MSI MEG Z890 ACE motherboard review: superflagship for Intel LGA 1851 or a new «base for liquid nitrogen»?

The Intel LGA 1851 platform has only recently appeared and manufacturers have already presented their flagship motherboards for this socket. MSI MEG Z890 ACE is an exemplary representative of the premium segment, where there are almost no compromises, except for the price. Despite this, the heroine of the review still has a few minor nuances, which we will discuss in more detail below. We also checked power consumption, heating, evaluated overclocking capabilities, and measured the performance of the most powerful Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor, which in Cinebench 2024 knocks out the Intel Core i9-14900K and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X.

Technical specifications of MSI MEG Z890 ACE

Test bench and packaging

MSI MEG Z890 ACE arrived for review in a unique box with RAM modules, processor, and liquid cooling system MSI MAG CORELIQUID I360which we reviewed not long ago. In this set, the manufacturer emphasizes the phrase «Gaming Enthusiast», which is quite logical.

This is too expensive for an average video game lover, but it should definitely satisfy enthusiasts. It is not for nothing that they say that as long as there are fans who are willing to buy expensive computer components, the entire industry of classic x86 computers of the «build-it-yourself» class is alive.

Non-binary RAM set G.Skill Trident Z5 CK 2x24Gb Royal is guaranteed to operate at 8200 MT/s with CL40 latency, and comes with a wiping cloth (the mirror surface of the radiators can easily get dirty with fingerprints).

The processor is packed in a limited edition box with proprietary «MSI tongs, which are designed to reduce the risk of damaging the socket or the CPU itself when installed with less than straight hands. Considering the cost of the components, care, and reliability are essential.

Test bench:

• Processor Intel Core Ultra 9 285K;
• Cooling MSI MAG CORELIQUID I360;
• RAM G.Skill Trident Z5 CK 2x24Gb;
• Drive 1 Kingston KC3000/1024G;
• Drive 2 Kingston NV2 SNV2S/4000G;
• Video card AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX;
• Power supply MSI MPG A1000G;
• Body MSI MPG QUIETUDE 100S.

Package and appearance of MSI MEG Z890 ACE

In addition to the motherboard itself, the box contains: four SATA 3.0 cables, an external Wi-Fi antenna with magnetic mounting, a USB drive in a metal case, stickers for cables and the case, a front panel extension cable, an EZ Conn V2 cable for liquid cooling systems, an RGB splitter cable and another ARGB splitter cable, two temperature sensors, a wrench for M.2 drives and screws for them, a promotional brochure, and paper documentation.

MSI MEG Z890 ACE motherboard looks strict, restrained, serious. It is somewhat reminiscent of professional models for workstations, although it does not position itself as such. Both sides of the board are covered with radiators (some of them are backlit). A well-thought-out mechanism for removing the heatsinks is worth noting. As with other MSI motherboards, you can install M.2 SSDs with your bare hands, literally.

The radiators can be removed easily and fixed back on just as easily. Moreover, four connectors are covered by one large plate, and another drive is located above the PCI-E x16 slot. The video card also has a convenient mechanism for locking into the slot (by pressing a button) — no more pulling out plastic clips when removing the GPU.

Interfaces, connectors, accessories

The manufacturer did not spare any connectors: 22 USB (including Thunderbolt 4), HDMI 2.1, four SATA 3.0, five M.2, three PCI-E, eight 4-pin fans, four for RGB/ARGB backlighting. Personally, I was unpleasant at one point when I needed to connect a monitor to the board (iGPU test) — I had to get an HDMI cable because there is no classic (full-size) Display Port on the motherboard.

Top-of-the-line wireless interfaces: the top-of-the-line Intel® Killer™ BE1750x Wi-Fi 7 receiver with external antenna picks up perfectly, as does the Bluetooth 5.4 module. There can be no complaints about communication with such components. The antenna picks up far and stable. It’s a pity that we didn’t have a top-of-the-line router with Wi-Fi 7 for a full test.

Compared to the MSI MPG B650 Carbon Wi-Fi (the main board for everyday), the range and signal quality of the MEG ACE is noticeably better. This is especially noticeable if you go to the next room or go outside with headphones on. And for those who like a wired Internet connection, there is a 10 Gbps Marvell AQC113CS RJ-45 LAN. The top-of-the-line Realtek ALC4082 Codec + ESS9219Q Combo DAC/HPA chip is responsible for 7.1 sounds.

There are as many as five connectors for M.2 drives, but when all the slots are full, the PCI-E x16 bandwidth will drop by half. The maximum amount of RAM is 256 GB, and the frequency is up to 9200 MT/s. In our case, two 24 GB strips felt comfortable at 8200 MT/s.

MSI MEG Z890 ACE has a button to switch between two BIOSes (very convenient for overclockers), as well as power/reset keys. Near the 24 pin connector, there is a digital display to show post codes. After the system boots up, this screen shows the CPU temperature.

The power connectors for the processor (2 x 8 pin) are located on the top, but on the right side, not on the left, as in most motherboards. In addition, there is additional power for USB Power Delivery (6 pin) and PCI-E (8 pin). And this problem is worth writing two more paragraphs about.

They are located far from each other, and 6+2 pin GPU cables in modern power supplies come in pairs, two pieces each. For example, the MSI MPG 1000G modular power supply has two cable bundles are 2 x 6+2 pin and one 16 pin Nvidia, while the RX 7900 XTX graphics card in the reference design requires 2 x 8 pin.

One bundle goes to the video card, which is no problem, but it will not be possible to simultaneously connect the bottom 8 pin on the motherboard with the 6 pin on the top right with the second bundle due to the very design of the cables (the distance is too long). We won’t consider this a serious disadvantage because with an Nvidia video card there would be no such problems, but it’s worth mentioning.

MSI MEG Z890 ACE software

The updated MSI Click BIOS X has a more functional main page in a simplified mode. Here you can overclock the memory in a few clicks, select a processor power profile (for example, with MSI Extreme automatic overclocking), adjust the fan curve, and more.

The manual settings open up a lot of room for experimentation, which will definitely appeal to enthusiasts. MSI MEG Z890 ACE is able to overclock the processor, integrated graphics and RAM. At the same time, all CPUs are overclocked, even with a locked multiplier (via the bus). For RAM, there is a useful MSI Memory Extension option that reduces system boot time and delays compared to the factory XMP profile.

MSI MEG Z890 ACE allows you to completely remove the power consumption limits for processors, and with 28-phase power supply you can compete for a place in the record table among liquid nitrogen enthusiasts. The board is really productive and has a giant margin for overclocking, but when you remove all restrictions and manually control the voltage, the system warns that you do it at your own risk.

For Windows, MSI has one large and versatile utility called MSI Center. Although the program is heavy, it has everything in «one bottle». Users can change power modes or create their own for specific scenarios, adjust RGB backlighting, test drives, and much more. When you first start your computer, MSI Center will offer to install itself along with drivers and other useful (and not so useful, like a third-party antivirus) programs.

There are no complaints about the MSI MEG Z890 ACE software, except for the fact that it’s not the fastest system boot. Perhaps newer versions of the BIOS will fix this, but 30-40 seconds from the moment you press the power key to the desktop is a lot. Moreover, such a good result was achieved only after manual settings in the BIOS.

Performance, energy consumption and heating

The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is considered the coolest x86 flagship processor in the last few years (base limit of 250W), so we decided to go above these limits. The performance increase with MSI Extreme (295 W) in synthetic tests relative to the base profile was 5-8%. This is not enough because the «standard» profile also overclocks the processor.

Do not think that you can just get «free» performance, as in the days of Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 or Intel Core i7-3770K, by overclocking. The manufacturer already lays an increased multiplier on +3 for all energy-efficient cores in normal mode, and with MSI Extreme, this multiplier has been increased to +5 and also gradually added a multiplier for productive cores, although after crossing the +3 the system was behaving erratically. Obviously, the processor wants higher voltage to cross the 6000 MHz mark on P-Cores.

The maximum recorded processor power consumption was 288.5 watts in the Aida 64 FPU test, and in Cinebench 2024 the processor takes 250-280 watts. In idle mode without a discrete graphics card, the computer consumes 60-65 watts, and with AMD RX 7900 XTX 80-90 watts. During light work and games on integrated graphics, the wattmeter shows 120-130 watts. In the most severe stress tests, power consumption reached 380 watts, but this is without a video card. During the game Cyberpunk 2077, the computer drew 600+ watts from the outlet.

Intel Core Ultra 9 285K with its 280+W power consumption is nothing to the MSI MEG Z890 ACE. In the Aida 64, the motherboard sensors show only 33-36 °C with a CPU temperature of 79-81 °C. The pyrometer records 35-40 °C on the heatsinks, and if you try hard enough, you can find places up to 45-51 °C in the power supply area, which protrudes slightly from under the heatsinks. All tests were conducted at room temperature of 18-19 °C.

After a few days of use and testing, it seems that it is impossible to overheat the heroine of the review with such a 3-nanometer processor. This makes it possible to resort to «sport» overclocking (liquid nitrogen) to fight against record-breaking performance. Enthusiasts have already overclocked this scarce processor (the hit Intel Core Ultra 9 285K disassembled like hot cakes) to 7.4 GHz using the Asus ROG MAXIMUS Z890 APEX motherboard. The sample from the review also has a chance to appeal to overclockers because the potential of the MSI MEG Z890 ACE is quite high.

Memory bandwidth is high – with the standard XMP profile in the Aida 64 test we get 110 GB/s. We activate MSI Memory Extension and the figure goes up to 124 GB/s, and the latency has dropped from 90 to 80 nanoseconds. The base frequency of 6400 MT/s with the CL52 shows 93 GB/s, which is still a lot, but delays are 109 nanoseconds.

When it comes to RAM, AMD AM5 competitors cannot yet compete with the new Intel Core Ultra. The Intel LGA 1851 platform still works a little better with fast RAM. It was not possible to hit the 9000 MT/s mark with the MSI Memory Try It function, and with 8600 MT/s and CL40, the Aida 64 test ended with the image freezing. It’s not surprising because RAM manufacturers often set XMP to maximize, if not 95% of the capabilities of memory modules, so there’s not much room for manual overclocking.

Experience of using MSI MEG Z890 ACE

Using the new Intel LGA 1851 platform was at least interesting and informative. A new flagship processor with the world’s highest operating performance among all x86 desktop processors, a top-of-the-line RAM kit, and a premium motherboard — such equipment rarely brings negative experiences, but there are still a few minor nuances.

Subjectively, the placement of the 6+8 pin auxiliary power connectors is unfortunate, at least strange. At least for me, as the owner of AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTXrather than Nvidia graphics cards with the new (now standard) 16 pin connector. It is literally impossible to connect the GPU and additional power connectors at the same time if the PSU has only two paired 2 x 8(6+2) pin cables for the GPU.

I also didn’t like the relatively slow system bootup. At a time when budget laptops turn on in 9-10 seconds, and Apple MacBooks with the speed of opening the lid (you can leave it on), booting a top-of-the-line computer for 35-40 seconds is very long. It seems that you can put your PC to sleep, but regular power outages spoil this great idea, so you have to wait more than half a minute every time (almost a minute without manual settings).

Price and competitors

Cost MSI MEG Z890 ACE is 37549 UAH. The price is as extraordinary as the motherboard’s capabilities, but the target audience in such cases knows what they are paying for. There can’t be many opponents for such specialized solutions a priori, but we have selected several competitors with the Z890 chipset.

Asus ROG STRIX Z890-E GAMING WIFI despite the comparable price offers «of all» 23 phases, so its owners are better off «cool» your dreams of liquid nitrogen. In addition, the clock speed of the RAM supported by the motherboard is 8800 MHz versus 9200 MHz for the MSI MEG Z890 ACE.

It’s hard to name Asus ROG MAXIMUS Z890 EXTREME is a fair competitor for our heroine because it is twice as expensive. The number of processor phases in this motherboard is comparable to MSI MEG Z890 ACE. However, Asus, just like the above opponents, for some reason also compromises on the maximum amount of RAM.