Review on MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Plus: Ultimate Gaming Motherboard with 10th Gen Intel Core, DDR4, Dual M.2 Slots, USB 3.2 Gen 2, Mystic Light RGB, and 2.5G LAN by Eric Castillo

Recently purchased this motherboard after returning the Asus B460 motherboard. I have to say this motherboard is stacked! (Although not as stacked as the more expensive Z490 motherboards that cost your kidneys.) The BIOS is pretty easy to use and navigate (if you know what you're doing), the I/O screen is preloaded on the board and I love the RGB lighting under the chipset heatsink. This is my first Intel Z-series motherboard, so I'm hoping to one day upgrade my i5-10400 to 10700K/10900K or even 11th gen. Also, I noticed that the CPU power connectors use 8+4 pins on the top left. Construction. As a reminder, no, you do not need an additional 4-pin power connector to power the system. At first I was concerned because my EVGA 600W PSU only has 2 4-pin CPU connectors. I think the extra 4 pins are ONLY for more stable/extreme overclocking and workloads.