MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi evaluate: A wonderful 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 customarily go away you with little cause to lust after an improve till it now not gives help for the most recent processors. It’s the corporate’s costliest MPG Carbon WiFi motherboard but, and it definitely gives loads of headline options, together with Wi-Fi 7, USB 4, PCIe 5.0 SSD and GPU help, and a good-looking look.

There’s rather a lot occurring right here by way of 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 greatest gaming motherboard chipset, X870E, fairly than simply the plain previous X870 chipset. This offers benefits by way of the variety of high-speed USB ports and PCIe lanes obtainable, which means you’re much less more likely 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 structure, and it definitely hasn’t reduce 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 beneficial 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 an enormous shouting level for all motherboard producers in the intervening time. MSI has taken an analogous path to Gigabyte, as we noticed within the Aorus Elite X870 WiFi7 Ice, supplying 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 function is important, as you’d by no means have the ability to entry the same old 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 strong and leaves you in little doubt 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 whole heatsink with none want for further instruments, whereas the SSDs themselves are additionally held in place by extra tool-free latches.

Nonetheless, 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. In contrast, Gigabyte leaves these information pins uncovered so you possibly can see precisely tips on how to line up the heatsinks, however you’re working blind with the heatsinks right here and it may be a bit of tough.

The MSI board’s rear I/O panel can be positively 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 Sort-A ports, although, so we doubt anybody will discover themselves wanting in the case 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 in a position to be reassigned to numerous duties, resembling 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, however it’s now run off the USB bus. It in any other case has comparable specs and isn’t thought of 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 beneficial for AMD boards since they will take some time to POST because of reminiscence coaching and different options, so it’s helpful to know your board continues to be booting and never frozen, particularly for those who’re overclocking your system.

There are seven 4-pin fan headers as nicely, plus three thermal probe inputs, and the fan headers listed here 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

Should you’re searching for a black motherboard geared up 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 structure can be wonderful, regardless of the feature-rammed PCB, and promotes simple cable tidying, particularly in the case of fan cables, because the headers are all situated on the edges of the PCB. My solely grievance right here considerations the marginally tough heatsinks I discussed earlier, plus MSI might have hidden the unpleasant CMOS battery from view, maybe beneath one of many heatsinks.

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

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 Complete Battle: 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 larger. The audio efficiency was comparable as nicely, with a noise degree of -99dBA and a dynamic vary of 104dBA.

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

In the meantime, the 18+2+1 section VRMs recorded a peak temperature of 63°C, which supplies you an affordable quantity of headroom for those who plan on overclocking, whereas the system as an entire drew a bit of 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, however it 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 best gaming SSD choices.

These cheaper choices embrace older B650 and X670 motherboards, all of which help the most recent Ryzen 9000 CPUs, together with the 9800X3D, in addition to B850 motherboards that will probably 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 gives a level of future-proofing because of this, in addition to loads of scope for dealing with the most recent flagship {hardware}. With that in thoughts, you probably have a sizeable price range and need 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.

Alternate options

Gigabyte Aorus Elite X870 WiFi7 Ice

You don’t want an costly board primarily based on the X870E chipset to construct an excellent Ryzen 9000 system, which is proved by this wonderful Gigabyte motherboard primarily based on the cheaper X870 chipset. It doesn’t supply as a lot by way of PCIe 5.0 and high-speed USB help, however it nonetheless covers most individuals’s wants, whereas additionally trying incredible.

Should you’re trying to construct a white PC, then this excellent white motherboard will look nice in your white PC case, and it doesn’t price an excessive amount of cash both.

Learn our full Gigabyte Aorus Elite X870 WiFi7 Ice evaluate.

Verdict

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

Fortunately, it does not less than have the credentials to take care of these parts, in addition to all method of different high-end choices, resembling customized water cooling, and, simply as importantly, it has cutting-edge options which can be more likely to change into mainstream in a number of years’ time. It’s costly, definitely, however for those who plan to construct a gaming PC with a high-end spec, and need a motherboard with options that gained’t be old-fashioned in three years, it’s well worth the funding for those who can afford it.

Should you’re pondering of constructing a brand new AMD Socket AM5 system, ensure you additionally try our Ryzen 7 9800X3D evaluate, the place we benchmark the present greatest gaming CPU. You may as well try our information on tips on how to overclock the 9800X3D, which we carried out utilizing this precise motherboard, so you possibly can see a few of the EFI options in additional depth.