MSI MEG Z890 Ace: 28 phases for Arrow Lake CPUs and…

MSI MEG Z890 Ace in detail

Extremely robust power delivery, 10-gigabit ethernet, a huge number of USB ports and more – that’s what comes with one of the most feature-packed LGA 1851 platform motherboards, the MSI MEG Z890 Ace. This is mirrored, of course, by the remarkably high price tag. Such a wealth of features comes at a price, and it’s all about whether you see a potential in it that you can appreciate. Be that as it may, MSI has packed it really properly.

The most expensive, but also the best equipped Z890 motherboard we’ve tested so far. MSI MEG Z890 is designed for very demanding users, or owners of Intel Core Ultra 200S (Arrow Lake) processors of the LGA 1851 platform.

MSI MEG Z890 Ace

There is only one other motherboard above this one, the extremely expensive Godlike (Z890 Godlike). The Z890 Ace is also from the MEG (MSI Enthusiast Gaming) family, which consists of high-end products.

The Z890 Ace still sticks to the ATX format (the Godlike model is already E-ATX, with a larger width), i.e. 305 × 244 mm. Compatibility with cases is thus better. The Z890 Ace will also fit into those where larger motherboards will be incompatible or will have their PCBs overlapping cable routing holes.

There are three PCI Express slots, all in a physical ×16 design, although only the first slot has both sixteen lanes and PCIe 5.0 support. The second, also connected to the CPU, is only 8-lane, but still retains PCIe 5.0 support. Only the third slot is slower (not only due to the PCIe 4.0 interface, but also by having only four lanes). The back of the motherboard is accented with a backplate.

The backplate is screwed to the PCB, held at seven points. It is made of aluminum and also has a cooling function, as it is in contact with the PCB behind the VRM through thermal pads. The backplate’s role is also to protect the motherboard from flexing and can prevent damage caused by clumsy handling. Typically when mounting a cooler, when you fly off course with the tip of a screwdriver and scratch the board. This can of course happen in this case too, but on the Z890 Ace there’s more chance of the dent being on the backplate (instead of the PCB, where it causes more complications…).

To more elegantly unlock the PCIe latch, there is a button on the side of the board, under the DIMM slots. This is considerably further away than the traditional latches on the (PCIe) slots, which makes removing an expansion card from underneath a large tower cooler considerably more elegant.

One M.2 SSD slot (with PCIe 5.0 support) is above the first PCI Express ×16 slot. This is a fairly common layout, which also takes into account the best possible compatibility of wide tower coolers with a typical graphics card. All M.2 slots have a cooler. The first slot has its own, even with ARGB LED lighting (Ace logo), the remaining four slots already have a shared one. But it is a large heatsink weighing 216 grams. It too has a tool-less (de)mounting system, where you just push from the side, loosen the locking teeth and remove the cooler. The assembly procedure is the same, or rather the opposite.

SATA headers and internal USB 3.2 gen. 1 and USB 3.2 gen. 2×2 headers are on the side, all angled. There are two 19-pin headers for 5-gigabit USB (for four connectors), so you’ll completely connect the front panel, even on cases with higher-end equipment. You may have some reservations about “only” four SATA III connectors, but on other motherboards it doesn’t get any better. This configuration is obviously based on surveys of user requirements, and in short, people don’t really use more connectors for inch-type storage in practice.

There are more (than SATA connectors) M.2 slots (5) on the Z890 Ace. Support for the fastest PCIe interface available (5.0) is provided by the M.2_1 and M.2_4 slots. Both are connected to the processor, with the fourth slot (M.2) optionally also using PCIe 4.0 lanes from the south bridge (Z890). The remaining slots support PCIe 4.0 and the fifth (M.2_5) also supports SATA. Yes, this is also an option, even such M.2 SSDs (with SATA support) exist, although you will come across them only rarely.

The pride of the Z890 Ace is definitely the 28 phases (24+2+1+1) for Vcore/SOC, which are even arranged in three rows. Usually there are two rows, but on this board there is also a third row, under the processor socket. The voltage regulators with MOSFET are Renesas R2209004. The maximum current carrying capacity is specified at 110 A. However, this is a vastly oversized value that you wouldn’t be able to cool even with the nicely finned VRM cooler that is on the the Z890 Ace. Either way, this is an extremely robust power delivery that handles loads in a large number of powerful phases.

External power supply is via two 8-pin connectors. These are placed in an unusual position, above the DIMM slots. This allows, for example, also the use of larger VRM heatsinks, but you also have to take into account that many cases do not count on such a layout and thus do not have a cable grommet in this location. In that case you have to make some other arrangement and route the cables in a different way, through different paths.

There are up to 15 USB connectors on the rear I/O panel. All of them are fast, starting at 10 Gbps (USB 3.2 gen. 2). Of the four USB-Cs, two have Thunderbolt 4 support (and thus 40 Gb bandwidth), the remaining two are 10-gigabit. As is the 10 Gb ethernet with the Marvell AQC113CS chip. Such fast ethernet is rare on motherboards, you won’t find it on all the expensive models either. Naturally there are then questions on whether it is useful to the user or whether you can appreciate the forward-looking nature of such a solution. You’ll have to answer that for yourself. The module with WiFi7 (and Bluetooth 5.4) is the Intel Killer BE1750.

MSI has also reduced its audio jacks to two (from five, still on the X670E Ace, for example). And also here it seems to be based on market requirements and the fact that multichannel audio systems via analogue connection are not used much in practice anymore. At least not in combination with the class of motherboards that the Z890 Ace is in. In any case, the terminals of the available 3.5mm jacks (line in and line out) are gold plated and the audio adapter is Realtek ALC4082 Codec (with DAC/HPA ESS9219Q).

The main ARGB LED lighting (with the MSI dragon) is on the cover between the VRM and the external I/O connectors. And then there’s the backlit “Ace” lettering on the first SSD cooler. Managing the effects, colors or brightness of the ARGB LEDs is possible via MSI Dragon Center.

Please note: The article continues in the following chapters.

• Contents
• MSI MEG Z890 Ace in detail
• What it looks like in the BIOS
• Methodology: Performance tests
• Methodology: How we measure power draw
• Methodology: Temperature and clock speed measurements
• Test setup
• 3DMark
• Borderlands 3
• F1 2020
• Metro Exodus
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Total War Saga: Troy
• PCMark and Geekbench
• Web performance
• 3D rendering: Cinebench, Blender, ...
• Video 1/2: Adobe Premiere Pro
• Video 2/2: DaVinci Resolve Studio
• Visual effects: Adobe After Effects
• Video encoding
• Audio encoding
• Photos: Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Photo, ...
• (De)compression
• (De)encryption
• Numerical computing
• Simulations
• Memory and cache tests
• M.2 (SSD) slots speed
• USB ports speed
• Ethernet speed
• Power draw without power limits
• Power draw with power limits
• Achieved CPU clock speed
• Zahrievanie CPU
• VRM temperature – thermal imaging of Vcore and SOC
• SSD temperature
• Chipset temperature (south bridge)
• Conclusion