MSI MEG Z690 ACE Gaming Motherboard (E-ATX, 12th Gen Intel Core, LGA 1700 Socket

First off, specs of old PC versus new build: CPU before: 2600k AMD CPU after: I5 13th gen RAM Before: 8GBs ofDDR4 at 3000 MHz Ram after: 64 GBs Corsair DDR5 at 6600MHz Drive Before: 1X 1TB Samsung 860 EVO M.2 running at 2280 MB/S Drive(s) After: 3x 1TB WD SNF850X M.3 Gen 4 running at 7300 MB/S GPU before and after: RTX 3080 (PNY) MOBO before: B450 Auros Elite, circa 2017 MOBO after: This one, silly. Holy heck, what a difference this thing has made for me! I actually replaced everything in my system aside from the GPU. I was running 7 year old components before this upgrade. I'd been able to run anything on ultra, pretty much, but only in 1080p. This new rig has been astonishing. Bear in mind that I am upgrading absolutely everything from my old system aside from the GPU, so my experience is biased in RAM, CPU, MOBO, THE GORGEOUS CASE (banana for scale), and M.2s. I absolutely love this MOBO. Double LAN ports, very fast wifi card otherwise. I have paid for like 10 bajillion MBS/s per femtosecond internet for so long, now. I had never seen close to those advertised speeds but it turns out my devices were what were really holding me back. I thought Steam had a download cap of like 2MB/s, but nope. I've seen DLs go at 30MBs/s. With torrents it's sometimes been faster. I like that everything is black and gold. The pic I attached is my new rig. It still needs 5 more fans and some more pixel vomit. You can't really see any of the gold at all, but still, not having a garish lighted logo screaming "AUROS 15,000,000,000 AORUS AORUS AORUS" in orange and yellow, even when the case is unplugged and buried 27 feet underground, when you want your rig to be, you know, not orange, is really nice. They are notoriously difficult to address. Not this guy. No lights, no problem. If you went with an AIO watercooler instead of that massive cube of aluminum and fans that I have, you could see the gold. The glass on my case is also tinted so it makes a difference. It's a Lian Li Dynamic XL, if you're curious. I should say that I got this board for $250 in q4 2023. Prices seem to fluctuate. Still, cheapest flagship, even if it was the flagship 2 years ago. I can't justify paying $1000 for the best MOBO in all of existence at the current moment. I am confident, after many hours of research and deliberation, that my new rig is fairly future proof, if not in specs then in gameability. Everything runs at well over 60FPS on ultra settings in 4k. AMD Freesync Premium makes a difference, too. Even in VR, it's butter smooth. At least for my headset (old Samsung odyssey), that is. It's sad that I'm now 35 years old, literally middle-aged, and only now have a rig that sits among the greats. I have about 1/3 the interest in videogames as I did as a teen. Wish I could give old me the best while he could appreciate it fully. That's depressing lol so hey just go ahead and use this MOBO and consider upgrading your shtuff lol

TheDonglesofFerf · 2024-02-13 · via amazon

I recently decided to upgrade my 6 year old pc. I have always gone with ASUS motherboards. Have had no issues with any and they offered solid value. The problem with ASUS for this build was that none of their motherboards is compatible with the Noctura cpu cooler that I was going to use. My current build has a Corsair AIO water cooler for the cpu. But this time around I decided to go back to air cooled. The MSI Meg ACE motherboard is clearly expensive. I didn't think I would spend $600 on a motherboard. But having researched a bunch of competing motherboards it was clear that it offered more higher end features and most of all it was built like a tank. Since it was being paired with an Intel I7-12700k cpu, EVGA RTX 3080 FTW, Corsair DD5 memory, and 3 Samsung 980 pro Nvme ssd's, I decide to splurge and purchase it. I am happy that I did. It is perfect for my needs and everything went off without a hitch. The board is extremely ridged (thick). It has the voltage power to overclock any high end cpu. Nvme slots are solid and have heating thermal pads. It pretty much has all the important features that the $2000 MSI Godlike motherboard has and is a lot less. Not for everyone but if your looking for a solidly built high end motherboard, it can't be beat.

David · 2022-04-12 · via amazon

The media could not be loaded. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/E1TPvehkIjL.mp4 https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61NudIjqDtL._SY256.jpg Excellent for the price. I live in Thailand where pc prices are easily 3x more expensive due to no local competition or a fixed market. Came factory sealed & untampered with. I have fitted components but I haven’t installed into a working pc yet to test for functionality as I’m waiting on a new case and PSU to arrive before testing. Pleasantly surprised for the delivery since ordering. It wasn’t due for another 2-3 weeks. No complaints of this order from Amazon. A+++ Update: Temporarily set up a test bench.. System booted. Shipped out v17 Bios updated to the latest v19 via M-Flash and again system booted. A+++ Default XMP profile for my TG 32gb DDR5 - 6000hz shows as 4200hz so I may need to manually play around with timings. No big issue though. Still awaiting my new InWin D-Frame case to arrive to complete the new build. Further UPDATE: Barrow CPU water block fitted. It matches with the gold on the motherboard AND the InWin D-Frame case scheduled for delivery over the weekend. Update2… Installed in my new InWin D-frame 2.0 case. My last PC build was a gen8.. z390, i7 8700k 32Gb 3200mhz ddr4 ram with GTX1089TI.. This is gen12, z690, i7 12700k, 32Gb ddr5 6000mhz ram with RTX3080 waterforce card. The new build is the bomb. Temps are good. Lightning fast. You click and it’s there. No delay. Couldn’t be happier.

Jeremy English · 2023-02-22 · via amazon

This is an awesome board. Very high end, very heavy & sturdy. It barely bends, has metal back plate to make it even more sturdy. Just built a PC with a 12th gen Intel Core i7 12700k, 48gb DDR5 RAM, and a 1tb M.2 NVME drive, it fired right up. Great BIOS. Highly recommend. I got it new for $250, so it was an incredible deal, it had everything it was supposed to come with, and completely new board with the plastic still covering chipset & heatsinks.

Aaron · 2023-11-15 · via amazon

It's not a budget motherboard,it's expensive but I just would not understand people spending so much money on CPU or GPU but gets cheap when it comes to the electronic board where all your expensive components reside and operates. I've been using it for almost a month now with win 11 and never had on issue. Two times I had BSOD but that turned out to be my DDR5 memory which didn't do good with overclocking. Good quality material used all over the board and you can see and feel it.

Ysr · 2022-05-16 · via amazon

Best Buy

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MSI

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Newegg (Open Box)

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VALUE SCORE

FUTURE-PROOFING

Socket

AM5

Chipset

B850

Form

ATX

WiFi

WiFi 6E