MSI Z690 Force WiFi Gaming Motherboard (ATX, 12th Gen Intel Core, LGA 1700 Socket, DDR5, PCIe 4, CFX, M.2 Slots, Wi-Fi 6E)

Let me begin by saying that the prime day deal on this excellent, especially for what one gets with this board.I've been building gaming PCs since my late teens and do have some experience in this area, though I haven't built one for a very long time. However, with prices coming down a bit, I thought it was time to reengage in my hobby.From my personal experiences, I've always found the motherboard to be the most important component, if only because it's the unit most difficult to troubleshoot, hassle to RMA and literally controls everything, from each part on the system, power flow and how they all communicate. Towards that end, after deciding on the new Intel i5 12600KF (that Prime Deal was something!), I started looking for a motherboard and decided on this one. Some of the reasons for my choice: 1) from my research, it appears this one was spared many of the "early adopter" issues hampering some of their peers: 2) LED debug; 3) fully attached IO shield; and, 4) power phases & number of M.2 slots.Of course, as with anyone whose engaged in this hobby for any amount of time, there's always the possibility of receiving DOA or potentially defective components. Fortunately, thus far, my board has not only worked as advertised but exceeded my expectations. Upon receiving the board, I perused the board, power phases and components. And, it appears to me, MSI opted for quality components here for the entire build. One can see why this retailed at around $400.For my purposes, the board fit very well in my case and fired up each of my components after assembly with the LED lights checking the process from CPU, RAM, VGA and Boot drive. Pressing delete easily allowed access to the Bios where I used their M-Flash feature to update to the most current Bios before installing Win 11. This process was easy, intuitive, and compared to the old days, idiot proof. There is also a feature to update the bios sans CPU/Ram but wasn't necessary for my CPU.Entering the UEFI, the board offered a choice between an easy or advanced setup interface. Initially, I just opted for the EZ stuff, turned on XMP and played around with the "game boost" to test and ensure the system's stable under after installing Windows. From a force of habit, ran memory, CPU and GPU stress tests, and once everything passed, decided to turn off the EZ stuff and start exploring where this board really shines--the suite of options to manually tinker with enhancing performance.I've used Asus, Gigabyte and ASRock boards for builds in the past but never had a chance until now to try MSI. I've been missing out! These guys are serious about performance! Thus far, I'm pretty impressed with the features, build quality (the components they used aren't cheap), and suite of options to tinker with performance parameters. For me, part of the reason why I've enjoyed building my own PCs is because of a natural inclination to push the envelope of performance, not unlike racing cars where the enticement to go faster is always calling ultimately becoming irresistible. I sense these guys share that same passion, and it shows on this board! From the stickers, the looks of the board and presentation, one gets the feeling they aspire to be the Ferrari of motherboards.Now, for the cons. While I don't have many complaints, the only ones I can think of are 1) no power button near the LED debug, and 2) no bios reset button, which is incredibly handy for those who like to tinker with their systems. However, for the price I paid, I can't really fault them for not including those features, especially with the quality of components they've chosen for this board.For the price, I can't recommend this enough. It's a great board at an excellent price, and you'll realize it once you start putting your system together.

I have had this MSI z690 Force motherboard for almost a year, absolutely no regrets!! It has worked seamlessly with the Corsair Dominator 5200 DDR5 ram and 12th gen Processor! Tons of Options, lots of heatsinks for the m.2 drives, looks great and runs better then it looks which should say a lot LOL!! I also REALLY appreciate being able to keep an eye on the temperature by just looking at the direct readout on the motherboard!So long story short, this MSI board is a great buy! I WOULD suggest it!

The board was easy to install with lots of room for the AIO pump and cooling. It was nice to be able to run the fan and LED wires between the heat sinks for a clean look. I like all the NVME connections so I don’t need SSD’s. However it might be a bit of a pain to install new NVME drives in the future due to the graphics card blocking a couple of the connections but that’s a minor inconvenience for me. Functionally the board is great. It has all the connections I’m looking for and the advanced BIOS allows me the flexibility for over clocking when gaming.

I got this on prime day for a bit cheaper than it seems to be. Can only say that it more than met my needs for a first time builder. I know that right now ddr4 is a much better value, but I wanted to “future-proof” my build if possible. Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but this board gave me what I needed to do that: ddr5 slots with full xmp support (I’m running 32gb @5600Mhz), 2x Pcie 5.0 slots, and scads of room for m.2 drives (the heat sink is fantastic, too!). Bios seems easy to navigate and use to me, though I haven’t ventured into the land of oc yet. Extremely pleased with this mobo, though!

I ordered this specific motherboard mainly for the color combination and RGB, as it is the only board in its price range that met the aesthetic requirements for the build I was making. This is also my first use of an MSI board.Overall, I am impressed. The bios has a good easy to use layout, and I really appreciate the on board LEDs for troubleshooting (which are sadly missing from boards in the lower to mid range these days). I normally build with ASUS and Gigabyte boards, and what I found interesting is how quickly this board goes through POST, even with fast boot disabled. It's easily twice as fast as my current Gigabyte board.The fan, RGB, and sound headers are well placed and easy to access for good cable management, which is sadly an after thought on many boards. I do wish the board was not $200, as I feel it fits more comfortably into the $150 range when comparing features, but I suppose I paid a premium to get the white and silver with RGB look.I also want to note that the first one of these I ordered (not from Amazon), I had to return because it arrived with a large number of bent CPU socket pins. I am not sure how this was missed in QC as it was very obvious as soon as I removed the socket cover. I hope this is an isolated incident, but I thought I would mention this as it could point to a QC issue.Overall, if you desire this look, it might be your best bet, otherwise you could likely save a bit of money on a cheaper board. By all means though, this is a great board and you will not regret it.

Still working after 3 years