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 Hien Quang ᠌

Name: 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
Item: 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
Rating: 5

October 21, 2022

The best product, from those that I have viewed, I advise everyone!

Definitely a must-have motherboard with a minimal budget and the desire for human overclocking of the processor / RAM. Only its twin sister A-Pro version is more profitable, only the audio codec is worse at a lower price.
There are practically no reviews for this motherboard, let alone reviews on the Internet, again, because it is a clone of an A-Pro motherboard with minimal differences.
Almost all other brands for this money cannot offer this level of power supply cooling, you can look for extreme VRM tests of the A-Pro version on the YouTube channel "Hardware Unboxed" from June 2022, where half of the competitors overheated into the trash and turned off.
The radiator on the m2 will come in very handy for some Samsung 970 EVO, it keeps its heating within 50 degrees, which is quite worthy. this SSD is very hot.
For Orthodox overclocking of RAM, I advise you to immediately upgrade to the November version, they added the ability to turn off Power Down Mode, which increases memory delays out of the blue, when energy saving from its use is simply negligible.
Memory try it is in fact almost useless, it does not set any secondaries or thirds and ignores training, and it is precisely their squeezing that gives a strong boost to performance and stability, in fact it only helps to find more or less acceptable primary when the ceiling for an instance of RAM is still unknown to the user, but because does not set the correct voltage, then the noob system simply will not start and will be reset to default.
The Internet has announced potential support for PCI 4.0 for the 11th generation, but keep in mind that not all the components needed for PCI 4.0 are on it, certain articles on the same Internet describe which ones are needed. The next motherboard in the MSI price hierarchy, which will definitely have full support, is the MSI Z490M Gaming Edge WiFi.
Attached a photo of the assembly, a photo of the results of overclocking the RAM / processor on the bus, and a photo of the bios out of the box.
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Pros

Perhaps the best option in terms of price / functionality / quality among all budget Z490 motherboards An excellent power supply and its cooling, few mothers in this price segment can boast of this Weighty, after the purchase, when you go home, you can also fight off the gopniks with it, actually Black coloring looks concisely inside the black case Full of connectors for all kinds of coolers / dropsy All connectors for fans are 4-pin, while it can control them both by PWM and by voltage, i. E. with 3-pin turntables you will not fly, the type of control and the speed curve are selected for each connector individually Reinforced PCI-E video card slot 2 m2 ports for your SSDs, and one with a decent heatsink The connector output panel is one piece with the motherboard, will not play and will not be lost A sane ALC1200 sound codec, it gives quite good sound, no worse than many external cheap sound cards Allows for overclocking both i7-level processors and extreme overclocking of RAM Quite a nice modern BIOS, all the settings necessary for overclocking are there It works stably, even when trying to overclock the RAM by trial and error, it always somehow turned out to start, so I never had to reset the BIOS through the jumper / battery There are thermal sensors on the VRM zone, which will allow you not to blindly drive stones of the i9 level, although such budget mothers usually do not take them There is a backlight, and there is a blessed opportunity to turn it off for an opaque case

Cons

Considering that there is an ALC1200 audio codec, which can be in Nahimic 3, but then it was clamped . for a gamer, it could be interesting, at least with a sound radar;) Some competing brands have cheap Nahimic mums :-/ Chip with disabling SATA connectors when connecting m2 drives, only 2 Sata cables included Search in BIOS does not work for RAM timing settings, you have to search only by scrolling