MSI MPG Z890I EDGE - ITX

[t2na]

Picked this up yesterday as I'm in the process of moving my ATX 265k build across to my Ncase M2 Grater case. It's an incredibly stacked motherboard for an ITX form - genuinely is almost more impressive than some full size ATX boards I've used recently.

It can hold up to 4 M.2 drives - 3 on the actual board itself and then one on the daughter board - and the two on the front are all covered with a pretty chunky heatsink. Same situation with seemingly all ITX boards with a max of 3 fan headers (including Pump Header). I wish we'd start to get more fan headers as airflow is so crucial in small ITX builds that often having numerous splitters all over the place can start to make cable management a bit tricky, especially when you've got different sized fans on the same splitter as a result of the limit on headers.

Annoyingly the 'smart' button cap was loose in the box - but pretty easy to just pop back on.

A doddle to flash the BIOS to the latest version which is always great - and supported 8000mhz CL38 (2x24GB) with no issues at all.

The only real concern is the VRM heatsink restricts some of the mounting kits for certain coolers. The Noctua kit fits - but only in a specific orientation. Thermalright seems to be ok with the PA Mini! I'm using a 280mm Titan from Corsair and that mounting fit without any issues so no issue for my build.

The rear IO is great, hopefully we see better ITX boards come to AM5 and not some of the stranger ones like the X870 from Asus where the front panel header is on the daughterboard.

 

[t2na]

Alright, turns out there's a reason why this motherboard has so few reviews and it seems to have a relatively high return rate.

Great IO - but limited cooler compatability (but not a huge issue for me as it worked with both the D12L and the Corsair Titan AIOs) definitely makes it a bit more tricky to work with. But the main issue is the Mosfet fan is insanely annoying and no matter what I do I cannot tweak it's fan curve. The other fan headers are completely editable (either with presets of silent, standard, turbo, max) but the mosfet fan has no ability to edit any element of the curve.

It default spins at 6k RPM which already sounds like a mosquito in your ear - and then ramps up to 12/15k - seemingly through no change in temp!

I've updated BIOS, flashed back to an older BIOS, I've tried adjusting with Argus Fan monitor or FanControl and it's impossible to change as it seems to pair it's read out speed with one of the Chassis fans. So even though I can see it's speed independently in HWInfo, every other application seems to think it's on the same header as CHA_1.

I'm half tempted to take off the heatsink and just see if I can manually remove the fan as outside of that it's a fantastic motherboard. No coil whine, supports 8000mhz DDR5 with no problem at all, the PL options for the 265k have given me some great scores on C24 and the rear IO is the best I've used on an ITX board.