MSI MPG Z590 Gaming Carbon WiFi Motherboard Review

A Closer Look

Another black board, this time with quite a bit of grey accenting. Once upon a time, motherboards had mostly all green PCBs’s, now they are mostly all have black, funny how that works really! Either way, the MSI MPG Z590 Carbon Gaming Wifi is a good looking board. On first look, it appears to have most of what we should need to make the most out of our system. MSI has even gone ahead and included a sticker on the top M.2 slot to remind us that it will only work with 11th Gen CPUs. This is due to it being PCIe 4.0 which is not supported by 10th Gen CPUs so in turn, will not work at all with them.

Dual 8-pin EPS power connectors are going to help make sure our CPU is getting enough juice. It seems that the old standard single 8-pin EPS connector is phasing out with more manufacturers adding a second 4-pin or 8-pin EPC connector these days. This extra juice will allow us to overclock our CPUs just that much further and offer a more stable power delivery.

Across the top right, we have a CPU Fan and Pump Fan connector. WE also have some Debug jumpers and a 5v ARGB connector to make use of all that addressable RGB goodness. The J1 header is a JTAG debugging header while the JSMB1 header is an external System Management Bus header. If you don’t know what either of these is, don’t worry too much as they are likely of no use to use and are more for enthusiasts.

MSI has gone with a 16+1+1 Power Phase design with a 75A Smart Power Stage. This will ensure your system runs as smooth as possible and offers good stability.

The 24-pin power connector is located in its fairly generic spot, next to the RAM DIMMS. As for RAM, the MPG Z590 Pro Gaming Carbon WIFI can handle up to 128GB at up to 5,333MHz in OC mode.

Just under the 24-pin power connecter, we have six SATA 6GB/s ports. I am loving how we are starting to see this more and more often where they are now on the side of the board, rather than just stuck at the bottom. This is going to allow for better cable management which will ultimately result in a cleaner-looking build.

Towards the bottom of the board, we have a number of M.2 slots, all behind shields, three PCIe x16 slots and two PCIe x1 slots. As mentioned the top M.2 slot only works with 11th Gen CPUs due to it being PCIe 4.0 capable.

• M2_1 slot (From CPU)
  • Available only on 11th Gen Intel^® CPU
  • Supports PCIe 4.0 x4
  • Supports 2242/ 2260/ 2280/ 22110 storage devices
• M2_2¹ & M2_3² slot (From Z590 Chipset)
  • Supports PCIe 3.0 x4
  • Supports SATA 6Gb/s
  • Supports 2242/ 2260/ 2280 storage devices
  • Intel^® Optane™ Memory Ready³

Along the bottom of the motherboard, we have our standard host of connectors with a couple of additions. We have the front panel audio connector, another Debug connector, 5v and 12v RGB connectors, an LED on/off switch, a 6-pin power connector that will supply more power to the PCIe lanes for better overclocking and stability, a pair of USB 2.0 headers, a USB 3 header a couple of fans headers and our front panel header.

Onto the rear IO and we have plenty of USB ports, a USB Type-C port and even WIFI 6E connectors. We also have a Flash BIOS Button which is going to allow you to flash the BIOS on the board without having a CPU.

• USB 2.0
• DisplayPort
• USB 3.2 Gen 1 5Gbps Type-A
• 2.5G LAN
• Audio Connectors
• Flash BIOS Button
• HDMI
• USB 3.2 Gen 2 10Gbps Type-A
• USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 20Gbps Type-C
• Wi-Fi / Bluetooth
• Optical S/PDIF Out

Nothing much going on around the backside of the motherboard. No Armour or anything like that. Just a few screws to help remove the VRM heatsinks should you need to.