The AMD X570 Motherboard Overview: Over 35+ Motherboards Analyzed
by Gavin Bonshor on July 9, 2019 8:00 AM ESTMSI MEG X570 Ace
Our full review of the MSI MEG X570 Ace is currently live with many more X570 models set to be fully reviewed and analyzed over the next couple of months.
The MSI MEG X570 Ace motherboard represents its premium MEG range and as we've seen from its range on the Intel Z390 chipset, MSI has followed the same naming structure for users to easily identify which each range signifies. The X570 Ace benefits from an Intel Wi-Fi 6 wireless interface, a Realtek 2.5 G NIC, three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, and a 12+2 power delivery. Like all of MSI's X570 product stack with four memory slots, there is support for up to 128 GB of RAM.
The board has four DDR4 memory slots with support for up to DDR4-4600, three full-length PCIe 4.0 slots which operate at x16, x8/x8, and x8/x8/x4, with an additional two PCIe 4.0 x1 slots. Built into the X570 chipset heatsink is a cooling fan which uses MSI's Zero Frozr design as the X570 chipset has a rated TDP of up to 15 W. Providing power to the CPU is two 8-pin 12 V ATX power inputs, while the power delivery is using an extended 8 to 6.5 mm heat pipe which extends from the power delivery directly down to the chipset. The MEG X570 Ace has three PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, each with its own individual Lightning Gen4 M.2 heatshield which amalgamates into the boards black and gold designed heatsinks. Like the MSI MEG X570 Godlike, MSI's RGB Infinity Mirror 2 is present on the rear panel cover to allow users to customize the look of the board.
On the rear panel of the MSI MEG X570 Ace motherboard, there's a clear CMOS, and BIOS flashing button which has its own dedicated USB 3.1 G1 Type-A slot highlighted with a red outline. There are three USB 3.1 G2 Type-A ports, a single USB 3.1 G2 Type-C, two USB 3.1 G1 Type-A ports, and two USB 2.0 ports. Networking capability consists of a Realtek RTL8125AG 2.5 GbE NIC with the other Ethernet port being controlled by an Intel I211-AT Gigabit NIC. This model also includes integrated Wi-Fi with an Intel AX200 Wi-Fi 6 802.11ax wireless interface which also offers users with Bluetooth 5 connectivity. The five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output are driven by a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec.
The MSI MEG X570 Ace in terms of price and feature set is quite impressive and with an MSRP of $369 which makes it a highly competitive when compared with other models in its price range. The need for MSI to upgrade its networking capabilities on desktop motherboards is something they have started to implement, and the rear panel on the X570 Ace is also without video outputs so users looking to use Ryzen based APUs will need to look elsewhere.
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isthisavailable - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
The industry needs to make up its mind when it comes to USB C. Laptops are launching with only USB C and meanwhile $700 motherboards only have 1 USB C port and 8+ "outdated" USB A'sThe_Assimilator - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
It's almost like there's a huge amount of peripherals with USB-A connectors that people who use PCs expect to continue to work when they upgrade! Isn't backwards compatibility a funny feature?Meanwhile, the only peripherals that laptops generally use are docks, hubs, and storage devices - all of which have USB-C versions out the wazoo.
naris - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
Why are memory speeds and channels show & discussed when talking about chipsets when the memory controllers are in the CPUs? Memory controllers have not been in chipsets for many years now!halfflat - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
ECC support can be hard to verify for mere mortals; collating (or even better, verifiying) ECC capability on these motherboards would be an extremely useful addition to the article.ishkatar - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
Does any of the boards support Raid 5? I only see 0, 1 and 10.Zibi - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
You don't want to use RAID 5 without proper RAID Controller with cache.That means dedicated card.
Actually from performance / security perspective RAID 10 is pretty OK.
The_Assimilator - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
AMD dropped RAID-5 support upon introduction of the AM4 socket (remember, chipset functionality like RAID is now a CPU function). I don't have an issue with that, since -5 is a very uncommon use-case in consumer workloads and if you want to do -5 right, you really want a hardware RAID card with a BBU.But -5 is pretty much dead anyway due to ever-increasing drive sizes - the rebuild time on anything over 1TB is horrendous, what you really want in such a scenario is RAID-6, and no consumer motherboard every has or will support that.
And please don't tell me you're using RAID-5 for data integrity, because invisible corruption is a thing that I have experienced personally. If you want *actual* data integrity, use Windows Storage Spaces or RAID-10, and as a last resort RAID-6.
Arbie - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
There must be something you left out of this roundup. Whatever it was, please go back and put it in, and next time get it right. Thanks.Korguz - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
huh ????Gastec - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
That $700 must be an error right, perhaps of judgement?