Review: MSI MEG Z490 Godlike

#5802672 Posted on: 06/24/2020 01:46 PM

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ah ! funny that you review this today as if I had to buy a Z490 board (not going too I can't even buy a cpu for it here and delays say 3 months)
I just got an email saying an item in my wishlist was in stock : msi goldike..they have.....1...at the major computer hw seller in the country...
that said, here's why you should consider it despite being super expensive, way too expensive for a pcie 3.0 board

Features :
1x m.2_1 shared with sata2 (top)
1x m.2_2 shared with sata 5,6 (in the middle you'd be dumb to use it it'll be cooked by your gpu)
1x m.2_3 (PCH lanes) below the gpu and shared with the last bottom pcie x4 (that's unusable for anything else than a NIC,USB extension or soundcard anyway because you've got wires to connect under it)
6 sata ports
1x pcie x1 above the last bottom pcie x4 (PCH lanes) (perfect for a soundcard or a low bandwith addon card)

this is a better placement than most other boards, the coolest emplacement for an M.2 is as much down as you can, not under or above the "grill" gpu ><
and a unique in that price range placement for a pcie x1 slot that doesn't share bandwith with the gpu (PCH)
you also do not want anything above your gpu as the heat generated by the backplate while gaming is worse than a cpu would produce temps of 60-80°C are easily achieved..just try borderlands 3 in badass for 3 hours you'll see (it's the same as running a gpu stress test like furmark or kombustor a 1080ti oc or 2080ti will be in the 300watts nonstop so much more than your cpu)

in short : you can boot on a best/coolest placement bottom M.2 nvme while keeping your 6 sata ports and your x16 gpu lanes, and all you lose is the near useless bottom pcie slot, all the other high-end board will cost you either sata ports or your gpu going 8x

Other than that :
8x rear usbs
2x thunderbolt 3
1x 10 + 1x 2.5gbit ethernet
2x usb2.0 internal (needed if you have a complex rgb, custom loop build)

I bought an MSI AMD board for the same reason, M.2 placement and bandwith sharing is better than all the other brands, one example of bad design
ASUS Rog Maximus XII Extreme
- 2x m.2 DIMM2 problem is they take cpu lanes (8x gpu + 4x m.2 + 4x m.2) so this feature is just taking space on the board for no reason it could have been a pcie addon card like MSI or other brands give they would have better cooling like that too
- thunderbolt 3 requires pcie card..which also take cpu lanes, plus their card need an internal power cord, so this motherboard doesn't really have TB3..not when you compare it to other boards who have integrated TB3 ports requiring nothing and taking no cpu lanes, it's a non-feature

as usual read the motherboard manuals especially everything I described above (bandwith sharing and how the advertised features are implemented) or you will have bad surprises, even on some TRX40 boards they managed to screw it up and have shared bandwith (on a 70+ lanes plateform wth...on the MSI creator every port and slot can be used with no downsides)

#5802726 Posted on: 06/24/2020 04:02 PM

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Great review, great motherboard , bad platform, well at least in my opinion.

#5802765 Posted on: 06/24/2020 05:02 PM

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Jeez, you read my mind

#5802921 Posted on: 06/24/2020 09:32 PM

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Maybe if u go from z390 to z490 then yes.

But going from a x99 to a z490 is a massive upgrade for me.
Also u better of with the ACE then the GODLIKE they almost practical the same but the ACE got cooler vrm,s under load.

#5802956 Posted on: 06/24/2020 10:42 PM

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Maybe if u go from z390 to z490 then yes.

But going from a x99 to a z490 is a massive upgrade for me.
Also u better of with the ACE then the GODLIKE they almost practical the same but the ACE got cooler vrm,s under load.
Yes I can not argue with you on your upgrade but my opinion still stands for me.
I also am not going to start listing why I think it is a bad platform in the review thread.