The Intel Z590 Motherboard Overview: 50+ Motherboards Detailed
by Gavin Bonshor on January 19, 2021 10:15 AM ESTMSI MEG Z590 Ace & Z590 Ace Gold Edition
The MSI MEG Z590 Ace and MEG Z590 Ace Gold Edition both represent its enthusiast gaming series and sits just below the Godlike in both specifications and overall presentation. MSI has opted for a primarily black design with gold accents at various points of the board, including the power delivery and top M.2 heatsink, with more gold text on the audio PCB cover. It includes a stylish illuminated RGB MSI Dragon logo built into the rear panel cover, with more RGB LED's located within the bottom mesh of the chipset heatsink.
The only difference between the Z590 Ace and Z590 Ace Gold Edition is the aesthetic, with the latter decked out in gold and aluminum instead of black. The rest of the feature and controller set remains the same.
The MSI MEG Z590 Ace is stacked with features, including three full-length PCIe slots, with two operating at PCIe 4.0 x16 and x8/x8, with the bottom full-length slot locked to PCIe 3.0 x4. MSI includes plenty of storage options, including four M.2 slots, one PCIe 4.0 x4, and three PCIe 3.0 x4/SATA, with six SATA ports with RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 support. Going all out on memory capabilities, the Z590 Ace includes four memory slots, with support for up to DDR4-5333 and up to 128 GB.
The MSI MEG Z590 Ace Gold Edition which was announced alongside Rocket Lake
In the top right-hand corner is a two-digit LED debugger, while a power and reset button pairing is located in the bottom right-hand corner. MSI is advertising a 16+2 phase power delivery that uses doublers, with a pair of 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power inputs.
On the rear panel are a pair of Thunderbolt 4 Type-C ports with two mini-DisplayPort passthrough inputs, two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and two USB 2.0 ports. A single HDMI video output allows users to utilize Intel's HD graphics, while a Realtek HD audio codec drives five 3.5 mm audio jacks and S/PDIF optical output. MSI uses Intel's I225-V 2.5 GbE controller, with the latest Intel AX210 Wi-Fi 6E CNVi, with support for BT 5.2 devices. Last but certainly not least, the Z590 Ace includes a clear CMOS button and a BIOS Flashback button to allow users an easy alternative to flash the board's firmware.
As it stands, MSI has an MSRP of $489 set for the MEG Z590 Ace, which is around $80 more than when it released the Z490 version. It does include a host of premium features and includes dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C.
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Duncan Macdonald - Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - link
Why so many motherboards for a product (Rocket Lake) that is outclassed before it is even available by the Zen 3 processors from AMD.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - link
Mindshare. Intel still means better FPS to some gamers. I also hear AMD’s CPUs are hard to get, except for the 5800x which some believe is overpriced. My local MicroCenter was out of all but that one. I just checked and it has exactly 1 in stock. That’s it for the entire line.Deicidium369 - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
LOL - except it isn't - Zen 3 is nothing but more and more cache to cheese the synthetic benchmarks and impress the rubes. When you actually get a 5900X and a 5950X as I have you start to realize, that like the 6900XT - all AMD smoke and mirrors and little substance.Rocket Lake will wreck Zen 3 - and all the fanboyism won't change that - and one big plus for Rocket Lake is that it will be available in volume while TSMC scraps to get supplies - and Apple has priority - then AMD for the consoles - and whatever small crumbs that are left go to the AMD PC products. New microarch vs cache masquerading as a CPU - easy Intel win.
eva02langley - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
LMAO ROXXORMYBOXXORJust look at how stupid it sounds... you sound like this.
1. ES of Rocket Lake are showing REGRESSION in performances even in games.
2. It passes from 10 cores to 8 cores.
3. The prices are still the same... way overpriced compared to AMD...
4. AMD is looking like it will retain the performances crown in ST and MT performances.
Spunjji - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
"Rocket Lake will wreck Zen 3"Mate, Intel's own leaked benches are already disproving that. You're bending language so hard here that apparently a maximum 5% performance advantage in cherry-picked games at 1080p = "wrecked", and that's at nearly 1/2 the performance per watt.
It's amusing to see how literally all of the Intel shills across multiple sites have switched to banging on about stock levels. Do you have a secret site where you coordinate this, or do you just copy each other naturally? 🤣
Makaveli - Wednesday, January 20, 2021 - link
lol man this thread is pulling out all the weirdo's tonight.We got that guy stuck in 2008 and intel fan boys...
Oxford Guy - Friday, January 22, 2021 - link
Thanks for spamming the topic with your insipid arrogance.gsuburban - Wednesday, April 14, 2021 - link
Lots of folks are looking for the 4th gen NVMe speeds. Also, they are getting more USB 3 and USB C ports that many of the newer cases come with located up front. Also, for those that don't need a video card, the 11th gen CPU's, the upper level ones, support HDMI 2.0 vs. HDMI 1.4 and have a different graphics chip, the UHD750. Other than these, there are not many other benefits however, cost wise at this time, its the same cost to spend on last years hardware so it seems more reasonable to buy this years hardware for the same price. It wouldn't be much value to take a 3 year old system and upgrade to this years hardware as the gains are not worth the cost.Oxford Guy - Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - link
Does running a display via Thunderbolt add latency?croc - Tuesday, January 19, 2021 - link
The issue I see here is that Intel's first foray into PCIe 4.0 seems designed to meet, not exceed AMD's efforts. If you are behind the competition, then just meeting their specs is not the way to get ahead. Then there is Rocket Lake's max core count. Max of eight, due to the backporting of the 10nm Sunny Cove cores onto the 14nm litho. OK, AMD's 16 cores may be a bit overkill (for gaming) given the lack of PCIe lanes on their AM4 socket, but Intel is replacing a CPU that topped out at 10 cores with a CPU only allowing eight...Can't wait for the return of Gelsinger's return. I predict a large ship turning around at speed. Watch out for bow waves....