MSI MEG Z390 ACE Motherboard Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

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MSI MEG Z390 ACE Motherboard Review

The MSI Enthusiast Gaming lineup expands once again with two Z390 offerings for Intel’s latest 9000 series CPUs. The MEG boards offer a blend of quality, features, with power delivery, and overclocking in mind. MSI has certainly raised the bar for its products over the last few years. So our expectations for the ACE motherboard are high.

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Good review, I'm glad you mentioned VRM temperatures as that's pretty important now with the 9 series processors.
 
Just out of curiosity, what board does this replace in their Z370 lineup? The Gaming M5? M7? I'm still trying to figure out this new MEG / MPG, etc. naming scheme.
 
dont think this replces any board in the 370 line up. "MEG" series is kind of a beast of their own. I own this board in my 9900k pc and other then the POS Killer NIC, the board is absolutely everything i expected it too be.
 
Glad to see MSI's stuff is still up to snuff. I started using their boards 7-8 years ago and haven't looked back. Stability, price, and I like the BIOS setup.
 
On the multimedia testing I was left scratching my head at the performance numbers used. While I appreciate the comparison to the threadripper parts. I fail to see how that compares the functionality of the motherboard compared to others of it's class.

Was that simply because no other reviews were done as of yet with that CPU on other motherboards?

Just curious as to the reasoning for that.

Otherwise another solid review and good read. My MSI motherboard also has some variant of a killer NIC. And other than having to have drivers on hand when building the OS I also don't see some great boon to it. And sadly I don't use the protected audio because I use a USB headset for gaming in my office... because otherwise I would keep the entire house awake.
 
On the multimedia testing I was left scratching my head at the performance numbers used. While I appreciate the comparison to the threadripper parts. I fail to see how that compares the functionality of the motherboard compared to others of it's class.

Was that simply because no other reviews were done as of yet with that CPU on other motherboards?

Just curious as to the reasoning for that.

Otherwise another solid review and good read. My MSI motherboard also has some variant of a killer NIC. And other than having to have drivers on hand when building the OS I also don't see some great boon to it. And sadly I don't use the protected audio because I use a USB headset for gaming in my office... because otherwise I would keep the entire house awake.
Too much information. Rgrt. And yes, this is the first Z390 board out of the remote process.

FWIW benchmarks on motherboards are useless. We run those to see if something is wrong, not right.
 
Kyle you have at least one typo.

This is not cool, but it is far from "HOT" in the world of aq high end motherboard with 8-Core CPUs running full-tilt.

Just out of curiosity, what board does this replace in their Z370 lineup? The Gaming M5? M7? I'm still trying to figure out this new MEG / MPG, etc. naming scheme.
It's above the Pro Carbon and Edge, which is where the M5/M7 used to sit.
 
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$272 and they slap a Killer LAN on? That's pretty crappy.
 
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$272 and they slap a Killer LAN on? That's pretty crappy.
its not just crappy, it BULLSHIT. Coming from an owner of this board of which it powers my 9900k pc, i can say the board is wonderful and OC's just fine, but i paid no attention to the NIC onboard upon purchase of this board cause we as consumers just "Figure" that when spending this kind of money for a board, atleast an Intel i219 NIC would be attached, but NOPE!! upon win10 install is when i finally relized my NIC was Killer based, and i was fucking pissed off. I tried it, and have the posts here back 2 months ago to back up my issues with it, and extreme ram usage it used (5gb at idle mem used at desktop) removed all the Killer BS and all was perfect again. Total shit of a NIC. as far as im concerned, this is really the only down fall to this board
 
I just bought this board and it arrives tomorrow. Was not thrilled at the NIC, but I have had several MSI boards in the past and really like them. Does the "Killer BS" install automatically or is it optional? I agree I just want a solid 1GB NIC. I do not need or want any gimmicky crap with it.
 
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I just bought this board and it arrives tomorrow. Was not thrilled at the NIC, but I have had several MSI boards in the past and really like them. Does the "Killer BS" install automatically or is it optional? I agree I just want a solid 1GB NIC. I do not need or want any gimmicky crap with it.
buddy, just do your self a favor and just keep the "killer Nic" DISABLED in the bios, and just use the onboard intel wifi if you can, Worlds better. Im about 2 months in using this board now, and honestly have no complaints other then this NIC card....
 
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