the ball also houses three times sixteen PCI slots which are PCIe gen3 and also has three pcie one slice which was also

PCIe gen3 the gripper support supports 3-way AMD crossfire and two-way s two-way nvidia sli so now for storage it has six SATA ports with the speeds can ranging up to six gigabits per second and also has two in got two slots that can be used with Intel's obtain memory modules now amis I do recommend before using the Intel optimal memory modules please ensure that you have updated drivers and bias to the latest version from the msi website now going to raid

rate support for this motherboard it also supports a zero one five and ten now going on to the lamp or the XIII Annoying gaming edge is equipped with the Intel's latest landship which is the one two one nine dash V this is also equipped with the Intel's wireless AC nine four six two card with 2.4 gigahertz and five gigahertz reaching up to 433 megabits per second and has inbuilt flew to five so looking at the audio chip it is by Realtek which is supporting the ALC 1 1 to 0 P

codec and as always Emma sighs using the MSI audio boost for software to enhance your audio needs so looking at the front case connectivity it has USB front headers 4 USB 2.0 and USB 3.1 support and also supports this seria audio mic input the gaming edge also supports up to 6 case fans and also has RGB ports for your M aside mr. clotting RGB so some of the key features is mpg:0mpg another board does have it also has the extended heatsink design with Emma size

extended pwn enhance circuit design ensures high end processors to run at full speed has a massage core boosts with premium layout and full digital power designed to support multi cores and provide better performance also has mystic lighting from MSI as well as for personalize your PC with sixteen point eight million colors return twenty nine effects controlled with one click also has twin turbo m2 so giving you gen three times four maximize performance

nvme base SS days also has audio ps4 to isolate audios with high quality audio processors for the most immersed gaming experience has Intel turbo USB 3.1 gen2 so powered by Intel ensures the uninterrupted connection with more stability and fastest USB spades as possible also has Diddy most advanced technology to deliver the pure data signals for the gaming best performance and stability when overclocking and it also has easy debug led the easiest way to troubleshoot any issues you have with your motherboard so let's take a look at the msi UEFI

bios in front of us as you can see here it is an easy mode and it's showing pretty much the basic settings of the motherboard itself and showing what the model was currently doing so we have on here we've got game boost XMP which is for you this is for your ramp we did erm it shows all your current settings so we've currently got the CPU overclock to 5 gigahertz which is the i9 on a hunt ok the DDR speed is kind of running at 3200 minutes because we have XMP profiles

on CPU temperature is currently at 51 degrees which is sitting at a lottle motherboard temperature is sitting at 46 and the BIOS motors in UEFI or legacy and then it shows you the motherboard which is the mpg:0mpg per year which is the i9 100k and then the memory size at 32 gig so currently set got our V call at one point three three six volts and the DDR voltage is one point three six eight which is standard and then it's got your bios version and the bias build

date also shows it's what the bit priority is so you can actually rearrange your bit priority if you like and then here you got your settings overclock your m flush just to upgrade the firmware of the motherboard so your overclock profiles if you want to say the current profile you currently have one here your hardware monitor and board explorer so we'll start off with settings so

system status shows you the current status of the actual motherboard itself bios version and what currently are from everything sitting at then you got your advanced which brings up your PC R sub settings u8 a CPI settings integrated graphics and configurations in South on the bolts you must be super IR configurations your power management setup you windows all this configuration your wakeup events that setup and secure erase and you've got your boot menu

so you can actually said well we've got a bit priority up here but you can set this up how you like it as well you got your security so you can actually lock out the boss with the password if you'd like and then you get you save and exit next we'll go to I have a clock so we've obviously overclock the CPU to five gigahertz and how we did that is first you to do is you put it in expert mode and then it's not it's actually pretty a pretty easy overclock to get at the faulty because the

i99 hon okay is pretty stable and I've I haven't got a pastor yet I've actually done a hit and it is stable when they will be looking looking at doing another review on and just overclocking the i9 but we'll do a quick quick rundown how we did it so we did was we did CPU ratio we should it to all course and leave the CPU ratio at 50 which brings at the five gigahertz ring ratio is at forty seven we've done the CPU ratio mode at fixed so it's fix it hurts and then from down here

we have left the DRAM the voltages and overclock the same we have looked at a thirty two hundred thirty two hundred megahertz so we have to quick into settings here and the CPU load line calibration mode three was the best for us was the most state work to be most stable which we left it there and the other thing you must change at the end is free CPU features which is the Intel cease that arm see slight state which will disable that and what that does is if it's running

on auto or if it's running in if it's running in enable/disable the order what that does is when the CPU is not being used say if it's in SH has been idle the power management made it for Intel will come in or the motherboard itself just bought disabling this the CPU will stay at five gigahertz so when you need your speed or need your raw power the five gigahertz will small current always be there I going to M flash so if you click on M flash here or ask you to reboot

and this is to upgrade the firmware of the board and then you've got your AC profile so you can actually save your profiles and then you've got your hardware monitor this is where you're able to config your fan curve or your pumps if you're running an overclock or if you're running a full water-cooled loop as many fans you like as long as I plug into the board you can actually set a fan curve to hit a certain set in temperature so obviously anything on this house currently

run on now at the moment anything about 85 degrees or fans will kick in a hundred percent 70 degrees will be 63 percent at 55 degrees about 38 percent anything below 40 degrees Celsius will be at 13 percent and then you've got your board Explorer so board Explorer gives you a layout on a current model board now so what's currently plugged in so if you look at the back IO or tell us obviously got the AC Wi-Fi plugged in we've got out a LAN port plugged in one of the

USB ports is actually kind of been used anything it's in holid and red or it's in grave so anything in grey here it will tell you yep it's it's not being used but we've got our DisplayPort and HDMI not being used obvious it's been plugged in directly to the graphics card it tells you what CPU we currently gots I'm not much RAM is being populated and to what speed if you go running a front USB header this USB 3.0 will tell you what the US Bears have plugged in video

card m2 and your solder so my final thoughts on the gaming edge AC so for the price of a strain features the feature to get the board which I'll did liked the most was AC Wi-Fi RGB backlighting has to endure two slots has a full array of ports obviously it is overclockable and the easy to use UEFI bios at msi have created but for the price you can't complain msi have targeted this board to be a mid tier board so being mid tier with some high-

end features this is a reason why I'm giving the board's a thumbs up to purchase alright guys I would like to thank once again MSI for sending out these e39 and gaming edge in the studio what are your thoughts let us know in the comments below.