Msi meg z390 ace review in Spanish (full analysis)

The brands continue to squeeze the Z390 chipset to the maximum and this MSI MEG Z390 ACE is the example of this. An impressive Intel Core i9 optimized motherboard with a 13 phase VRM, 3 M.2 turbo slots and of course Mystic Light on the port panel cover along with a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 port. Gaming teams are asking for more and MSI has worked hard on this new creation.

We thank MSI for their trust in us when transferring their product to us for this analysis. In addition, it will stay in our second test bench for a season.

MSI MEG Z390 ACE technical characteristics

Unboxing and design

MSI MEG Z390 AC can be considered as one of the most powerful creations of MSI. It has the most modern chipset from Intel: the Z390 as its southern bridge. This board is presented to us in a nice, completely colorful box with a photo of part of the board, as well as compatibility with Intel processors and the Mystic Light logo.

Of course it is a box completely made of thick cardboard and with its widest part opening, so as to be able to remove the plate, obviously.

Nor could the typical antistatic plastic bag be thick enough and transparent that isolates it from the other elements that we will find inside, which are:

• MSI MEG Z390 ACE motherboard Cables with 3-pin LED heads and power for fans SLI cable for Nvidia GPUs 4 SAT cables User guide and some extra information and stickers CD-ROM with software and drivers

The aesthetics of the board is based on black colors throughout the PCB area that practically does not let us see the different tracks, although its components do. Also highlight the numerous aluminum heatsinks for one of the M.2, the chipset, beautiful, by the way, and those in the VRM area and rear panel.

For the most curious we leave you a picture of the back.

This board is presented in an ATX format, as has been common for this type of chipset, since we only have 4 DIMM slots. Its measurements are standard, 305 mm long and 244 mm wide, thus occupying all the space of an ATX.

Let's start by talking a little more about the power zone of this MSI MEG Z390 ACE. As always, it is located in the upper area and is chaired by a VRM of no less than 13 digitally controlled supply phases and with highly durable materials for both CHOKES and MOSFETS. This motherboard is intended for the most demanding configurations like the latest Core i9 unlocked for strong overclocking, and MSI never disappoints with its impressive VRM.

So much so that the two zones of MOSFETS are protected by quite bulky aluminum heatsinks and are also connected by a copper heatpipe between them to improve heat transfer. Such power requires a total of two 8-pin EPS connectors each in addition to the traditional 24-pin ATX on the side. So pay attention that your power supply has enough power, because not all of them have such amount of cables.

The presence of the MSI Mystic Light lighting system could not be missing either, although it is only located in the aluminum protection zone of the rear panel of ports. So we did not find lighting in chipset and in the back. In any case, it can be managed through the MSI software and synchronized with other elements of the brand.

By the way, the rear panel is already pre-installed for ease of installation. We take this opportunity to quote that this MSI MEG Z390 ACE has two 4-pin RGB LED connectors, a 3-pin connector for RAINDOW LED (cable included) and a 3-pin connector for Corsair controllers. Free way to set up our own fair friends.

As a good Z390 board, the one from MSI has a total of 4 DDR4 DIMM slots with the ability to mount Dual Channel memories, with attention, a total of 128 GB, that is, 32 GB for each slot, something little seen even today of today, and that places us at the same level as the Workstation processors, although without Quad Channel.

The maximum speed supported will be 4500 MHz with non-ECC memories, with compatibility with XMP profiles for automatic overclocking of these modules. And as we can see, all of them are reinforced with steel plates. We can also take the opportunity to mention that in the lower right area we will have a Game Boost button to activate a second stage of automatic CPU overclocking, with 8 positions in which a Core i7-8600K CPU for example, can reach up to 5.4 GHz. All this you will have detailed in the instruction manual.

Let's now take a closer look at the PCI slots of this MSI MEG Z390 ACE. The 3 largest slots are PCI-Express 3.0 x16, this would be a speed of 2 GB / s, 1 GB / s outward and 1 Gb / s back, although by now we all know that all of them will not work to x16. The settings of these three in such a case will be: x16 / x0 / x0, x8 / x8 / x0, x8 / x4 / x4. They support a 3-way AMD Cross Fire and 2-way Nvidia SLI configuration. We will also find three other PCI-Express 3.0 x1 slots to generate a speed of 1 GB / s each way. It will be interesting to know that none of these share a bus with other components or between them, and that the PCIe x16 will be all three reinforced with steel.

The next thing we will see is the storage section of the MSI MEG Z390 ACE motherboard, which is quite interesting because it includes practically the most that the Intel chipset can give. To start we will find a total of 6 SATA III ports at 6 Gbps. Then we will have 3 M.2 slots, all of which can work in PCIe 3.0 x4 (32 Gbps or 4, 000 MB / s). In addition, two of them are compatible with SATA III as well.

It will be important to know that the SATA stations share bus width, but we can see this better on a tablet that we will leave below to see the most appropriate configurations. We also have an M.2 SHIELD FROZR heatsink for one of the M.2 and support for Intel Optane after updating the drivers and BIOS. The Z390 chipset supports RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 for SATA drives and RAID 0, 1, and 5 for M.2 drives. And in this model, we will not have a U2 connector available for storage.

MSI MEG Z390 ACE has a BIOS system with two buttons on the rear panel of ports accessible by the user. One of them will be in charge of resetting the BIOS and the other as a function of Flashback BIOS, that is, we can recover our BIOS in two different ways in case it fails to manually overclock the components.

In the internal area we will also have abundant information about the messages that the BIOS shows, with a DEBUG LED panel and indicator lights for checking components when starting up. If we also want to test the board without a chassis we will have a RESET button and a start button on the same PCB.

As it should be on a good gaming motherboard, the MSI MEG Z390 ACE boasts a top-notch sound system and also high-end-worthy connectivity. A Realtek ALC 1220 sound card has been installed with a dedicated amplifier for headphones up to 600 Ohms and a Nahimic 3 system for its management. Each of the channels will be directed in a different layer of circuit, in order to eliminate possible noise and interference.

In the network section we have good news, because a Killer LAN E2500 chip has been installed that provides us with a speed of 2.5 gigabit in our wired LAN line. In this sense, we miss a second RJ-45 GbE connector that many boards already incorporate. It also incorporates good level Wi-Fi connectivity, with an Intel chip that gives us a width of AC1730 in 2 × 2 connections with MU-MIMO.

Before going to see the connections on the rear panel, it is worth identifying those that we have inside, because they are abundant and from the point of view of the first-class chassis and the gaming components with lighting it will be interesting:

• 7x connectors for PWM2x fans, USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C2x connectors, USB 3.1 Gen12x connectors, USB 2.0 connectors, Audio Connector, TPM connector, 4x connectors for LED lighting, one of them for Corsair controllers.

It is interesting to have so much variety, especially when it comes to USB connections for the chassis and for other components and even Corsair controllers.

Now, yes, we are going to head to the back of the MSI MEG Z390 ACE to see what connections we are going to find in it.

• Clear CMOS button BIOS FLASHBACK button 4x USB 2.0 4x USB 3.1 Gen2 USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-A + C RJ-45 port 2.5 GbEC S / PDIF connector 5x Jack 3.5 mm audio2x connectors for Wi-Fi antennas

testing bench

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel Core i9-9900K
Base plate:	MSI MEG Z390 ACE
Memory:	Corsair Dominator RGB 32 GB @ 3600 MHz
Heatsink	Corsair H100i V2
HDD	Kingston KC500 480GB
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti
Power supply	Corsair RM1000X

MSI presents its classic AMIBIOS that since the generation of Z77 motherboards (released 2011) is identical to the current one, but has been gradually improved with little details. Currently it allows us to perform a simple overclock, without a thousand options, which for users less expert in the field appreciate it.

In addition to overclocking, we can also monitor / manage the temperatures and voltages of our motherboard. See a map of the activated components, enable the XMP profile of our memories, manage the storage units or update the BIOS quickly and easily via USB. We are missing an online BIOS update system, but we have faith that it will be incorporated soon. We leave you some screenshots to review the multitude of options that it incorporates.

Overclocking and temperatures

As expected we have been able to squeeze the i9-9900k well. We have reached the stable 24/7 5.1 GHz figure at a voltage of 1.39 v with an 8-core, 16-wire processor. One of the few motherboards that have brought so much performance to our processor from the test bench.

The marked temperatures are during 12 hours of stress with the processor in stock and PRIME95 in its long stress program. The zone of the feeding phases reaches up to 66 ºC.

Final words and conclusion about MSI MEG Z390 ACE

The MSI MEG Z390 ACE is one of those motherboards that you buy and end up with for many years or at least until the next PC update. That as we have said more than once, with a good base, changing the graphics card you have a computer for a good season (at least so far, it is so).

Among its most important features we find 13 power phases, a superb design, an excellent dissipation in both its VRM and M.2 NVMe units, an improved LAN card as well as Wi-Fi and a very clear sound.

We recommend reading the best motherboards on the market

In our performance tests we have been able to overclock our i9-9900k up to 5.1 GHz with a voltage of 1.39v. One of the few motherboards that have managed to reach this figure in our test bench. The temperatures of the VRM are very good, as MSI has accustomed us in its high range.

Currently we can find it in online stores for about 285 euros. Without a doubt, it is one of the cheapest high-end options that we can currently buy. At least on MSI, the next step would be the MSI Meg Z390 Godlike. What do you think of the Z390 ACE? Would you buy it?

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ DESIGN	- WE MISSING A MORE MODERN BIOS, ALTHOUGH THE ONE IT BRINGS IS PRETTY COMPLETE.
+ REFRIGERATION
+ PERFORMANCE
+ IMPROVED SOUND AND NETWORK
+ RGB LIGHTING

The Professional Review team awards him the platinum medal:

MSI MEG Z390 ACE

COMPONENTS - 90%

REFRIGERATION - 95%

BIOS - 95%

EXTRAS - 94%

PRICE - 90%

93%