ms:i have joined the Z 490 party here at
Tec es city and today we're taking a
look at their Meg ace this is one of
their top tier boards I think the only
board above this is the godlike but this
is coming in with a pretty expensive
price tag at 400 USD or 760 Aussie
dollars and so for this money you're
getting a 17 phase vr m16 plus one
design 90 amp power stages the is l9 939
zeros chokes they're using their
titanium 3 which are 60 amp chokes and
them figure they're dark cap rated at
10k for the PWM control we're looking at
an ISL six nine two six nine and all
this made the results quite good on both
the temperatures and of course the power
consumption and everything in between
where we saw a maximum surface
temperature of 78 degrees and then the
heatsink itself went to 57 degrees and
70 degrees from the vrm readout in the
software
this is at 5.2 gigahertz custom
overclock on the 10900 K which scored
around 259 Watts max power draw so it's
pretty much right up there in terms of
the vrm efficiency it's scoring right
beside that of the velociter so it's a
really good vrm not just in the hardware
they've put on this but in the results
that we're turning out with this thing
and but one thing to keep in mind is I
did notice in the bias if you're just
going to overclock your cpu and sit in
the multiplier don't do this because
when I did this I was getting close to
350 watts power draw so the automatic
voltage settings will over volt the CPU
quite big so if you're overclocking this
thing definitely set in the voltages
manually but out of the box 4.9
gigahertz all core overclocked we saw
much lower temperatures and at the same
time the efficiency was a lot better at
197 watts another thing too about this
vrm heatsink it's got a 30 mil fan
integrated into it and that's one of
those the noise is virtually you pretty
much cannot hear it at all
even at full speed while we're doing it
5.2 Giga it's over blog I'll let you
guys though take a quick listen
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so we're now looping Cinebench odd 20
and the microphone here is right next to
this 30 mil fan on the BRM heatsink and
honestly I cannot hear it versus the
other noise around it and my voice is
about 60 centimetres away so the vom
solution they've implemented on this
board is phenomenal I wouldn't expect
any less at this price point the 30 mil
fan is also doing a great job and the
heatsink is weighing in at just over 300
grams so I can't really critique
anything on this point it's the most
important point when it comes to an
overclockable motherboard is getting the
vrm right especially at this higher tier
price point they have done just that
moving on now to the onboard audio we're
seeing here the real tach 12:20 is again
being used
- 2.1 decibel roll-off - 84 decibels of
crosstalk when we test that and then the
mic import is using mic suppression
noise suppression and the frequency
response curve was pretty much flat the
whole way through so onboard audio is
really good if you're going with
mid-range cans of course if you're doing
any streaming or anything like that your
noise isn't gonna come through with any
hissing and stuff but of course if you
want to do professional audio recordings
then you may wish to step it up to
something that's dedicated solution with
that noise suppression of course giving
you no noise but reducing your voice
quality though moving through the PCIe
features on this board we've got three
16x slots but the bottom two are
actually truly only 8 X in the pin
layout and then in between those we've
got 2 1x slots and then at the top
you've got a 16 speed slot and then for
m dot 2 we've got three solutions on
board here supporting x4 and then three
of those are all covered by heat sinks
as well testing out m2 speeds as well as
the m dot two temperatures we saw a
maximum here of 52 degrees Celsius so
that heatsink is doing its job perfectly
fine going through the RGB you've got
that on the top and bottom of the
heatsink as well as the aesthetic being
a gold and black with all the RGB off
you've also got an LED control switch to
turn that off the RGB the whole
instantly if you wish to and then just
besides that you've got white LEDs on
the power and reset buttons and the dr.
debug readout it actually does look
quite clean in practice though speak of
the bias itself you've also got the
ability to quickly turn on your RGB and
have that being controlled if you want
to by a separate manual controller I
believe you can do that with this
motherboard where you've got five volt
addressable RGB down the bottom and top
as well as 12 volt down the bottom and
top two for a total of four RGB headers
and then within the bias itself I do
like what they've done here very easy to
control your overclocks very easy to
save profiles lock in X and peas it's
easy to control the eight PWM fan
headers individually you can set the
profiles as well as control the MOSFET
heatsink - you can individually control
that if you want that to be louder and
push more air through though as we said
before it's doing an absolutely fine job
out of the box on its default fan
profile as I said in the previous
gigabyte motherboard review I'd like to
see RGB control itself added into the
BIOS and have its own separate chip so
you don't have to install any software
or you don't have to get an external
controller though moving through the
final features of this board - 8 pin
power connectors at the top and then on
the rear we've got 8 USB ports one of
those being a Type C 3.2 we've also got
Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 as well as your
optical out and surround sound manual
connection ports and then we've got a
clear CMOS button and a BIOS flash back
button so I do like the boss flashback
with the dedicated ports so if you've
miraculously found yourself without a
CPU but then a next-gen CPU in the
future then you can use the BIOS flash
back button without having a CPU that
supports the current generation of BIOS
so finally they've integrated 1 and 2.5
g NICs for a total of two at the back
and then there's an integrated IO shield
so you have to worry about installing a
separate i/o shield and all completely
losing it which I'm sure over time if
you build enough pcs you'll run into a
motherboard without an i/o shield and
now it's conclusion time that with this
motherboard and what do I think of it in
general should you go buy it if you're
in the market for a high-end z4 90 and
the answer is yes it's a solid board
there's nothing I could really pick out
and fault about this board V RMS well
on board audios good all the other
features check out and everything worked
absolutely fine I have been hearing some
reports in the comments about the 2.5 g
nic canceling out sometimes nothing of
any sort happened on this board
everything worked smoothly and
absolutely fine BIOS is pretty good
though if you watch back there are some
little things that I'd like to see
change but in terms of stability and
usability this thing is really good
they've had to critique one thing that
I'd like to see change and this is a
definite I'd like to see them take off
the sharp edges here around these
heatsinks these are actually very sharp
and I have critiqued and told MSI about
this in the past with a I think their
laptop and so this could be dangerous if
you're building a new PC and you're like
me and you build pcs in a hurry
you could easily cut yourself quite
badly on these heatsink so I would like
to see them at least round off the edges
a little bit so you're not at risk to
cutting yourself so easy on these heat
sinks that's about the only thing I
could take them for so if you are
building with this motherboard do be
careful you managed to even use some
gloves because it's seriously the the
sample I've got here in the very least
it has very sharp edges ultimately to
sum things up for you guys it is a
premium board with a premium price point
that does deliver on the premium
features set also one thing I will
quickly mention is it took these four
thousand four hundred megahertz XMP
profiles in absolutely no problem so it
will support those without any issues
whatsoever and there's also a big back
plate on the rear and on the heat sinks
themselves for the vrm there is a little
rear heatsink to absorb some heat out
the back - anyhow if you guys enjoyed
today's review then be sure to hit that
like button for us and do let us know in
the comments section below
what do you think of premium
motherboards at premium price points is
it something you usually get or is it
something you overlook love reading your
thoughts and opinions as always and what
do you think of this board in particular
especially the aesthetic are you digging
that black and gold themed look and now
we've got the question of the day which
comes from cytosis media and they ask
are there any ITX sets that are good in
price you just made me reconsider my AMD
Rison 5 2600
build that I'm gonna be ordering in the
next week or so I really want a small
form-factor but on a budget
are there any ITX sets out there that
are good in price how trustworthy of
these used CPUs so they're speaking
about the x99 use eons that we've been
looking at on the channel here and I'll
put the link to the video is actually
talking to up here but basically x99 and
ITX they don't really go together at all
if you're looking for ITX you want to go
with something you are especially
something like B 450 you can get some
really good before 50 ITX motherboards
and they're not going to break the bank
in terms of Z 490 it remains to be seen
what's gonna be out for the ITX
solutions there but in terms of ITX I
believe there's like only one ITX x99
board made and that's gonna be quite
expensive so if you want to go ITX and
x99 i do advise against it i would just
stick with Rison for that anyhow with
that aside I hope that answers that
question if you guys have stayed this
far and you're enjoying that content
then be sure to hit that like button for
us and I'll catch you in a nother tech
video very soon and if you're enjoying
the content sub buttons down there ring
it together content as soon as it drops
here at takia City and I'll see you in
the next one he's out for now bye
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