MSI MPG Z690 Edge WiFi Gaming Motherboard (ATX, 12th Gen Intel Core, LGA 1700 Socket

MSI MPG Z690 Edge (DDR5) Overall I'm very happy and impressed with this motherboard! A few things worth noting below: Accepts the 13700K processor but must flash the BIOS before install. The BIOS is intuitive and there's room for overclocking (depending upon other hardware, of course). I flashed the BIOS with no processor, RAM, etc. on the board – follow instructions, it's easy – and used the USB thumb drive that came with the motherboard. I also formatted the thumb drive with default settings before downloading the newest BIOS off the MSI website. Worked like a charm! Four m.2 slots are great. Someone posted that using multiple m.2 slots will slow all others to the lowest gen device: that was not my experience. I have three NVMe's installed and their speeds run as advertised. One NVMe is a gen3 and two are gen4; all three are different brands (Samsung, Intel and SK Hynix). No issues with slower speeds for any NVMe, SSD or HDD. Overclocking in the BIOS is fairly easy and straightforward. I'm not sure if this board is intended for extreme OC'ing, but there is definitely enough meat for the enthusiast to tinker with. Seems to accept a wide range of memory; shouldn't have an issue unless using an unknown brand or getting outside the accepted frequencies. I used two sticks of G.Skill Trident Z5 @ 6000mhz (32 GB total): was recognized and the XMP profile activated easily in BIOS settings. From what I've read, 6000mhz is the lowest speed you should consider if getting DDR5, otherwise, stick to DDR4 board/ram and save some $$'s. For now, there isn't much performance gain in DDR5 for the average user and gamer. Plenty of fan and RGB headers. Mystic Lighting can be a little janky at times, but usually works as intended. The RGB lighting near the bottom of the board will likely be covered up with any large GPU (i.e. 40 series); no big deal. A few reviews called this board “low end” or “low-mid”. Not really sure if they know what they're talking about or if they're used to super high end boards? This particular MSI board may not be the very best, but it's not $800+ either. At the very least, it's a good mid-range board, if not high-mid board, imo. I've used several boards of various vendors in the past and this is by far my favorite. Will update this review in the future if problems arise. System specs: 13700K – liquid cooled 32 GB DDR5@6000mhz MSI 4090 Gaming X Trio 3 NVMe's 1 SATA SSD 1 HDD 4K gaming is very achievable! I'm now spoiled and it will be difficult to game at anything less from now on.

Common Sense · 2023-03-09 · via amazon

Got a good price on the Z690 instead of spending more on a Z790 for features I probably won't use. Very well built motherboard and the BIOS update was very easy to make it ready for the 13th gen Intel processor. Had all the connections I needed and more and booted without a problem.

MCT · 2022-11-17 · via amazon

Just got this MB installed and did a clean install of Windows 10. No problems at all. Installation was easy and there are youtube video's with QR code for each installation step. There are more than enough USB3.2 gen 2 ports on the back and more available if the case has them. I highly recommend this product.

Amazon Customer · 2022-06-16 · via amazon

Great board for my 13700k. Bios update was very smooth. I used the included drive with the board, formatted to fat32, and downloaded the current bios, renamed the file as the manual instructions. Hit the flash bios button and worked first try. Everything works great on the board and I’m very happy!

Joe S. · 2023-01-06 · via amazon

It's a really nice motherboard but I can't recommend it because of the widespread issue with the ethernet adapter. Once windows is installed the adapter will show as working in Device Manager but it will not light up when you plug in an ethernet cord. Windows will not recognize the device as being plugged in and you will not be able to connect to a network (or the internet) through this device. Searching for a solution online I discovered that this is a common problem with all MSI Z690 motherboards. None of the solutions I found, including updating the BIOS, solved the issue for me. I would recommend that you avoid this product unless you only intend to connect to the internet via wifi.

Victor H Pereira · 2023-10-20 · via amazon

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VALUE SCORE

FUTURE-PROOFING

Socket

LGA1700

Chipset

Z790

Form

ATX

WiFi

WiFi 6

Socket

AM5

Chipset

B850

Form

mATX

WiFi

WiFi 6E