Top positive review
1 people found this helpful
Feature-Packed Micro-ATX Motherboard – Great for Gaming and Future-Proofing
By Joshua Gutierrez on Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2025
I’ve been using the MSI MPG Z490M GAMING EDGE WIFI motherboard for my Intel 10th Gen build, and it’s been an excellent performer with a lot of useful features. It offers a great balance of performance, connectivity, and future-proofing in a compact Micro-ATX form factor. The board has a premium feel with solid heatsinks and a sleek black-and-silver design. The reinforced PCIe slots add durability, which is great for heavy GPUs. The RGB accents add a nice touch without being over the top. Paired with my Intel Core i5-10400F, the board handles gaming and multitasking effortlessly. It supports dual-channel DDR4 memory up to 128GB and 4800+ MHz (OC), giving it plenty of headroom for high-speed RAM. M.2 Slots: Dual M.2 slots (PCIe Gen3) for fast NVMe SSDs offer excellent storage performance. USB 3.2 Gen 2 Ports: The board comes with USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports, ensuring high-speed data transfers for external drives. Wi-Fi 6 & Gigabit LAN: The built-in Wi-Fi 6 provides fast and stable wireless connectivity, while the Gigabit LAN ensures reliable wired performance for gaming. The MSI BIOS is easy to navigate with a clean UI. It offers solid overclocking options and XMP support, making memory tuning simple and effective. The Micro-ATX form factor is perfect for smaller builds while still providing plenty of connectivity options. It fits nicely into most cases without sacrificing features. Issues I've had: Since it’s a Z490 board, it only supports PCIe 3.0 unless you upgrade to an 11th Gen CPU. This isn’t a huge deal for most current-gen GPUs, but it limits future expansion potential. The board has fewer fan headers than some larger ATX boards. If you’re using multiple case fans or AIO coolers, you might need a fan hub or splitter. One of the M.2 slots is placed close to the GPU, which can cause thermal issues for SSDs during heavy gaming or long sessions. Consider adding a heatsink for the M.2 drive. While it supports SLI and CFX, most users won’t take advantage of it, as multi-GPU setups are becoming less common in modern gaming builds. Overall: The MSI MPG Z490M GAMING EDGE WIFI is a fantastic Micro-ATX motherboard for Intel 10th and 11th Gen CPUs. It offers great performance, strong connectivity, and future-proofing with Wi-Fi 6 and USB 3.2 Gen 2. The dual M.2 slots and easy BIOS navigation make it perfect for gamers and enthusiasts building compact but powerful systems. Highly recommended for mid-range gaming builds or anyone looking for a feature-packed Micro-ATX motherboard with excellent performance, connectivity, and price.
Top critical review
1 people found this helpful
DO NOT BUY if you need Optical Audio, does not work
By Sypiarz on Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2022
Optical audio just does not work. It will stop randomly and require reboot to get going again. There are numerous post on the net about it. Just google ALC4080 problems. This chip is used across many 490/590/690/790 boards. All have same problems. numerous drivers and firmware updates and still trash. Either pops or quits completely. Nice board but audio is unusable. Amazing in 2022 basic component like audio is still unreliable. BIOS always resets to default after BIOS update, so you lose all your setting, including saved OC profiles. What's the point of saving if they get lost. MSI Center monitoring utility is just trash. Downloadable install is just main program, for ANY functionality you need to use MSI center itself to download modules. They are NOT separately available. So you want temperature/fan control - separate download. What happens when MSI no longer supports it? Well you will not have any monitoring. There is only handful of monitoring parameters that MSI chose, motherboard or PWM temperatures are not there. The window always resizes in both direction, takes a lot of scree, you need to scroll to get to all parameters, just a horrible piece of bad software. Then there is MSI privacy policy, that is just horrible. In order to install and use their utility you have to accept very vague policy that basically states they can collect and use any data in whatever manner they see fit. This is just unacceptable. Why fan monitoring utility needs any access to your data? Just say no. This is my last MSI purchase. I knew I should've stuck with Asus or Gigabyte.
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