MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi: Basis in above-standard features

Conclusion

Two network adapters, over twenty USB ports, a really powerful VRM… in short, a motherboard for those with more demands than usual. The X870E Carbon WiFi is also rich in connectivity thanks to the two chips that make up the chipset’s south bridge. Overall, this makes it a very well equipped motherboard for the AMD AM5 platform that is more expensive, but you still don’t have to pay a devastating amount for it.

Conclusion

We tested one of the most attractive motherboards for the AMD AM5 platform. Several key things can be highlighted from the results. One of the strengths is the really strong CPU power delivery (Vcore) with relatively low temperature even at the high power consumption of the Ryzen 9 9950X. This indicates good overdimensioning and possible further overclocking of the CPU. That is, if the CPU cooler allows it. The options in this regard are, as you already know from the tests of Ryzen 9000 processors, wider than they used to be (for Ryzen 7000) at the same performance, and the heat is probably dissipated more efficiently from them (Why?). At least, so report the temperature sensors on which the clock speed management of the processor is based. And the MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi motherboard is well prepared for maximum clock speed stretching as well.

Even if you don’t care about overclocking (and there’s not much you will change besides activating the EXPO memory profile), there are several cases where top-notch results are achieved in both MT and ST workloads. This is despite the relatively weaker speed results recorded in Aida64. At the same time, this can be considered the only anomaly we have encountered. However, it has no impact on performance tests, or if it does, it is negligible. In principle, it is nothing important, but it had to be pointed out. Finally, it is also possible that the data from Aida64 is not interpreted correctly by the application, who knows…

On the one hand, we’ve talked about top results from speed tests, but to get a good picture of the power efficiency, you need to look at power consumption measurements. The latter is one of the lowest we’ve measured with the Ryzen 9 9950X processor under higher load. This fact also indicates very good efficiency and combined with the low temperature of the VRM we have only praise to heap on the MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi.

In a single-threaded load, this motherboard’s power consumption is average, but it often does so when reaching the highest SC boost speed. So again, it is appropriate to underline the high efficiency. Although there is an extremely robust power delivery, MSI did not overdo the power consumption and tuned with the most economical operation in mind. But stability is also high – we didn’t encounter any crashes or anything that hinted at unreliability during our tests.

The big advantage is the rich connectivity. But yes, it’s true that there are fewer SATA III connectors and more than four wouldn’t hurt. But again, there are finally two USB-A 3.2 gen. 1 connectors to connect the complete front panel even with cases with four USB ports of this 10-gigabit standard. The MPG X870E Carbon WiFi is actually the only board in the already rather comprehensive database that has two network adapters. One 2.5 Gb and the other 5 Gb (you can also look through their speed results). This is also one of the reasons why this motherboard may make sense for someone. But some might better appreciate the really large number of fast USB ports on the back panel. And when we say fast, we mean fast. Within its standards, above average speeds are achieved when it comes to comparison with other motherboards.

The MPG X870E Carbon WiFi motherboard can hardly be criticized and the elegant system of (de)mounting SSD coolers is also worth praising. For many users, the relatively higher price may be a thorn in the side. However, there will surely be those who will remark – “yes, it’s a more expensive board, but the price is justified”. It always depends on what you can utilize for your purposes, and there are indeed more of those options in this case (than with the cheaper X870 models).

English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš

Some of the tested boards are also available in the Datacomp e-shop

>Special thanks to Blackmagic Design (for licenses for DeNoise AI, Gigapixel AI and Sharpen AI) and Topaz Labs (for licenses for DeNoise AI, Gigapixel AI and Sharpen AI)

• Contents
• MSI MPG X870E Carbon WiFi 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
• Graphics 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
• CPU temperature
• VRM temperature – thermal imaging of Vcore and SOC
• SSD temperature
• Chipset temperature (south bridge)
• Conclusion