MSI MPG Z690 Edge WiFi DDR4 Gaming Motherboard (ATX, 12th Gen Intel Core, LGA 1700 Socket, DDR4, PCIe 4, CFX, M.2 Slots, Wi-Fi 6)

MSI MPG Z690 Edge (DDR5)Overall I'm very happy and impressed with this motherboard! A few things worth noting below:Accepts the 13700K processor but must flash the BIOS before install.The BIOS is intuitive and there's room for overclocking (depending upon other hardware, of course). I flashed the BIOS with no processor, RAM, etc. on the board – follow instructions, it's easy – and used the USB thumb drive that came with the motherboard. I also formatted the thumb drive with default settings before downloading the newest BIOS off the MSI website.Worked like a charm!Four m.2 slots are great. Someone posted that using multiple m.2 slots will slow all others to the lowest gen device: that was not my experience. I have three NVMe's installed and their speeds run as advertised. One NVMe is a gen3 and two are gen4; all three are different brands (Samsung, Intel and SK Hynix). No issues with slower speeds for any NVMe, SSD or HDD.Overclocking in the BIOS is fairly easy and straightforward. I'm not sure if this board is intended for extreme OC'ing, but there is definitely enough meat for the enthusiast to tinker with.Seems to accept a wide range of memory; shouldn't have an issue unless using an unknown brand or getting outside the accepted frequencies. I used two sticks of G.Skill Trident Z5 @ 6000mhz (32 GB total): was recognized and the XMP profile activated easily in BIOS settings. From what I've read, 6000mhz is the lowest speed you should consider if getting DDR5, otherwise, stick to DDR4 board/ram and save some $$'s. For now, there isn't much performance gain in DDR5 for the average user and gamer.Plenty of fan and RGB headers.Mystic Lighting can be a little janky at times, but usually works as intended. The RGB lighting near the bottom of the board will likely be covered up with any large GPU (i.e. 40 series); no big deal.A few reviews called this board “low end” or “low-mid”. Not really sure if they know what they're talking about or if they're used to super high end boards? This particular MSI board may not be the very best, but it's not $800+ either. At the very least, it's a good mid-range board, if not high-mid board, imo. I've used several boards of various vendors in the past and this is by far my favorite.Will update this review in the future if problems arise.System specs:13700K – liquid cooled32 GB DDR5@6000mhzMSI 4090 Gaming X Trio3 NVMe's1 SATA SSD1 HDD4K gaming is very achievable! I'm now spoiled and it will be difficult to game at anything less from now on.

This is a great motherboard. It feels very sturdy, the PCIE slot for the GPU is extremely stable, and the motherboard runs nicely. Instructions below for how I updated BIOS easily for 13th gen Intel.My only complaint with this motherboard is that the front panel connectors, which are already hard enough to plug in, are extremely hard to find on the motherboard due to TINY out of place writing and also it didn't come with anything to make it easier to plug them in. That was a pain. Otherwise this motherboard has performed very well and the BIOS interface and MSI support page/website are great.If you're trying it with a 13th gen Intel CPU it won't work until you update the BIOS. The best way to do this to avoid errors is to do the BIOS update IMMEDIATELY, before installing CPU or anything, really. First, using another PC, format a USB 2.0 32 GB or smaller as FAT32 with a default allocation size. Download the correct, recent BIOS from MSI's site (currently it's 7D31v19). Extract the main BIOS file directly into the USB with NO FOLDERS (don't leave it in its folder) or any other files and rename it to MSI.ROMNow once you get the motherboard out of the box, connect it to the 16-pin power to your unplugged/powered off PSU, and also to the CPU power to the PSU (use the plug on the left, CPU 1 / ATX power 1). DO NOT CONNECT ANYTHING ELSE, NO RAM OR CPU OR ANYTHING, JUST THOSE 2 plugs TO THE PSU. Then plug the PSU into the wall, and power it on (do NOT power PC on with PC power button, just flip switch for PSU power). Hook your USB up to the Flash Bios USB slot in the Motherboard. Push the Flash BIOS button once. It will flash red for a few seconds, then main motherboard lights will come on, including the fancy dragon. The red light by BIOS button will keep flashing for about 3-8 minutes and then you will see the motherboard power off then on again and the Flash Bios button red light will stop blinking and go dark. Wait another 1-2 minutes and then you can unplug everything and assemble the Mobo into your PC. If the light doesn't blink red initially but instead just stays solid read after a few seconds when you first try this, you need to fix your USB formatting / BIOS file or use a different one. For me this happened when my BIOS file was in a folder instead of directly in the USB with no folders.