MSI MPG Z490 GAMING EDGE WIFI ATX Gaming Motherboard (10th Gen Intel Core, LGA 1200 Socket, DDR4, CF, Dual M.2 Slots, USB 3.2 Gen 2, Wi-Fi 6, DP/HDMI, Mystic Light RGB)

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.

upgrading from a 300 dollar evga ftw+ motherboard and couldn't be happier. the tools that come with msi motherboard are fantastic and compared to my last mother board i feel that i overpayed on my last one. this mother board has the latest wifi out right now and i paired it with a intel 10850k cpu and didn't even have to mess with my bios for it to work. was smooth and easy. the only thing i have to over as far as advice is that i'm using a 2070 nvdea graphics card so its pretty big and when you build your pc you should plug in your sata cabels before plugging in your GPU because other wise the graphics card if your using a rather larger one like me will cover a few of the sockets for sata. so just be sure to plug the cables first. however if your not using 4 different drives the board does have two more sata sockets below the other 4 that are more roomy and very easy to access even with gpu installed. recomended ram slots are 2 and 4 oth this board so dont use 1 and 3 if your using only 2 ram cards. just thought i'd save you the time in finding that out.Make sure your regular boot works before you use msi boot. i say this because many people who do custom rigs if using a usb to instal windows on a drive often have problems booting after removing usb. do your homework. once your regular boot works then you can turn on msi fast boot. because msi fast boot will disable usb plugs to prioritize boot speed and you wont be able to access bios if you run into a problem. you'd have to reset the board by removing battery. if your an experianced builder your not going to run into problems. Great Board!!!

It was my first time building a PC, and the motherboard was super easy to install. However, upon booting up I was put in MSI’s BIOS menu. There was no problem, until I couldn’t leave the BIOS. Every time I exited the BIOS, the computer would shut off, and when I booted back up, I was put back in the menu again. I was booting up from a flash drive with windows installed on it so I was very confused as to why it wasn’t working. Luckily, I have a friend who is very experienced with PC’s so he managed to get it working after putting the flash drive in his own rig and messing with it.After we got it working though, it turned out better than I could have ever imagined. It looks, and performs absolutely amazing!TL;DRThis motherboard’s BIOS menu is very confusing, and needs someone with experience to handle. But it’s a great motherboard.