It's been a long time since I've used an MSI board, and they've come on a long way. I originally had a Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Pro DDR4, but it had horrendous coil whine so had to go back. Next, I had an MSI Z690 Edge DDR4, but one of the m.2 mounts wasn't fastened to the board so it also had to go back. Third time was the charm with this one!
The board is somewhat no-frills and has no RGB making for a clean look. MSI build quality isn’t as good as Gigabyte or Asus. There’s also sticky residue on the back of both MSI Z690 boards I used, and a little on the front. The UEFI is a bit cluttered and ugly, but functionally it’s exceptional. It is mostly clear and very well featured. A little more effort in usability would make it the equal of an Asus ROG board. That said the control is there, and it seems to work as described which you don’t always get.
Despite using the launch UEFI version, stability is perfect and compatibility with DDR4 is outstanding. I have 128GB DDR4 3600 C18, SK Hynix RAM. This is a very heavy load for any system, and this is the first board I’ve ever had where I can set the XMP setting, and it just works with stability. 72 hours of different stress tests could not shake the stability, outstanding! The Gigabyte Aorus Pro on the other hand managed 5 minutes as a comparison.
I would recommend also considering the Edge which is a little more money. On the surface the difference is only an extra 5A per phase, and some RGB. However, much to my chagrin there’s more to it. 2 of the USB 3 ports go from 5gbit, to 10gbit with the Edge. On the Tomahawk one of the m.2 slots is PCIe 3.0 x4, this is upgraded to 4.0 x4 on the Edge. Additionally, the lower PCIe 4.0 16x slot is only 1x on the Tomahawk, but 4x on the Edge. This is a shame since I have a 10gbit NIC that can only go in the lower slot, so I can’t max out the NIC anymore. On the other hand, all SATA ports are connected to the Z690 chipset on the Tomahawk, whereas 2 are using an extra SATA controller on the Edge. If you’re using RST this will impact the maximum number of drives you can have in RST RAID.
Inside of a case I haven’t heard any coil whine so far. Outside the case in open bench there’s a very small amount. I don’t overclock, so I can’t comment for power delivery in practice but based on the ICs in use, the VRM is basically overkill for anything short of liquid nitrogen.
Fan control is excellent, you can control the fan curves from within the UEFI so no need for any intrusive utilities. You can set individual points, and they can be arbitrarily moved. You can also set fan ramp up and down times. This is in stark contrast to Gigabyte where the final point on the curve must be 100%, even if that is added noise for no extra performance.
I can only recommend this board if you’re after something mid-range on the Z690. It’s staggering that this kind of cost is mid-range now, but you do get a lot for your money.
| Merk | Msi |
|---|---|
| Fabrikant | MSI COMPUTER |
| Productafmetingen | 31 x 25 x 5 cm; 2 kg |
| Batterijen: | 1 Lithium ion batterijen vereist. (inbegrepen) |
| Modelnummer item | 911-7D32-005 |
| Kleur | X |
| Processorsocket | LGA 1200 |
| Geheugentechnologie | DDR25 |
| Kloksnelheid geheugen | 5200 MHz |
| Interface grafische kaart | PCI-Express x16 |
| Draadloos type | 802.11ax |
| Batterijen wel of niet meegeleverd | Ja |
| Vermogen lithiumbatterij | 170 Milliampère-uur (mAh) |
| Gewicht lithiumbatterij | 2.9 Gram |
| Aantal lithium-ioncellen | 1 |
| Aantal lithium-metaalcellen | 1 |
| Fabrikant | MSI COMPUTER |
| ASIN | B09HK6CZFC |
| Gegarandeerde software-updates tot | unknown |
